SCUBA DIVING IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Tufi

Papua New Guinea is located at the epicentre of the huge area of South-East Asia that oceanographers refer to as the Coral Triangle and is generally considered as the richest area of marine biodiversity in the world!

Scientific studies have quantified that biodiversity at more than 600 species of coral, together with some 3000 species of reef fish which, to put in perspective, is roughly three times the species count of the Red Sea.

The majority of those species can be found in the waters of PNG and tend to be concentrated in key locations where, over the last 25 years or so, adventurous and enterprising pioneers have established scuba diving operations.

Most of those operations are resort-based, while others are liveaboard-based, but all provide access to what many regard as some of the very best tropical diving in the world!

Port Moresby

Lolobau Island Volcanoes

Garove Island, Vitu Islands

Lissenung Island, New Ireland

A BIG PLACE…

Understanding scuba diving in Papua New Guinea requires a brief lesson in the country’s geography - starting with the huge island of New Guinea, the second largest in the world, the eastern half of which is the “mainland” of PNG while the western half is the Indonesian province of West Papua.

Then, over in the east, is the long, musket-shaped island of New Ireland and in between is the large island of New Britain. Together, those three are the “main islands” of Papua New Guinea - with the other 600+ smaller islands that make up the country arrayed around them.

The lifeforce of the Coral Triangle’s biodiversity is a complex network of nutrient-rich regional and equatorial currents. Unique to the six countries that form the Coral Triangle, only Papua New Guinea is touched by all those currents making it a true biodiversity hotspot!

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

On the south-eastern tip of the island of New Guinea is Milne Bay and a large number of islands that make up the province of the same name.

Milne Bay is what first put Papua New Guinea on the “must-do” list of travelling scuba divers and underwater photographers – largely because of the pioneering exploration carried out by the late Bob Halstead and his then-wife Dinah in the locally constructed liveaboard the MV Telita.

Telita, named after their daughter, was the first liveaboard in PNG and one of the first globally. In it, Bob and Dinah explored the length and breadth of Milne Bay province, finding many of the wonderful sites that were made famous by Bob’s photographs and articles.

Other adventurers followed and today Milne Bay can be dived both from land and by liveaboard dive boat.

“Nestled in dense rainforest” is somewhat of a cliché these days, but Tawali Dive Resort truly is – located as it is on a beautiful, remote headland on the north coast of Milne Bay, overlooking the Solomon Sea and within 30 minutes of many of the best coastal reefs and seamounts in the province.

2-3 first class dives per day are possible and you can still be back at the resort in time for a sundowner on the large terrace and dinner in the excellent restaurant.

If you want to explore the remoter parts of Milne Bay province then the liveaboard option is the way to go and there are two choices – MV Chertan and MV Oceania. Owned and skippered by Rob van der Loos, Chertan is based year-round in Milne Bay, and with over 30 years’ experience of the area it is not hyperbole to state that nobody knows the diving and sites better than Rob does.

Rob enjoys an excellent reputation among underwater photographers for getting them to sites that host some of the weirdest and wonderful small creatures the oceans have to offer and a trip on Chertan is truly an immersive experience!

Skippered by Dan Johnson, another long-time PNG resident and explorer, MV Oceania is normally based out of Kimbe Bay in New Britain. But Dan wants to take adventurous divers and underwater photographers to the very best sites in Papua New Guinea.

So, every January Dan relocates Oceania to Milne Bay for a couple of months and covers both the northern and southern areas of Milne Bay, getting his guests to iconic dive sites like the manta ray cleaning station at Gona Bara Bara island, Samarai jetty and Deacon’s Reef.

While Milne Bay is the jewel in the crown of New Guinea island there are two other real gems to consider – Tufi and Port Moresby!

Tufi is one of the most scenic locations in PNG, located as it is overlooking the beautiful tropical fiords ?? of Cape Nelson.

Tufi Dive Resort sits picture perfect on the ridge above the main fiord and down below is the main jetty where the dive boats leave every morning for the incredible offshore reefs that are really only dived by visitors to the resort.

Think remote reefs and isolated seamounts, fed by the rich coastal currents that act as beacons to open water pelagics of the Solomon Sea!

