Trip Report Diving New Britain PNG video

[Fibonacci]

Quick 5 minute 'overview' video on diving New Britain PNG primarily from Walindi Resort and aboard MV Febrina.
I plan on uploading a longer version incorporating footage from Kavieng when I get time.


Circling Barracuda 1:12
The Zero fighter 1:58
Sharks 3:35

I was using the Kraken DH when diving with the circling school of Barracuda, they allowed me to approach much closer than usual... gently parted and reformed around me.

The Zero fighter was in amazing condition, in only about 20m water, found with an undamaged propellor and canopy pulled back.
Tracing the history via engine and airframe numbers revealed it had run out of fuel and ditched in the lagoon, the pilot swam back to shore and I imagine faced a rather difficult Please Explain with his CO.

The White Tips were just mooching around mildly curious about the divers, then headed off.
However, the DM feeding them caused other small fish chasing scraps to get into a frenzy, which then agitated the sharks into noticeably more aggressive behaviour!
Not a great idea

 

[silent running]

Thanks for the very nice video, glad you had good visibility. I have dived on that Zero as well, on a trip with Golden Dawn.

Those sharks are silvertips not whitetip reef sharks. Whitetips don’t have the silver/white color on their pectoral fins, are much smaller, less aggressive and more common than silvertips.

 

[Fibonacci]

Thanks, we dived on the Zero twice... first time I was second or third on the site and viz was already pretty poor.
I reached agreement with the others that I would be first onto the plane next morning and finally got some clear footage.
Aha... maybe a generic local term, I shall refer to them as Silver Tips in future!

 

[silent running]

Silvertips are far less common and more impressive animals, it was great there were so many. They are very graceful, powerful swimmers…