In early March, my adult daughter and I flew to Port Moresby to board the Golden Dawn which was bound to the Eastern Fields and onward to the Australian reefs of Boot and Ashmore. She and I had been there 3 years earlier and a shorter itinerary limited our diving opportunities to the inner part of the Eastern Fields.

Well, weather intervened and a cyclonic weather pattern made our trip out into the open water a high risk endeavor. After discussing options with us, the owner and captain, Craig DeWitt, sent us down the coast to the Milne Bay diving area. This did carve a couple of days of diving out of our two week trip and the diving along the southern coast is not that great. The trip out to the Eastern Fields is a bit risky and open waters does threaten these itineraries. I highly recommend on planning for a 14 day trip so that the boat can make adjustments and secure a good chunk of diving no matter what the weather.

The diving in Milne Bay ranged from spectacular to mundane at times. Banana Bommie is rated as one of the top 100 dive sites in the world and in was great. We dove several other dive sites like that where fish density was as high as I ever seen. These sites compared very favorably with the dive sites around the Raja Ampat area which is considered the gold standard in dive quality. The one missing ingredient: lots of purple and pink soft corals. We saw some, but not a lot.

Critter diving was also very good. The dive sites at Dinah’s Beach are one part coral pinnacle and one part critters. And the critters are very much in abundance. Maybe a notch below Lembeh, but only a small notch. And, you will never see another diver the entire day. On the way home, we stopped at a passage where Craig thought that the critter diving might be good and we hit the jack pot. It may well have been the best hour of dive photography that I have ever experienced. My daughter found a new critter about once every 90 seconds, and I hammered my strobes. Amazing. I might have been the first one to ever dive this site.

The Golden Dawn and the owner, Craig DeWitt, are pretty much inseparable. The boat is a bit small, especially compared to Indonesian boat that are bigger and more comfortable at times. But Craig is amazingly excited about the reefs and the secrets that they give up on each new trip. No one knows any more about this part of the underwater world than Craig. He is a class act and his recent marriage to Cam has softened him up a bit too. There is no one in the dive industry that I respect more than him.

The service is good but does lack some attention to detail. The attention to detail and pampering that you get in Indonesia are sometimes lacking. No hot towels when you come up from a dive. No hot chocolate, but you do get an great afternoon bakery creation every day. The crew is competent, but not attentive at times.

The food was good, especially our dinners. Breakfasts were very good as well, but lacked variety. His new wife, Cam, seems to add a nice “woman’s touch” and we liked we she brought to the boat. The dinners were very good, especially when we caught a Spanish mackerel and had baked fresh fish on several days.

So, who would like this boat? If luxury and detail are important to you, you should go to one of the nice boats in Indonesia like the Damai or Arenui. If you don’t mind doing some things for yourself, Craig and his boat, the Golden Dawn, are a great place to go. I had the misfortune of learning several days into the trip and a long time friend and neighbor had died suddenly back at home. So that raised the question—if I had one last dive trip to take where would I go back to? Milne Bay would get a lot of thought, especially if that were the intended spot that didn’t require 500 mile round trip of sailing to get to. Several of the dives were amongst the best I have ever done. For those of us who love the ocean, spending a final dive trip with Craig would be my final choice.

My adult daughter spent three days here while waiting to board the Golden Dawn for a trip to the Eastern Fields. I have known several who have stayed here and it came with high recommendation.

We were somewhat limited by weather that limited the diving to one day instead of 2 or 3. The one site that we wanted to get to was Suzy’s Bommie which didn’t happen because of weather. We did have one nice day out and some some decent sites that I enjoyed and we saw some good content underwater.

The dive guiding was good and they guides worked to point out things that were interesting to us. I would rate the diving to be a 6 or 7 on a 10 point scale. For a stopover spot, it was quite good and I would recommend anyone that is leaving on a trip out of PM to spend 3 or 4 days here. My daughter went on the flashlight fish night dive which is very unique and enjoyable.

The resort experience starts when you clear customs at the airport. The hotel was there with a sign waiting for us, so I rate them highly on this important point. The trip is a 45 minute car ride and a 15 boat ride and your arrive at a long dock in a stand alone island.

The rooms were OK, but maybe a touch below what I was expecting. Each room was in a stand alone bungalow with a bed and a hideaway bed that was not so great. Similar to Lembeh Resort, but a notch below.

The resort is very informal with everyone eating at one common table including the owner who chatted with us each night. Nice touch. The food was good, but lacked variety. I like the breakfast and lunch and dinner were buffet style. The resort has a pretty good sized meeting going on which I think pushed the quality of service a bit.

The resort has plenty of animals which are kind of fun. PNG wallabies are in abundance as are a few kinds of decorative birds. I got to breakfast early on my first day and found a wallaby huddled under a dining table. We startled each other when I pulled out my chair.

I would recommend anyone who is coming to PNG to stay here for 2 to 5 days. Some of the diving is quite good. Suzie’s Bommie and some of the other open ocean bombes are very good which I know from earlier dive trips. You will enjoy a unique little island with a lot of personal charm, but very little pretense.

