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Part VI: Traveling from Kimbe Bay to Milne Bay 10/25

After my flight to PNG and the endless lines I encountered I was hoping it would be an easy matter to just travel around the country. To get from one place to another though you usually have to go thru Port Moresby and this was true for my flights. To make the morning flight out of Hoskins we had to leave the boat at 4:30am(got up at 4). It takes an hour and half to travel to the airport via stuffed vans. The flight from Hoskins to Port Moresby was damn near full and even if you had a seat assignment you don't always get your seat. They sometimes give a seat out more then once so first come first serve and then you grab a seat and that forces somebody else to sit someplace else etc... Three of us from the boat myself and the couple(Joan & Ed) from AZ were heading to Tawali Resort and we decided to roll the dice and check our bags all the way thru to Alotau which is where you get picked up by private bus to go to Tawali. We arrived in Port Moresby at around 8am and our flight to Alotau wasn't until 4pm. Port Moresby is not a place to hang out in but we got the low down on what to do. If you have a layover in Port Moresby find the person or booth for the Airways Hotel and tell them you are a transit passenger and they will take you by courtsey bus to the pool/resturant area of their hotel. You can eat and relax as well as do a little shopping there. They also have internet but you need to get a manager to bring you to it as it is in an area reserved(card key) for the paying guests. I hung out at the hotel all day while the couple from AZ made a trip to the Port Moresby Art wharehouse and back. Any way staying at the hotel sure beats having to hang out at the Domestic terminal of the Port Moresby airport. I don't want to seem nasty but the smell at the domestic terminal is very bad. Most people in PNG don't shower. Wet scuba gear smells better. Any way when we got to Alotau all our bags were there except Joan's scuba gear bag. It showed up two days later. From Alotau you travel via private bus for over an hour and half and then you transfer to a boat for about a 10-15 min boat ride to the resort. Got there around 7pm after getting up at 4am. Dinner and a shower and off to bed.

Part VII: Tawali Resort @ Milne Bay 10/25 - 11/4

Tawali is a beautiful resort especially considering where it is. The resort consists of main building(reception, lounge/bar, dining area, gift shop, outside deck and viewing area), library, 16 bungalows, dive shop, two docks and some support buildings. Each bungalow is air conditioned, has two queen size beds, private deck and bathroom. The main building isn't air conditioned but they do have ceiling fans which help quite a lot if they are turned on. They have free wireless internet in the main building. It was nice to be able to get online a couple of times while I was there but I tried to limit it as other people kept asking me to use my computer so they could check there email. I didn't mind to much but people would start hovering over me if I brought it out. So if you go to Tawali bring your own laptop. I did quite a few beers bought for me though. The food was good and plentiful. All meals whether on a boat or at the resort are buffet. Breakfast is typical fare, cerals, eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles. Lunch and dinners usually had a couple of choices and the deserts after dinner were always a winner.

