Welcome to Papua New Guinea. That’s what I felt the barracuda were telling Quinn and I as they enveloped us in a slow motion underwater tornado 30 feet high. When you’re down at 80ft diving a seamount in the open ocean, this is an incredible sight. It’s wild. It’s why we wanted to dive PNG as a grand finale to the Best of Southeast Asia.
For the next few days we’re diving with Walindi Plantation Resort in Kimbe Bay, on the west side of New Britain Island. Today’s dives brought us to two great sites. The first was Bradford Shoals, home to the school of barracuda mentioned above, plus batfish, pinfaro, unicorn fish and smaller reef fish. We kept our eyes open for sharks, but I have to admit being pretty enthralled by the barracuda. Next time we’ll keep a sharper lookout.
Dive two was at a beautiful hard coral garden called JJ’s Reef. The sides of the reef offer steep dropoffs with several big fans, home to some pygmy seahorses. The other highlight was a grand collection of whip corals and a close pass from a blacktip reef shark during our mesmerizing minutes (safety stop) amongst countless green and purple anthias dancing to our breath.
All in all, a very solid day 1. We can’t wait to dive tomorrow!
Diving Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea – Day 1
