| New Ireland silvertips - Papua New Guinea |
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By Tony Karacsonyi
Kavieng, in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland Province, is fast emerging as one of the best places in PNG to go scuba diving, sportfishing and sailing.
 Kavieng has a fascinating WWII history, as the allies engaged in a massive air offensive, against the Japanese, from February 11 to February 15, 1944. The allies attempted a new low-flying, bombing strategy with B25 Mitchell bombers, but lost many planes to Japanese anti-aircraft fire and exploding fuel dumps.
  One of the bombers was the Stubborn Hellion, which now lies in 12m of water, with its machine guns still in place. Another bomber is the Gremlin’s Holiday, which went down about three miles from Kavieng. It’s still waiting to be discovered. One of the best dives, is a Japanese Aichi E13A ‘Jake’ float plane laying in 20m of water, discovered by Dorian of Scuba Ventures in 2001. It still has the ‘Hinomaru’ – red rising sun emblem, adorning its starboard wing. It’s a beautiful wreck with pink soft corals on its propellor. Another ‘Jake’ lays nearby on the coral reef at 10m. In 2003, he discovered another Japanese ‘Pete’ biplane, at 39m, on a sandy seafloor. It is a broken up, but has lots of fish and is still a great dive. We dived both ‘Jakes’, a fishing trawler, and a Japanese shipwreck – which had piles of live ammunition, depth charges, cordite sticks and rubber shoe soles.
  On the Der Yang, a Taiwanese fishing trawler, we descended to the shipwreck surrounded by red sea whips, and the reef was alive with gray reef sharks, blue-finned trevally, fusiliers and green turtles. One morning Dorian offered to show me a freshwater cave. ‘You’ll love this place, we found it a year ago and have only dived it three times. We were absolutely blown away” says Dorian. We gunned it down the road to Fissoa, where a freshwater stream gushes from the heart of New Ireland. Forty minutes later, using Dorian’s hand held GPS, we turned onto a secret, muddy track. This is where our adventure began, slipping and sliding, in a two-wheel drive ute. “Normally we can get in here quite easily, but there’s been a lot of rain and I’m worried, as the flow of the spring could be too strong,” says Dorian. We arrived at a crystal clear stream, the banks covered in rainforest “After the dive, we’ll scuba down the river and come out here.”
 Donning our scuba gear, we did a steamy hike through the jungle, to a blue pool, where tree stumps and palm fronds lay across its entrance – ‘A good place for crocodiles’ I pondered. Entering the pool with a giant stride – I let Dorian go first, the sight that lay ahead was spectacular – a 45° tunnel, furrowing towards the centre of the earth. My adrenalin was bubbling. Dorian and our Swiss dive buddy, Reto, were ahead and already snapping photos of the cave’s entrance. We swam down the tunnel lined in ancient coral, to what seemed like 20m, only to find my depth gauge read 38m! Fresh, sweet water rushed past our faces and the smile on my face said it all. We were in diver’s heaven! Good sized tarpon fought against the current, alongside me. What were tarpon doing at this depth? The tunnel narrowed at this point and with the strong current, we couldn’t venture any further. Dorian has been a few metres on, when the spring was not flowing as strongly. Back on top, drifting downstream, collections of tropical leaves collected against palm fronds and fallen tree branches. Schools of trevally hung out among the leaves. Dorian and Cara, now operate this and other freshwater cave dives as part of their diving operation – Scuba Ventures. Originally from South Africa, they have conducted diving in the Comores, Mozambique, South Africa and the Solomons. Over the years, they’ve built up a list of exciting dives specialising in WWII plane wrecks, shipwrecks, coral reef and freshwater dives, around Kavieng. With two new freshwater cave dives, close to Kavieng, with stalacmite and stalactite formations, divers need advanced certification and good buoyancy skills, to dive these. They operate a 24ft banana boat named Rok Rok. It’s well laid out with holes in the fibreglass seating areas, into which the 95cu/ft tanks fit. There’s plenty of deck space and it’s powered by twin 60hp outboards. The others include a 24ft named Mad Fish, a 23ft, and a 22ft named Dau Dakona, also used for sportfishing. Many of Kavieng’s islands have clear water mangroves and its channels, the Steffen and Byron Strait are open to the Bismark Sea. Between the channels is an island with a diving resort named Lissenung Island Resort. I was lucky to spend a few days with Dietmar Amon, who runs the resort with partner Ange. Dietmar told me a story; “It was just another days diving, except today I had a diver named Gadi with me, who wanted to see big sharks. I’ll take you to see the silvertips at Silvertip Reef,” I said. We were soon diving with six sleek and graceful silvertip whalers, two to three metres long, approaching closely. Suddenly, the silvertips were gone. This was very unusual I thought. Then I saw a new shark approaching. I drew Gadi’s attention to it, and as the shark came closer, I saw it was a great hammerhead four metres long – the mother of all hammerheads! It’s sheer size scared the hell out of me, but it scared Gadi even more! I hid behind a coral head and he hid behind me. He couldn’t have got closer if he tried. The hammerhead came so close, I could have touched it, then it was gone. The silvertips returned and it was back to diving as usual,” says Dietmar. It’s hard to describe just how beautiful, graceful and controlled, these silvertips are. They are true oceanic sharks, big females, two to three metres long. Back in 1997, there were nine magnificent silvertips but tragically a fishing company commissioned the locals to kill the sharks, just for their fins. Seven of the nine sharks, which divers had grown to love so much, were massacred. Shark-finning is now banned in the province.