My teenage son and I spent a week here in April of 2009. This typically is not a place where people stay for that long, but we had limited budget and air travel was pretty cheap at the height of the recession. We had been to Lembeh two years earlier and my son loved critter divers, so this seemed like a good alternative and it was.

Getting there is grueling, but the resort is quite close to the airport on Ambon (a beautiful airport at that), so once you make it here, it is quick to get to the resort. The cabins are quite large, but lacking a lot of ambience. A nice bed, a lot of place for your gear, and a very nice bathroom. The food was large Indonesian although the breakfasts were pretty much American/European. My son who is a picky eater got by just fine.

They have two dives every morning and one in the afternoon. The best muck diving is within a five minute boat ride of the resort. The dive operation facility and staff were world class. It was well organized and extremely professional. Several of our dive guides had learned their trade at Lembeh and they were great.

A couple of times a week, the resort took a trip to Tiga Palau which was about a 90 minute boat ride away. For those who like coral reefs, soft coral colors and small schools of fish, go there with your wide angle lens ready for some nice photo ops. We talked the resort in doing an extra trip there and we enjoyed it both times.

Of course, the main attraction here is the muck diving right in front of the resort. The Laha area where the resort is located is full of amazing creatures. I thought the density of "crazies" was a lot more than at Lembeh. Most dives, even good ones, have some down time and that just wasn't the case here. You dropped to the bottom and kept seeing stuff until your air ran out.

We were left on our own for the most part, unless we wanted help spotting critters. We did get help on occasion when special creatures like rhinopias were to be found.

If you have been to Lembeh or simply want a small town alternative to Lembeh, this is probably the best two miles of ocean to find all of those exotic creatures that you would like to photo. Because Maluku is really the only dive traffic here, we rarely saw other divers on any of the sites. Because this is a common departure point for Raja Ampat liveaboard, occasionally a liveaboard will pull in here, but that was only one day while we were there. I would say we saw 90% overlap with Lembeh, but several creatures were unique. We saw several clusters of harlequin shrimps which we did not see at Lembeh. We also saw a blue ring octopus, but I know that they are commonly sited in Lembeh. We also saw a lot of very pretty seahorses which we did not see in Lembeh. We also seemed to run into peacock mantis shrimps on elmost every dive and we also saw the very large ones with the piercing arms. I'm guessing if you stayed a month at both places that you would see the same critters, although the density here was much higher.

For any serious diver, Raja Ampat should be the destination on the top of their list. No other spot in the world offers the variety of pristine coral reefs and reef fish that Raja offers. While liveaboards are the preferred way to see the region, several very nice and elegant dive resorts have popped up.

While not a part of the region per se, Triton Bay to the Southeast ranks as one of the most exotic dive areas of the world. Unfortunately, my attempt to make it there was foiled by sea pirates who try to extract money and gasoline from divers. While I understand the situation is better, it is still a risky spot to go (not for your life, but for your diving). Several people on my boat had been there and confirmed that it was very good, but visibility is limited and currents can be tricky. I still want to go there someday. One other note, Triton Bays boats leave from Kaimana instead of Sorong. A year before we were there a plane crashed on landing, so it is not without some risks.

The first area of south Raja Ampat of diving note is Daram Islands. Like the entire area, the seas are warm and the area is filled with schools of fish and clouds of antheas. It is very remote and rarely dived except by liveaboard, so it is outstanding.

Onward to the dive sites around Misool. This is the pinnacle of this area and therefore the pinnacle of the world's coral diving. The currents can be very strong here however. My teenage daughter got caught in a washing machine whirlpool current and had to be rescued by a divemaster. She is a good diver and was not in danger, but it scared me. One could easily spend a week here which is why the MIsool Eco Resort has been so successful. We stopped by there and had lunch and the place is heaven on earth. Even my non-diving wife would be blown away by the place I am sure. My favorite island was Boo and the Windows site is pictured on most picture books of the area. You get the idea.

We dove the Blue Mangroves which was great. A diver was bitten there once by a crocodile a few years earlier so our Indonesian guides refused to go into the water. We had one diver hang out as a lookout and we had a great time. My aforementioned daughter did stay in the boat here however.

The diving in the north part of Raja Ampat is not quite as good (by a small amount) as the diving in the Misool area. The center of this area is Cape Kri which is a point out into the Dampier Straight with very very good diving. You can easily spend a day here. About a 30 minute boat ride away is Manta Sandy which is supposed to be the most reliable place in the world to see mantas. I have been there 4 times and the only mantas showed up on the dive I skipped. Oh well. I did see the largest octopus that I have ever seen though and it kept us entertained for 30 minutes.

The Aboratek peer is also a very good site and I took an award winning photo there of a large school of fish that frequents the peer. The peer poles are covered with multi-colored soft corals which go all the way to the surface.

All in all you will see just about everything imaginable here. We saw 4 kinds of pygmy seahorses. We saw mandarin fish in several locations. We saw an enormous clam that was big enough to hold a small human. You see everything here except for sharks which hopefully will return some day. We did see a couple of black tips and there is hope, but not a lot to be seen right now.

We were there once in March and the weather was beautiful. We were there a second time in early July and the weather was perfect then as well although that is classified as off-season. I do know that the Misool area is not so good in our summer months.