While the resort is very good the dive operation could use some improvement. I was told that one of their big boats was in Alotau under repair. Since it was probably waiting for parts this could take a long time in this part of the world. I had a friend Dave who was here before the Star Dancer and the boat was out of commision then as well. So with one less boat then they normally have this more then maxed out the other boats and put restrictions on where you could go. They have two small boats and one other big boat. The small boats are to small and slow to go to the outer reefs so you are limited to a number of sites if on a small boat. The big boat is faster and more roomier but in 8.5 days of diving I was only on the big boat for 3(2.5) days one of which was my last day of diving and I couldn't do the last dive of the day. They offer 3 boat dives a day. All the boats leave at around 8am(rarely 8am this is island time). If you are on the big boat you are out for the day and they have lunch onboard. If you are on a small boat it's two dives back to the resort for lunch and then an afternoon dive. The small boats say 5 divers max but that is to many when you add a guide and boat operator. I was on one with 5 divers, 2 guides and an operator. Made it very tough to suit up it was so crowded. I payed good money to come here and dive so it ticked me off a bit that they didn't have another boat. I want the service I thought I was paying for not excuses about a boat being out of service(rent one). I dove a number of sites 3 times cause the big boat was taken over by a group of 12 plus 2 others who arrived on the same day as them. The big boat says max 12 divers and min 4 divers but two of the days I was on it there were 18 and 17 divers, the other time there was only 6 of us.You can also do a night dive but they only have two sites. The house reef(from the dock) and sponge heaven a small island which is a 5 min boat ride. I did 4 night dives(2 on the house reef and 2 on sponge heaven). The afternoon dive is scheduled for 2pm if you are going from the resort. It is really more like 2:30 and in one case we didn't leave till after 3pm. The crew needs to get things together a little better. One night dive I was told 6pm and they didn't come to get me until 6:20 and then had to go back to the dive shop dock since the guide forgot his flashlight. Usually when you wait at a dive op it's for another diver not the crew. It was a lot of little things that made the diving operation seem to be poorly run. The guides also seemed so-so as well. A couple of them were great at finding stuff and seemed to really enjoy diving while the others just seemed to go thru the motions.

Lets face it if you dive enough and your not 10 feet above the reef at some point no matter how careful you try you will kick something. But there is a big difference between a rare kick to some of the diving I saw displayed at Tawali. I dove with one guy I'll call Ted the Destroyer or Ted for short. I dove with Ted for 5.5 days. He was a photographer and he had two big strobes and a huge case with handles and tray. Ted couldn't control himself with that big rig and the axiom that an object in motion will remain in motion, blah, blah applies to Ted. He would come in to fast and crash into things. He was overweighted so he was nearly vertical when doing muck dives. If you were behind him you were eating sand. After he was done taking a picture instead of trying to back out slowly he would turn and kick and usually got the reef(broke lettuce coral and staghorn) or nudi or croc fish or ornate ghost pipefish to name but a few of the things he left in his dust. If you wanted to see something you damn well better get there before Ted left. The only good thing about that camera was that it was film so he only had 36 shots. I don't know how he dives without the camera but he was a terror with it. There was also an older(older then me) couple from CA that were newbies and had no buoyancy control or experience in current. I had the unpleasure of diving with them for 3 dives one of which was at Lauadi a muck site. More sand to say the least. But the worst example I saw was the group of 12 from Indianapolis. This was the group that owned the big boat while I was there so I already disliked them. I'd say 9 or 10 of them had cameras and about half of them had no care in the world about just lying on coral(hard or soft) or anything else for that matter to take a picture. One even layed down in some corallimorph which got thru her 3 mil suit in a few places and she got a nasty rash(way to go reef!) I think I know why the outer reefs are nicer then the ones close to the resort. They get dived less. It's to bad cuz these are great reefs these people are starting to trash. I said something a couple of times to Glen the dive manager. He actually talked on the big boat one day about being careful. The problem is these people weren't trying to be carefull they were lying on things with no regard and just ignored him. Those people should be dragged thru fire coral naked.

