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Part IV: Traveling to Hoskins, PNG 10/15

After getting off the boat in Cairns I hung out in town for a couple of hours before heading to the airport for my flight to Port Moresby. Checked in no problem and they told me to get some Kina(PNG money) as you have to pay 100K for your visa on arrival. Well I stood in line at the money exchange until it opened. I was second in line. They had no Kina so me and the 25 people behind couldn't exchange any money until we got to Port Moresby. I arrived in Port Moresby an hour and forty six minutes before my domestic flight to Hoskins was scheduled to leave. I stood in line forever to get my visa on arrival but I had no Kina. A woman in front of me said they would take Fifty Australian or you could wait till you got to the front of the line and then they would process your paperwork and you could go stand in another line to get the Kina come back and pay them and get your passport back. I gave them the $50A and they said I could exchange it I told them no I was late and to just take the $50A. They did as $50A is more then $100K but at that point I was running late. My bag was already off the carousel so I grabbed it and cleared customs. I already had my boarding pass but I had to recheck my bag you would think this is a quick process but even though there was only 4 people in front of me also just rechecking bags it took another 20 mins. I then made my way to the domestic terminal where you have to stand in line just to into the ticketing area. I saw on the monitor that my plane was boarding. Got thru that line and then had to stand in line to get thru security which was a real joke. I watched the guy using the xray machine and he was watching a woman and her kid while my bag went thru the machine. Why even have a screener if he doesn't even watch the screen. Got my bag with about 5 mins till my flight was scheduled to leave. I went up to the gate and the guy processes my boarding pass and says gate 9. All the gates are outside and I had no idea which way to go but luckily there was another person heading to gate 9 so I followed him. We got on the plane and I was wondering if my bag would make it on the plane. About 5-10 mins after boarding we left and when I got to Hoskins my bag had made the trip as well. Sure nice to have your dive gear. From the airport it's nearly an hour and a half ride to Walinda where I boarded the Star Dancer for 10 days.

Part V: Star Dancer - Kimbe Bay, Witu Islands and Fathers 10/15 - 10/25

Well it really really is a small world. When I was on the Spirit of Freedom there were 11 divers from Colorado Springs a good 3 hour drive from where I live in Colorado but still the same state. Five minutes after being on the Star Dancer I'm checking in and I look out the lounge onto the deck and see a guy I went on a group trip with to Raja Ampat and Lembeh Strait with back in Feb. He lives about 10 miles from me and neither of us knew the other was gonna be on the boat. Considering there was only 14 passengers what are the odds? Any way Dave and I were both just kinda of in shock seeing each other on the same boat in PNG. I've run into people before on trips but this one took the cake.

Unlike the Spirit of Freedom(Austalia really) the diving on the Star Dancer is much more relaxed rules wise. They assume you are an experienced safe diver until you prove otherwise and treat you as such. They encourage you to dive with a buddy but realize that most divers with cameras or video aren't neccessarily gonna be right next to there buddy. I sorta buddied with Dave but he shoots video and I have a PHD(push here dummy) camera aka as point and shoot and we don't often look for the same things. Any way they allow you a lot of freedom and most of the time it was same ocean same dive type buddies. Sometimes it wasn't even the same dive. I did a 90 minute muck dive myself and never got deeper then 33 feet. A lot of the times I was near one of the guides as they usually could find the kewl nudis, pygmy seahorses, bubble shells, etc... I'm pretty good at finding nudibranchs and flatworms as well as few other small things(e.g. squat lobsters, proclean crabs, orangutan crabs, crinoid shrimp, to name a few I found) So between what I found and the guides found not to mention other divers there were lots of interesting things to view and photograph.

There was also an interesting mix of people on board. There were 5 French 4 of whom were traveling together plus Pierre my roommate. Also an older German and American couple from Switzerland, a young(27) Aussie, a couple from AZ and another American couple working for the state dept. in Sri Lanka and Dave and I from CO. Pierre was a nice guy but he wanted to keep the room as hot as possible and I wanted to use the AC. I don't do well in heat and humidity and told him he could put on clothes but I couldn't peel off my skin. We worked it out and kept the room at 22-23C. He wore sweats to bed and I wore some briefs. We also had lounge wars with the Europeans as they wanted the AC off and the rest of us wanted it on. They have two AC's in the lounge so the Europeans were on oneside with the AC on fan and the rest of us were on the other with the AC on. The 4 French also pretty much hung together diving although I would sometimes be near them when I found something kewl. I would show it to them but they never really returned the favor and a few times they actually pushed me out the way to get in and photograph things. Needless to say I stopped calling them over after a few days of this type of behaviour. The Swiss couple consisted of Marian who dove and her husband who snorkeled. Mairan was the absolute worst went it came to pushing people out of the way. Near the end of the trip Dave mentioned something about it to me and I said you don't need to tell me about it. So I wasn't the only one she was shoving out of the way. Dave got pissed on one night dive when she just followed him around. I started calling her his shadow which really ticked him off. I don't think this trip did anything to improve US-French relations.

The diving in Kimbe Bay is very good and very warm(86 degrees on every dive). The viz wasn't very good but from what Jamie the trip director said was we just got a bad week(10 days). I guess we hit a plankton bloom. Most of the diving is on reefs with a few muck dives. The muck dives aren't very good compared to Indonesia and the ones I would do in Milne Bay. The reefs are very nice and in good condition but not as nice as Indonesia or Milne Bay my next stop on this trip. Theres a lot of fish life and in some cases like at Krak-a-fat I saw the biggest schools of Jacks and Barracudas ever. Thousands of jacks with a shark comming from the deep every now and then and picking one off. Got into the middle of them on one dive and it was awesome. Also some kewl macro stuff but again nothing like Indonesia or Milne Bay. I also pulled a bonehead manuever at Krak-a-fat. I saw this huge (6 foot) dogtooth tuna swimming around the reef. I was at about 30 feet at the time and it was probably down around 80 or so. Any way I angled down to try and cut it off to get a picture, In my haste I didn't stop to clear my ears and paid the price. I felt a crack in my left ear and pulled up at about 70 feet OUCH! It didn't bother me until about a day and half later when it started to give me major problems. Luckily one of the French dudes was an ENT and he checked it out and gave me some medication. Had a major barotrauma but luckily for me didn't puncture the eardrum. I missed the rest of the day as well as the next day and part of the next. Missed 9 dives all told but I would have skipped the shark tease so really only 8. I went back in against the ENT's recommendations or as Dave said AMA(against medical advice). I call it a shark tease as they didn't really feed the sharks but take down chum in a container which has wholes in it. The sharks can smell it but can't eat it. Any way I guess the ENT got a little close and the sharks didn't like his flash but from what I heard they bit his fins and he paniced and bolted to the surface. He now is against shark feeds. Three other divers on board besides myself also skipped the tease as well. A lot higher percentage then when I was the only one out of 24 on the Spirit to sit it out. Saw some kewl stuff including a nudibranch and a bubble shell I'd never seen before as well as turtles, cuttlefish, octopi, numerous types of rays, leaf scropion fish, crocodile fish and the list goes on. Even with my ear problems I did 31 of the 40 dives offered.