And… if you prefer the smaller critters of the ocean, you can literally spend hours and hours exploring the main fiord with its jetties and accumulated flotsam and jetsam that critters just love to colonise!

Last and by no means least – do not overlook Port Moresby as there is some really excellent diving out on the offshore sunken reefs with the newly refurbished Loloata Resort and ProDive PNG diving the numerous reefs and wrecks regularly.

NEW IRELAND

Located along the edge of the Bismarck Archipelago, the province of New Ireland forms the eastern flank of PNG and is quite remote from the main island of New Guinea, with its own distinct and interesting traditional cultures.

The province consists of the large, musket-shaped main island of New Ireland, together with numerous other smaller islands, the largest of which is New Hanover.

Diving in New Ireland is centred around Kavieng, the main town and provincial capital which offers a broad selection of excellent diving – with shipwrecks, WWII aircraft wrecks, dramatic walls, dynamic channels, bustling reefs and schooling pelagics!

New Hanover also has some excellent diving with a superb mixture of rarely dived reefs and WWII Japanese shipwrecks, including a completely intact midget submarine!

Both Kavieng and New Hanover require excellent local knowledge to get the timing right for the best sites due to the strong equatorial currents that sweep through the area, but get them right and you will understand why the area has such a dedicated following!

There are two options to dive the Kavieng area – Lissenung Island Resort and Scuba Ventures.

If you have ever dreamed of staying on a small private island, then Lissenung is for you… It is run by husband-and-wife team Dietmar and Ange Amon, together with their team of locals recruited from the nearby islands and trained by Ange, Lissenung is perfectly located to get to the best sites on both the Pacific Ocean side of Kavieng and the Bismarck Sea side.

Plus, they also run multi-day expeditions to dive the wrecks and reefs of New Hanover as well as operating/running/??? a sea turtle conservation program.

NEW BRITAIN

The large island of New Britain is second only in size only to New Guinea and is an intriguing location with some very defining features – a huge mountain range that separates the north coast from the south and an array of volcanoes!

So high are those mountains, they create opposite weather systems so that when it’s the wet season in the north, it’s dry in the south and vice-versa. But when it’s wet in the south, it’s really wet, and the south coast is making it one of the wettest places in the world!

The main diving location in New Britain is Kimbe Bay on the mid-north coast. Kimbe is to New Britain what Milne Bay is to New Guinea island – an incredible location with tremendous diving on the seamounts and reef systems of the bay.

It is also the base for the liveaboards that dive the Fathers Reefs in the remote eastern end of the bay and the Witu Islands in the Bismarck Sea.

Both liveaboards, MV Oceania and MV Febrina are part of the family run Walindi Plantation Resort which was founded by the late Max Benjamin and his wide Cecilie in 1983 and is now run by their son Cheyne and his wife Ema.

While on the north-east tip of New Britain is Rabaul, famed for its massive caldera and 65 WWII Japanese wrecks now largely buried under volcanic ash after the 1994 eruptions the Tavuvur and Vulcan volcanoes.

While most of those wrecks are no longer dive-able, a couple are and there are several other really great sites in the Rabaul area.

There are two options to dive Rabaul – Rabaul-Kokopo Dive no longer in business, which you would have known if you had a look at the FB link you inserted here LOL and Rabaul Dive Adventures.

IN SUMMARY…

Papua New Guinea literally has something for all divers and underwater photographers – incredible reefs, stunning seamounts, WWII aircraft wrecks, pelagics and wonderful macro sites.

For Australians it’s an ideal location as you can leave from the east coast in the morning, transit through Port Moresby and be at your resort or liveaboard that same evening!

Kavieng, New Ireland

Article & Images By Don Silcock

Don is normally based from Bali, but was hunkered down in Sydney for the two years of the pandemic… His website www.indopacificimages.com has extensive location guides, articles and images on some of the best diving locations in the Indo-Pacific region and “big animal” experiences globally.

He has been visiting PNG at least once a year for over 20 years and has dived all the main locations many times – using that experience and his images to create the Complete Guide to Diving Papua New Guinea.