I was really excited about this trip to Kavieng as I had never dived PNG before and heard so many wonderful dive stories!
In short – we loved it. One of our top dives was at Albatross passage, which sits at the mouth of the narrow channel between the most westerly point of mainland New Ireland and Bingen Island. As soon as we drop into the striking blue water and see a decent size spotted ray cruise by we knew this was going to be a great dive. The wall is sheer and covered in sponges, gorgonians, and fish life to amaze. Then as we cruise down to the sand Kara & Dorrian show us the schools of reef sharks and we sit and admire before drifting up over the wall and hooking in with our Reef hooks. Most of us had not used reef hooks before but under our expert instruction we were begging to go back and do it again. As we sat on the reef hooks we watched the masses of fish life dancing in front of us. A truly amazing dive we will never forget! For those who prefer a bit of rust we had our fair share with 3 plane wrecks in water depths varying from 42 to 10m.
At the Nusa Island retreat there is a great atmosphere around the long eating tables and many stories to be told if you get caught in the quicksand in front of the bar. I have always been hesitant about ‘eco resorts’ often finding its a description for run down accommodation without modern amenities. But if you picture thatched roof huts over the water, bird song around, a couple of local kids spearing from a stand up paddle board, and suddenly and eco resort makes sense. In this climate a 25 degree shower is refreshing and welcomed, the remarkable composting toilets do not detract from the fresh clean ocean breeze at all and make you feel like you are not damaging this from this beautiful setting.
A big thank you to Kara & Dorrian from Scubaventures for introducing us to Papua New Guinea diving. Don’t be surprised if you see us again soon!
Thank you to Kevin, Matthew, Claire, Nathan, Steve, Lina, Chris, Bob, Allen, Laurie, Katie, Anna C, Anna N and Liza for coming with me (Em) I hope we can go on more diving adventures again soon!
Check our some of the footage of our trip on our Youtube page. Thank you to Dorrian for compiling and sharing with us!