ewaiea
Contributor
I'm writing this from the Airways Hotel (which if you splurge one night on a hotel stay there you will be impressed) in Port Moresby - I got my 24 hours of travel tomorrow morning to get home to Honolulu.
Synopsis:
Overall the trip was a huge success! I have never tripped down to the south Pacific before so this was a first. I loved the Star Dancer, I didn't mind the long travel as long as you overnight one place on the way, I am tempted to return next year for the south coast of New Britain Island charter, but most likely I'll go to Palau instead.
One quick note - I roomed with a guy who simply did this trip because it was a good deal b/c it was buddy week plus he had miles to use for airfare. But all he did was bitch and squak about there not being wrecks or big stuff......after a while he got on everyone's nerves with his sarcastic complaining. DO NOT DO THIS TRIP IF YOU ONLY LIKE TECH DIVING AND/OR BIG STUFF! You might see big stuff and there is a couple of wrecks in Rabaul, but not like other places. Don't be this guy - it was a chore to listen to the constant negative remarks not to mention his insistence on solo diving and unsafe practices (he secretly snuck a dive where he solo'd down do 201ft - he told me after the fact)......again - don't be this guy.
Getting there:
My route was Honolulu-Sydney-Cairns-Port Moresby-Hoskins. I flew Jetstar from Honolulu to Sydney and they offered a last minute upgrade to Star Class (basically it's business class) for $299 - it was so worth it....I hope they offer it on the way back. Our flight from Port Moresby to Hoskins was cancelled last minute - no one was totally certain why. The airline told us the plane would be late and could not do an evening or night landing in Hoskins because there was no light. The more accepted reason is the flight was not full enough so Air Niugini combined the next morning's passengers with us and probably saved money - apparently they do this all the time. So we didn't get to stay the night in Walindi - Air Niugini put us up at the Lamana Hotel in Port Moresby - it's safe, there's air conditioning in the rooms, but that's about it - it was a very boring hotel. We flew out early the next morning and were able to get to Walindi for breakfast at 7:30am. I didn't get a refund on my Walindi room reservation but I did get to use it for the morning to have a nap and relax so it wasn't a total loss. All my luggage made it and was not lost on the trip in.
-A few of us Star Dancer passengers did a quick day boat trip with Walindi as a checkout dive - I went along as a snorkeler to do some free diving. It was fun and a short boat ride from the resort.
The diving in PNG:
In short, the diving will come in two forms: bommies (seamounts), and muck diving. We dove Kimbe Bay for the first day and last day and a half of the charter, we did three days diving at Witu Island on days 2, 3, and 4, and 3 days of diving at Fathers Reef after that.
All three places have muck diving and bommies, but the Witus has probably got the biggest mix with Witu Crater being my favorite muck dive and perhaps my favorite dive on the trip.
Father's has a bit more shark and other pelagic action with Kimbe being a hybrid of Witu and Fathers.
I brought a 1mm wetsuit but only wore it on like 5 dives (most of which were night dives or shark dives) - otherwise I did my dives in a rash guard and swim trunks. Water temps were around 86 or higher.
The Star Dancer:
They had a great dive schedule with dive one before breakfast (they do have a continental breakfast laid out before the dive though), then breakfast, then dive two and three, lunch, then dive four, then the night dive, then dinner. Five dives a day was pretty much the norm except one day where we had an overnight crossing planned so we only did four dives.
I thought the crew was superb, Joe and Martin and Yuki(videopro) are the three dive guides - Martin and Joe primarily. They all have eagle eyes and will show you so much more than you can probably spot on your own.
The food was good but with all the palm oil they used for cooking plus the snacking and the relatively easy diving me and most other divers did put on a few pounds this trip - I probably gained 8 or 9 lbs alone! I've done the Kona Aggressor and I will say that the food on that boat was better by a small margin.
==================================================
I think that Peter Hughes Diving is a great company and I'll be definitely repeating trips with them in the future - they truly do EVERYTHING for you - they even helped me do some gear repairs which helped me out tremendously.
I know some of you probably have specific questions so feel free to ask - I'll respond.
