Tawali Trip Report

[opisthobranch]

My friend Sami and I are back from Milne Bay, PNG where we spent 10 days at the Tawali resort. My week was courtesy of the NCUPS Beach Dive Photo Competition in Monterey last year. Of course actually getting there probably cost me more than the value of the week at the resort, depending on the final value we place on Sami's business class upgrades which certainly did make the extensive air itinerary more bearable.

Tawali is a nice place and seriously in the middle of nowhere. You start by flying 11,737 miles to an airport consisting of a one room building at the end of a runway.

http://tinyurl.com/2z6vbg

Then you drive down an ever more rustic dirt road through the jungle while dodging pigs and chickens until you reach the end and a rickety dock. From there it's about a 25 minute skiff ride to the resort. Of course despite the remoteness the resort somehow manages to have good internet connectivity and free WiFi in the dining area. Progress I guess. Not sure if it's a good thing.

The resort itself is very nice and cleverly hidden in the jungle so that it's nearly invisible from the water. Rooms were large and comfortable and the food was, if not memorable, certainly acceptable. One exception being the Papaya which was incredibly good and almost worth a trip there by itself. Diving facilities were OK, though literally every boat we saw while in Tawali had some kind of mechanical issue. Didn't affect the diving much though. Also not sure why they think steel tanks are a good idea in the tropics. OTOH they did have convertible DIN valves and filled Nitrox. Oh - and if you're coming from the states bring power converters as they only had 110v in the library area.

Anyway the diving was very, very nice indeed. Not much in the way of big animals but the reef is very healthy (only one or two sites seemed much impacted by coral bleaching) and the muck diving was incredible. Lots of critters, though neither Sami nor I could find anything ourselves without the very expert help of our dive guides.

And for those wondering - no we weren't hit by the Tsunami. We figure the quake happened right about as we were back rolling for our first dive that day. When we came up the skiff driver told us what had happened and they pulled us out of the water until the warnings passed. In fact this is how we discovered the internet connectivity which we had previously assumed was non-existent. Reckoned people back home should hear about it from us rather than the evening news.

So enough talk. We know what you really want are pictures and here they are:

http://www.baue.org/images/galleries/album112

Clinton

 

[leeaf]

Hi Clinton, I'm heading to Tawali as part of a wider PNG trip in a couple of weeks, but will only have 3 days there. What were the 'must do' sites in your opinion? Were you able to do the drift through China Strait? Other sites I have heard about that are meant to be very good are Sullivan's Patches, Banana Bommie, Trish's Bommie and Heinecke Heaven. Did you do any of those? How was the weather when you were there?

Appreciate any guidance you might be able to give me.

Thanks

Lee

 

[opisthobranch]

Hi Clinton, I'm heading to Tawali as part of a wider PNG trip in a couple of weeks, but will only have 3 days there. What were the 'must do' sites in your opinion? Were you able to do the drift through China Strait? Other sites I have heard about that are meant to be very good are Sullivan's Patches, Banana Bommie, Trish's Bommie and Heinecke Heaven. Did you do any of those? How was the weather when you were there?

Hmmm. Trying to remember. Didn't really do any drift diving. Dont't recall Trish's Bommie or Heinecke Heaven. The names got confusing after a bit as Tawali has different names for sites I did 8 years ago on the Golden Dawn. We did Banana Bommie which Tawali has a different name for (forgotten it already). Certainly nice. Actually all the dives we did had their own merits. Wahoo Point had a lot of pretty beaten up coral but we did see a squadron of Mobula Rays there and the lettuce coral in some places was great. Lauadi/Dinah's Beach was an awesome muck dive. We did it 5 times I think and could have done more. Cobb's Cliff is a great dive. Some of the further off spots were great too: Wampus and Crinoid City were especially nice. The latter is where we saw both a Rhinopias and a Pygmy Seahorse (Sadly I had the 16mm lens on for that dive so no seahorse pics).

Weather was great. Flat seas, only one day of rain and was only windy one day. Vis varied a lot from maybe 40 feet to nearly 150 and about everything in between.

Probably hard to go too wrong on any of the dives here.

Clinton

 

[Travelnsj]

I am thinking of going at this time next year....What were the Water Temps like?....Did you do the Eastern Fields on the MV Golden Dawn if so how would you compare? I do not know your diving history but with 1000+ dives I assume you have been to places like Palau and perhaps Fakarava....if so how do you compare?...great report...more details please.....Thanks, Scott

 

[opisthobranch]

I am thinking of going at this time next year....What were the Water Temps like?....Did you do the Eastern Fields on the MV Golden Dawn if so how would you compare? I do not know your diving history but with 1000+ dives I assume you have been to places like Palau and perhaps Fakarava....if so how do you compare?...great report...more details please.....Thanks, Scott

Water temps were between 82 and 86F.