While the service provided by the dive op wasn't as expected the diving was still excellent and this ended up being my favorite of the 4 areas I visited on this trip. The water temp was 81 and the viz was better then Kimbe but not as good as the Coral Sea. Milne Bay has a couple of muck dives that are good enough to be considered an average to good muck dive in terms of Lembeh Strait standards. That means in my opinion these are good dives since an average site in Lembeh would usually wow me. The two muck dives to do in Milne Bay are Lauadi and Michelle. On these sites I saw numerous and different colored ornate ghost pipefish, many very kewl nudibranchs & flatworms, stonefish, scorpion fish, crocodile fish, flying gunards, boxer crab, some type of sea moth(not sure of type), porclean crabs and cleaner shrimp in some of the anemones, cuttlefish, mimic octopus, reef octopus, snowflake eel, green morays, leaf scorpion fish, harlquin shrimp, small painted lobster, many lionfish including zebra lionfish, twin spot gobies, banded pipefish, hairy seahorse. and emperor shrimp on nudis and on a sea cucumber to name some of the more interesting stuff. I complained earlier about having to dive some sites 3 times but these two sites were worth diving 3 times. Of the 4 night dives I did the house reef was hohum but sponge heaven was awesome on both dives. Saw some huge spanish dancer one which I measured at around two feet, some kewl pleurobranchs, cuttle fish, decorator crabs, 4 or 5 other types of crabs, different types of lobsters and more then a few types of shrimp, sleeping turtle and much more. I would have just liked to dive the outer reefs more which appeared to have more fish and world class beauty in terms of reefs. Great hard and soft coral with lots of different types of sponges, algae, huge fans and teaming with fish. Also saw a few rare things on the outer reefs including some different nudibranchs, a drop dead gorgeous black & yellow lacy scorpion fish(rhinopias), a hairy(roughsnout) ghost pipefish and a huge solar nudibranch to name the ones that most impressed me. Also saw pretty much everything I'd already seen in Austalia and in Kimbe Bay although I thought Kimbe had the most fish with the two biggest schools I've ever seen of jacks and barracudas. I logged 30 dives at Tawali. If I ever return to Milne Bay I think I would do a liveaboard. More dives and more of the outer reefs. The liveaboards also dive the good sites near the resort as well. I'd also say that most liveaboard divers I've met try to be carefull about reefs and don't dive like they are from Indianapolis.

Part VIII: New Zealand Holiday 11/4 - 11/19

I had planned to do two days of 2 dives each when in Picton, NZ but opted to give my ear rest so it would be healthy for my 3 week trip to Wakatobi/Lembeh which I leave for on Saturday 11/24. I visited some old friends in Nelson for a week and just played tourist in Picton and in Christchurch. Won't go in to the details but I did substitute a day of wine tasting for one of the days of diving. This was my 4th trip to NZ and was mostly made to visit my friends. My previous 3 trips I was there for nearly 3 months each and traveled all over both islands and Stewart Island as well.

Part IX: Odds & Ends

Getting home was fairly painless. I left Christchurch on Monday at 4:30pm and flew to Auckland. In Auckland they had mechanical problems with the plane we were supposed to fly on but luckily this being Air NZ's major hub they had a "spare" 747 there and swapped planes. We were only about half hour delayed and this was a bigger plane then they originally had scheduled so I ended up with an aisle seat and nobody in the middle seat. In LA I cleared customs and had a short layover before my flight to Denver. This flight ended up being delayed an hour due to mechanical problems. This was the longest delay I experienced. All in all the traveling wasn't bad except for long lines in LA on the way there and at arrival in PNG. Also except for in the US and the flight to Auckland the flights were normally not full and I almost always had an empty seat next to me. I was also worried about having to pay extra for overweight bags. I was really carefull packing and opted for a simple duffle bag instead of my usual wheeled bag. My checked bag usually weighted between 18.5 to 21 Kg and I was never charged anything since the limit on most of my flights was more then my bag. They never weighted my very heavy carry on though.

I had hoped to get in over 100 dives on this trip but due to screwing up my ear I only logged 95 dives with over 97 hours of bottom time. I dove in 3 different seas, the Coral Sea, the Solomon Sea and the Bismarck Sea. The Bismarck Sea is an incredible 86 degrees and feels like bath water. The Coral Sea had the best viz but was the coldest. It will warm up as they are just getting into there summer there. The Solomon Sea had the kewlest stuff and the most beautiful reefs and makes me wish I had also done the Solomon Islands on this trip but hey it gives me an excuse to go back. As for my ear it gave me little problems in Milne Bay. It did act up one day and I just decided to skip doing a night dive that day and took extra Advil that night. Currently my ear is about 80-90% healed. I have no pain and it gave me no problems flying it just feels a little blocked compared to how it normally feels. I've got about 6 more days before I dive again at Wakatobi so it should be close to 100% by then.