Thanks all and if you're a critter hound definitely go to Papua New Guinea.
Eric
Synopsis:
Overall the trip was a huge success! I have never tripped down to the south Pacific before so this was a first. I loved the Star Dancer, I didn't mind the long travel as long as you overnight one place on the way, I am tempted to return next year for the south coast of New Britain Island charter, but most likely I'll go to Palau instead.
One quick note - I roomed with a guy who simply did this trip because it was a good deal b/c it was buddy week plus he had miles to use for airfare. But all he did was bitch and squak about there not being wrecks or big stuff......after a while he got on everyone's nerves with his sarcastic complaining. DO NOT DO THIS TRIP IF YOU ONLY LIKE TECH DIVING AND/OR BIG STUFF! You might see big stuff and there is a couple of wrecks in Rabaul, but not like other places. Don't be this guy - it was a chore to listen to the constant negative remarks not to mention his insistence on solo diving and unsafe practices (he secretly snuck a dive where he solo'd down do 201ft - he told me after the fact)......again - don't be this guy.
Getting there:
My route was Honolulu-Sydney-Cairns-Port Moresby-Hoskins. I flew Jetstar from Honolulu to Sydney and they offered a last minute upgrade to Star Class (basically it's business class) for $299 - it was so worth it....I hope they offer it on the way back. Our flight from Port Moresby to Hoskins was cancelled last minute - no one was totally certain why. The airline told us the plane would be late and could not do an evening or night landing in Hoskins because there was no light. The more accepted reason is the flight was not full enough so Air Niugini combined the next morning's passengers with us and probably saved money - apparently they do this all the time. So we didn't get to stay the night in Walindi - Air Niugini put us up at the Lamana Hotel in Port Moresby - it's safe, there's air conditioning in the rooms, but that's about it - it was a very boring hotel. We flew out early the next morning and were able to get to Walindi for breakfast at 7:30am. I didn't get a refund on my Walindi room reservation but I did get to use it for the morning to have a nap and relax so it wasn't a total loss. All my luggage made it and was not lost on the trip in.
-A few of us Star Dancer passengers did a quick day boat trip with Walindi as a checkout dive - I went along as a snorkeler to do some free diving. It was fun and a short boat ride from the resort.
The diving in PNG:
In short, the diving will come in two forms: bommies (seamounts), and muck diving. We dove Kimbe Bay for the first day and last day and a half of the charter, we did three days diving at Witu Island on days 2, 3, and 4, and 3 days of diving at Fathers Reef after that.
All three places have muck diving and bommies, but the Witus has probably got the biggest mix with Witu Crater being my favorite muck dive and perhaps my favorite dive on the trip.
Father's has a bit more shark and other pelagic action with Kimbe being a hybrid of Witu and Fathers.
I brought a 1mm wetsuit but only wore it on like 5 dives (most of which were night dives or shark dives) - otherwise I did my dives in a rash guard and swim trunks. Water temps were around 86 or higher.
The Star Dancer:
They had a great dive schedule with dive one before breakfast (they do have a continental breakfast laid out before the dive though), then breakfast, then dive two and three, lunch, then dive four, then the night dive, then dinner. Five dives a day was pretty much the norm except one day where we had an overnight crossing planned so we only did four dives.
I thought the crew was superb, Joe and Martin and Yuki(videopro) are the three dive guides - Martin and Joe primarily. They all have eagle eyes and will show you so much more than you can probably spot on your own.
The food was good but with all the palm oil they used for cooking plus the snacking and the relatively easy diving me and most other divers did put on a few pounds this trip - I probably gained 8 or 9 lbs alone! I've done the Kona Aggressor and I will say that the food on that boat was better by a small margin.
==================================================
I think that Peter Hughes Diving is a great company and I'll be definitely repeating trips with them in the future - they truly do EVERYTHING for you - they even helped me do some gear repairs which helped me out tremendously.
I know some of you probably have specific questions so feel free to ask - I'll respond.
Thanks all and if you're a critter hound definitely go to Papua New Guinea.
Eric
