New Guinea -- Star Dancer or Golden Dawn

My husband and I have "decided" to go to New Guinea for my 50th birthday trip.

As of right now, we are investigating a 10 day trip on the Star Dancer as suggested by our travel agent because it will be our first trip to PNG.

We are more interested in "big stuff" and heard that the Golden Dawn takes you to areas where there are more sharks/pelagics, etc. but the Star Dancer covers most everything else.

Anyone have any opinions about this? Has anyone been to PNG recently?? It's hard to find anyone who has been there in the past few months. Thanks.

My husband, son and myself spent 11 days on the Golden Dawn last August and were thrilled. The crew was fabulous as was the food and the diving was spectacular. I don't think you can go wrong choosing the Golden Dawn for your trip to PNG. Craig the captain and owner of the boat, dives most dives with you and will "call" sharks for you to see. The time of year we were there, we didn't get to see much big stuff, which was alittle dissappointing, but, we saw other little stuff that was completely cool. We also got to go on land a couple times and see what the natives life is like, which was pretty interesting. (Not just in towns) but in villages that are isolated. So, The Golden Dawn has our vote. After every dive, there are hot showers and fresh towels, either a second breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea (with freshly baked goodies) and the dinners are yummy. Even our twelve year old son, who is quite finnicky ate with gusto!! if you have a specific request, Craig will try to accomadate you, and will ask his guests, if you all prefer to go here or there to see this or that...so, really you can't get much better.

pie:

My husband and I have "decided" to go to New Guinea for my 50th birthday trip.

As of right now, we are investigating a 10 day trip on the Star Dancer as suggested by our travel agent because it will be our first trip to PNG.

We are more interested in "big stuff" and heard that the Golden Dawn takes you to areas where there are more sharks/pelagics, etc. but the Star Dancer covers most everything else.

Anyone have any opinions about this? Has anyone been to PNG recently?? It's hard to find anyone who has been there in the past few months. Thanks.

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Went to PNG on Paradise Sport in October 04. Traveled from NY. Ouch! Amazing, life-changing trip. If you are looking for big stuff go to the Galapagos or Palau. There is some big stuff in PNG. Saw a few hammerheads, but go to PNG for the amazing diversity of marine life, corals, amazing cultural experience and the fact that you will not see another dive boat the whole trip. You will be disappointed if you only like the big stuff.

Paradise Sport - Extremely comfortable & clean, almost as many crew as guests, large rooms, great crew, at least 4 choices of entrees at dinner.

I spend a month in PNG a year. I have spent almost 3 weeks on the 'Dancer last year. It is a fabulous boat with a superior crew. I have also spent a lot of time on the FeBrina, also a wonderful experience.
While I have never been on the Golden Dawn, I have seen it at anchor on two occasions. They have an unusual pair of outriggers that help to keep the boat "stable". They use them at flat calm anchorages. I would be worried that this may mean that the boat rolls like crazy while out of the harbor.

Allison Finch:

I spend a month in PNG a year. I have spent almost 3 weeks on the 'Dancer last year. It is a fabulous boat with a superior crew. I have also spent a lot of time on the FeBrina, also a wonderful experience.
While I have never been on the Golden Dawn, I have seen it at anchor on two occasions. They have an unusual pair of outriggers that help to keep the boat "stable". They use them at flat calm anchorages. I would be worried that this may mean that the boat rolls like crazy while out of the harbor.

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Before our trip I was a bit worried about stability and other aspects of being on a somewhat smaller boat but found this was not an issue. The GD is very stable. It has dynamic as well as the mentioned static stabilizers and was quite comfortable except in the roughest crossings. For us, the size of the boat ended up being a asset because of the intimate feel.

I understand the desirability of "intimacy". When I mentioned to someone that this year I was going back on the FeBrina, as opposed to the 'Dancer, They asked why I would go to a smaller boat. I told them that I loved the intimacy of the FeBrina. The crew members who have worked both boats seem to prefer it too.
Bottom line, I'll go on just about any boat, especially if it is associated with Alan Raabe. Does that make me a boat slut.....?
Hmmm, wait a minute......the FeBrina used to charge for beer and the 'Dancer included it.........OH 'DANCER!!!!!