  Back to hammerheads, great hammerheads usually eat stingrays, and are not usually aggressive, but will make close passes at divers. Dietmar tells me another story; “Another day, our divemaster Andy Baldauf was guiding two divers on Helmuts Reef. The gang of two metre grey reef sharks were there, and the same thing happened – the whaler sharks disappeared and a great hammerhead appeared. One of the divers swam out to take video, which is when the shark started arching its back – an aggressive form of shark behaviour. Andy swam out and grabbed the videographer, dragging him back to the reef. ‘I’d love to see his video footage one day,” says Dietmar. Great hammerhead encounters at Kavieng are rare but Dietmar’s sighting was one of the highlights of six years diving in New Ireland. “I love diving with sharks, especially the gray reef sharks at Helmuts Reef. These days it’s the tiny marine animals that really excite me. I enjoy showing our visitors the tiny pygmy sea horses and allied cowrie shells. There are many shrimp gobies and garden eels. Divers can get close to the eels by hugging the sand and holding your breath. Our dive master has seen a pegasus sea moth – a creature which looks more like a chicken carcass, than a fish,” he explained. Dietmar took me to Helmuts Reef, and the gray reef sharks were there. A strong current swept over the reef which extends to 30m. The reef is adorned in big sea fans, sponges and soft corals. Redtooth triggerfish, dogtooth tuna and fusilier fishes were all around. An explosive bang on the surface saw the whalers shoot to the top like shiny grey missiles. I was surprised at the speed with which they dashed to the surface from 20m. One caught a mackarel and none wanted to miss out. Albatross Passage is a brilliant dive. An underwater wall, extends to 30m, then drops into the abyss. When the current is coming in, it’s a magnet for sharks and fish. The wall is undercut with tunnels and caves.
  Among the sea fans were lionfish, bannerfish, angelfish, glasseye, purple queens and long-nosed hawkfish. Dietmar showed me a pygmy seahorse, with a bulbous little belly. Silvertip sharks and squadrons of 30 ‘mobula’ rays – a small kind of manta ray, are often seen here. Under the old jetty at Kavieng, lurk the bizarre and the ugly – a macro-photographer’s paradise. An incredible variety of critters can be seen at this site named ‘the bottleshop’. There are the pipe fishes – harlequin ghost, banded, ringed, mesmate and the double-ended. The rare ‘shy hairy ghost pipefish’ has been seen here. In the Steffen Strait, there is a reef named Peters Patch. It is best dived on the incoming tide, and the reef at 15m is covered in coral and reef fishes – anthias, sweetlip, angelfish and diamond trevally. “The fish life is so intense here, it’s like fish soup, and two rare golden cowrie shells were found here,” says Dietmar. Peters Patch was my last dive in Kavieng, and as I was savouring the last few minutes, the fish parted in front of me, with a chunky gray reef shark flying through them. Well, I don’t know who got the bigger fright, me or the shark.
  The Tsoi Islands is where the silvertip sharks live and big fish reef is near. “Big fish reef has swarms of batfish, big-eye trevally, barracuda and eagle rays. It’s one of the best dive sites in PNG with blacktip reef sharks and bull sharks seen sometimes,” says Dietmar. Friday night buffets at the Kavieng Hotel are superb, while the Sunday night ‘beach barbecue’ at the Malagan Beach Resort is not to be missed. The general diving routine is to be picked up on the beach at the Malagan Beach Resort at 8.30am. We’re usually back for lunch at the Malagan’ by 2pm, with the option of a third dive after lunch.
  With a variety of wreck, coral reef and freshwater diving, Lissenung Island Resort and Scuba Ventures are your tickets to some of the best diving in Papua New Guinea. To see the best of Kavieng underwater, spend a few days with both dive operators. How to get there When to go Other activities
  Lissenung Island Resort Scuba Ventures Malagan Beach Resort Nusa Island Retreat Airways Hotel Papua New Guinea Dive Papua New Guinea Experience | |
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