I haven't done Eastern Fields yet though it's very much on my list. I've been on the Golden Dawn twice. Once in 1998 in Milne Bay and 2 years ago on the Wewak to Madang run. Both were great. Milne Bay is better for critters and the north coast had a lot more sharks. On the north coast we saw sharks on almost every dive including hammerheads, bull sharks, java sharks, etc. On the Tawali trip we saw maybe 3 whitetip reef sharks and that's it. I've also been to Palau which I considered OK but way too crowded. Certainly Blue Corner was a great dive but I don't think we did a dive there where we didn't have divers from other groups on the same site. In 2001 the reef there looked a bit beaten up from the bleaching. In contrast in around 100 dives in PNG I don't think I've ever been in the water with divers that weren't part of my group. We saw some evidence of bleaching at Milne Bay this time but not much. The PNG north coast had really pristine reefs, though the vis wasn't always the best due to the Sepik river and other runoff.

Haven't been to Fakarava. In fact most of my diving is in cold water in California, BC and Alaska. Maybe once a year I get out for a warm water trip.

Comparing the Golden Dawn to Tawali I'd say you'll probably do a lot more dives per day on the Golden Dawn and whichever itinerary you do expect Craig to offer some exploratory dives. At Tawali you'll have a tough time doing more than 3 dives a day (we did 26 in 8 days of diving) and you won't be exploring. OTOH the dive guides really know the reefs which makes for better critter spotting. I'd be very comfortable recommending either operation. They're both great.

Clinton

 

[Travelnsj]

Clinton thanks so much for the info....

When you say...."Milne Bay is better for critters and the north coast had a lot more sharks. On the north coast we saw sharks on almost every dive including hammerheads, bull sharks, java sharks, etc"......Was this at Tawali on the North outer reefs?...I like the big stuff thus my many trips to Palau.....sorry not that fimiliar with PNG.

Thanks again,
Scott

 

[opisthobranch]

Clinton thanks so much for the info....

When you say...."Milne Bay is better for critters and the north coast had a lot more sharks. On the north coast we saw sharks on almost every dive including hammerheads, bull sharks, java sharks, etc"......Was this at Tawali on the North outer reefs?...I like the big stuff thus my many trips to Palau.....sorry not that fimiliar with PNG.

Thanks again,
Scott

Milne Bay is at the very southeast point of the PNG mainland and that's where Tawali is. Wewak and Madang are on the north coast of the mainland. The big animals were on the Wewak to Madang run. Not so many at Tawali in Milne Bay which was more about nice reefs and muck diving (frogfish, ghost pipefish, etc.). Other parts of PNG with reputations for big stuff are Kavieng (big island in the northeast of PNG and eastern fields (Coral Sea south of Port Moresby) though I haven't been to either place.

The Golden Dawn's Website has a pretty good overview of the areas.

http://www.mvgoldendawn.com/itineraryguide.htm

Clinton

 

[alashas]

Hi Clinton,

You've taken some of the best UW shots I have ever seen! Thanks for traveling halfway around the world to share them with us.

Cheers, alashas
http://honeymoon2.smugmug.com/

 

[Travelnsj]

I'm fimilar with the Golden dawn and would love to do the Eastern Fields....but i'm not a Liveaboard person....I get seasick and not a lover of small quarters!...I know I miss some of the best diving!!!....I read on the Tawali's web site the Costal day dives, Cobbs Cliff etc....they say that Hammerheads and other large Pelagic's are seen...Did you see any at all?...I like to see the combination of big and small....Thanks for the info..

By they way your photos are great!

 

[opisthobranch]

I'm fimilar with the Golden dawn and would love to do the Eastern Fields....but i'm not a Liveaboard person....I get seasick and not a lover of small quarters!...I know I miss some of the best diving!!!....I read on the Tawali's web site the Costal day dives, Cobbs Cliff etc....they say that Hammerheads and other large Pelagic's are seen...Did you see any at all?...I like to see the combination of big and small....Thanks for the info..

We saw maybe 3 or 4 white tip reef sharks on the trip and that was it for sharks. 1 eagle ray and a flight of mobulas. There was a report from one of the liveaboards about a whale shark at Cobb's Cliff but we didn't see it (though we sure did look for it).

Several times we saw mobulas jumping out of the water and we also saw a few big dogtooth tuna. There was a pod of dolphins hanging out most of the time right in front of the resort but they were a bit skittish and we didn't see them underwater at all. On my trip on the Golden Dawn to Milne Bay in 1999 we saw a few more sharks including grey reef sharks and we did see Mantas at the cleaning station near Samurai but that's too long a run for Tawali. 2 Guests on that trip saw a couple of hammerheads at Deacon's.

Overall I'd say that big animals at Milne Bay would be more of a bonus rather than a reason to go there. You might see some but the attractions are the nice reefs and little stuff.

Clinton