Hello Pie, I've been on the Golden Dawn 4 times, so of course I like the boat a lot. The Star Dancer would not be bad choice as long as Capt. Alan is on. But the The Golden Dawn has many more choices of itineraries and the boat is much more stable due to it's dynamic stabilizers, which the Star Dancer does not have. I have been on the GD in 12 ft seas and managed to sleep well, thanks to those dynamic stabilizers. The passive stabilizers that the GD uses at anchor, also work very well. All boats should have them. I also much prefer the GD's mid boat entry as opposed to the rear entry of most boats, like the SD. There's much less up/down motion in rougher conditions because the entry point is at the fulcrum point of the boat. As for big fish action, the best places will be where the current is. The Witus(which are usually part of Kimbe itineraries, as long as you don't get any big seas) have some nice shark and pelagic action. But you might want consider Kavieng, or some of the northern PNG Hermit's/Ninago atoll GD itineraries. That's where there will be the most current-where there are lots of passes. I've been to the Kavieng area on the GD last summer and it was great. Lots of schooling fish and many, many sharks. Another great thing about the GD is it will only take a max of 10 people and usually less. I think the SD takes as many as 20. The food on the GD has always been the best of any liveaboard I have been on, the crew are excellent and friendly. And the boat is beautiful and very well taken care of. If you want to have even better interaction with the big stuff, ask Capt. Craig of the GD about taking a rebreather course. He's the only operator in PNG who does rebreather diving. That's how I dive, and I wil never go back to open curcuit. You can call the GD and talk to Craig directly, I think the # is on his web site and it's in the Lonely Planet guide, too. The call is billed to you as a call to Australia, so it's not very expensive.-Andy

We have reserved a trip in July on Star Dancer. We have read many reports about the dive areas in PNG. The Star Dancer seemed to be a bit roomier than others that we looked into and as we are also using a couple of days at Walindi and then on to Loloata, we are looking forward to a new adventure in the Bismark Sea. We are hoping to see at some Pelagics but we are mostly focused on the living reef. My comparisons will be from Coral Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea all of which we enjoyed tremendously. This will be our first time in the 'Triangle of sea life diversity' which reaches from just above Australia to the Solomons then to Micronesia and back to Indonesia.
We weren't fussy about what liveaboard it would be, but the reports from Star Dancer seemed to shine. Our choices were from Golden Dawn, Febrina, and Star Dancer. Although Mike Ball reports were also excellent, we don't appreciate the way that rate for Americans is raised significantly over other countries and we are voting with our dollars to avoid ops like this if possible.
Dive Safe,
Caymaniac

Oh Pie, one other thing, if you do decide to go on the Golden Dawn(or any other independent operator)you may want to deal directly with them. One reason why you won't get many travel agents recomending independent operators like the GD is because they don't like paying the sometimes large commision to the agents, who don't do much to earn it and won't do very much to help you anyway if anything goes wrong. And you might very well get a better rate per day if you deal directly with the operator. Most independent operators have perfectly fair deposit policies and payment schedules and they wouldn't last too long if they didn't. You'll also find that they have much more repeat business than the franchises. On my 4 GD PNG trips, there were between 30 and 75 percent repeat guests on each.-Andy

I strongly second Andy's advice on PNG. I have been with Craig before and he is an excellent host. Your objectives of what to see are much more influenced by the itinerary than the boat. Other things to consider are the berthing arrangements - private facilities or not, availability of Nitrox - membrane fills vice top-offs, number of dives per day, and the experience of the dive guides (if any). When I was on the Mike Ball boat in PNG a few years ago they were using ex-pats on a three month rotation which meant they were considerably less knowledgeable about a given area than boats like the Febrina, GD, and Star Dancer.