Lotsa Fish!

We’ve just completed the first leg of the three-part journey around the Papua Barrier Reef and Milne Bay, and we’ve pulled up to Alotau for a night to re-provision.

Four fellow travellers (Beverley, Karl, Neil and Craig) will be leaving us here today, and we’ll be taking on three new passengers for the second part of this epic trip, which will concentrate on the Milne Bay area. Julian, Ildi and Jenny are staying on for the next leg, with Bob Halstead and Captain Craig and me rounding out the group.

In spite of some unseasonal weather (read: rain during dry season), we’ve had some fantastic dives. As an example, here is but a fraction of the fish that we encountered under the wharf at Samarai Island:

Large school of fish at Samarai Island in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea
Large school of robust silversides (Atherinomorus lacunosus)
at Samarai Island in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea

The wharf at Samarai never fails to deliver, but the tens of thousands of fish (of several species) making their home under the jetties right now are truly spectacular. We’re definitely visiting this site again on the next two cruises!

Besides these fish, there’s all sorts of macro life at Samarai, but I was so busy gawking at these massive balls of fish that I didn’t even have time to look at anything else. (Note to self: Diving Samarai is worth a couple of weeks on its own.)

It’s good to have a day of downtime to unwind, catch up on sleep and tinker with camera stuff, but I can’t wait to get back out there tomorrow!