Papua New Guinea. Wow.

Scuba Buachall and I joined Mike Ball's Paradise Sport for a luxury liveaboard diving holiday in Milne Bay province, in the south east of Papua New Guinea, in September.

Absolutely fabulous diving, averaging 30-40m viz, 26°C waters, a rich smorgasboard of tropical fish and corals, and stunning picturesque coral walls that went from 5m to, well, a long way down: to some 300m +.


In these conditions it was easy to do nice long and deep dives. At 41m I was comfortable and not even narked! Scuba Buachall and I notched up 23 dives (and more than 23 hours of diving) in the five days.

We even dived a wreck. Not a shipwreck, though, but a WWII bomber plane called BlackJack.

Great photographic opportunities abounded.

Anemone and trigger clown fish obliged with cuteness.

A couple of turtles turtled.

Colourful fish were everywhere. Lionfish, catfish, pipefish of all descriptions including harlequin ghost pipefish, barracuda, tuna, flathead parrotfish, octopus, nudibranchs galore, eagle rays....the list is endless. One or two sharks, too. But not that many pelagic fish, generally. Wrong time of year, apparently.

It was wonderful to have our dive gear ready and waiting whenever we wanted to dive. All we had to do was don our wetsuits and in we went.

And it was nice to use a 3mm wetsuit - so easy to get on and off - instead of the cumbersome 7mm semi-dry.

Aaaaah, tropical diving.

Now I understand.

Dive details follow, as well as a small selection of stunning images by Scuba Buachall.