Alotau - Diving in Milne Bay

Goroka is a small town just surrounding the airfield so it will only take us a few minutes walk from The Lutheran Guesthouse to the terminal. The first flight is to Port Moresby, and we have to stay at the airport for about four hours before the next flight heading for Alotau in Milne Bay. Yes, we are experts in “Sudoku”!

For those who are interested in war history, Milne Bay was very well known in the World War 2. Many battles between the Japanese and the Allied took place here. But that is not the reason for us to visit Milne Bay. No, it is the excellent diving!

Dirk picked us up at Gurney Airport, Alotau. He had a really heavy right foot and was driving (more like flying) very fast over the bumpy road. It is raining season and it has been raining very much for a couple of days so the last part of the road was more like a river. After about one and a half hour the road ends and in there is a boat waiting for us in the dark jetty. There is a heavy wind and the boat has to go very slowly in the dark but finally we reach the Tawali jetty.

Tawali is a new resort and some legendary divers and underwater photographers own it. Rob van der Loos has been diving and taking photographs in these waters for about thirty years and we know him from his lovely book "Living Reefs of the Indo-Pacific - A Photographic Guide".

We did not book Tawali from home, due to that it is very expensive (far above our budget) but we changed our mind in Sydney. Remember? "You only live once”. And we are glad we did!! We are very curious and in eager expectation of the fantastic diving… All the rooms are very spacious with all the luxury you can imagine.
Anders could not dive the first two days, he had some ugly wounds on his leg (memories from the Sepik) but luckily we had some antibiotics in our medicine bag and it seems to help against the infection. (Thank You, Eva’s sister Margareta!) Eva has to dive without her best "Buddy"......

After a good breakfast of bacon, eggs, fruit and homemade bread it is finally DIVETIME!!! Diving boat with a Captain and Diving Guide is waiting at the Tawali jetty. Luke (Aussie) and three snorkels - Aida (Spain), Alex (Chile) and Barbara (PNG) companion Eva. All 4 of them stay at the BIG diving boat "Chertan" and are writing a reportage about PNG and Tawali for the NY Times. Eva, Luke and "Junior", the Dive master does two dives before lunch, had lunch at the resort and went diving for another two in the afternoon. What a place!! There is so much to see. Unbelievable!! Please have a look at the pictures, very carefully!!

Anders spend the day at the big veranda, talking to the owners Bob Hollis (also CEO and founder of Oceanic Scuba Equipment), Ronda (his Wife) and Rob about this very big project "in the middle of nowhere" and he gets to know the other guests whom are not divers. We are being served a scotch/cola from the bar and very soon it is time for dinner. The days travel fast…

It is raining season that’s for sure.... It rains a lot. But we don’t care. We will anyway be VERY wet under water.... In the afternoon we did some "Muck dives" (diving on sand and rubble and searching for hidden animals) and it is a bit different to dive on 1-2 m depth. Really interesting!! There is so much to see. All the things that hides in the sand!? Check out the underwater pictures.

For the two last dive days Anders cover his wounds with plastic bags and silver tape, good for us to be best Buddy’s again. ……On day nr 2 Eva is the only diver on the boat. She had a Guide and a Captain all by herself…much space…and very good service.

For one day the sun nearly come thru and we are able to do some diving on some remote outer reefs. All of you that LOVES diving must visit Tawali resort. The diving is VERY good and it is still untouched. We haven’t seen another diver (or dive boat) except from each other and Luke!!

How many of you have seen a Pygmy seahorse? It is as long as a fingernail – and how do we find a small animal like this on 25 m depth? Well, there is one at Barracuda Point and our Guide pointed it out for us!! Unfortunately it is difficult to take pictures of this small beauty with our camera but…. You can spot it, can’t you????

We also found our favorite fish - Mandarin Fish. It is about three centimeter and 10 of them are hiding in the corals of the house reef (!) The Mandarin is swimming really fast and it is an artwork to get them in focus. Eva nearly made it but that took her two dives (both at 4:30 PM but different days) 2x30 min and more than 50 pictures…. but it is beautiful, isn’t it???

Nudibranches are another favorite. We haven’t seen so many different spices on the same dive before. Wow!! Look at some spices at the pictures. Fascinating animal isn’t it??

We spent our last two nights in Milne Bay at wonderful Napatana Lodge in Alotau with Pam and Pete Swanson. Anders is watching the football game between Sweden and Paraguay and sees how Freddie Ljungberg (Deb and Rich – isn’t he good??) makes the winning score for Sweden! A couple (two to be exact) proud Swedes puts up a picture of the Swedish team in the Napatana bar! During the first day at Napatana we met both "the 4 journalists" and also Francis and Bill (from Haus Poroman). This seems to be a real “meeting place” and we understand why: Napatana is really cozy!!

You can see that the Staff enjoys working here and they take care of all their knowledge... Napatana is run very Professionally! The Bar/Restaurant at Napatana is well visited, both from locals, and guests. On our last evening we were served an unforgettable dinner!! Yes, shellfish!!! Before eating this very best dinner we had a couple of drinks with Pam and Pete and some other guests. Don’t remember we ordered that many??.......... :-00 We really had a good time!!! And to drink with the shellfish we are offered a bottle of white wine. Is this a dream?? The dinner was…more than divine!!

Some local DJ:s from Alotau Cable Television has now started to play some dance music and Pete is moving some furniture’s from the dance floor, soon it is DANCETIME!!! But first: A lottery. If you have the lucky number and take out a joker you’ll be the happy winner of 800 kina (about 300 USD). Anders is picking up the lucky number and a PNG woman (very good dancer Eva says later!) will try to point out the joker from thirty other cards. And…. She did it!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG applauds and she bought us a couple of more drinks…………we really had no control of the number of drinks we have had and this is turning out to be a really good Party!! Eva is dancing the whole night and we really are having FUN!!! Such a Party!!!

Yes, it was worth the feeling of heavy stones in our head the morning after...(Hangover?) Bye the way it is raining the whole day and we are waiting to start fly towards "home".....we felt really sad, do we HAVE to leave??

Arriving only on hour late to Port Moresby and Holiday Inn we just manage to do some laundry at the guest laundry while eating dinner. We had an early wakeup, the airport bus leaves at 7 AM and we have a LOONG day of traveling ahead of us........time to reflect over our month in Papua New Guinea - "where You can Expect the Unexpected"!!!

Singapore feels very, very modern ....not that much "Jazz"....oh, yes....the food!! AND.........later tonight we will meet up with our Swedish friends, Kerstin and Bengt, from Gothenburg. We will spend the next two weeks showing them our "pearls" in Singapore and Malaysia in a real SundstromTravel-way.

Welcome, looking forward to meet You at the airport!!!

Kisses EvAnders