Among the highlights of the first part of this journey was the chance to dive along the barrier reef of Papua New Guinea, an area that hasn’t been well explored by the dive community.
Whenever you try something new, there’s bound to be a bit of hit and miss, but we certainly struck gold at a place that we’ve decided to name The Doghouse (because it's located in an area known as Diving Dog Passage):
Sea fans and orange basslets at a site
on the Papua Barrier Reef we named The Doghouse
Located in a passage along the reef, this place is jam-packed with fish. Besides bajillions of little Anthias species, there were lots of schools of sweetlips, several eagle rays, white tip reef sharks, leopard sharks, various cod, and an assortment of other pretty piscines.
As far as I’m aware, no one else dives (or has dived) this site, which is quite a shame, given how fish-dense this location is, plus the fact that it’s only a half day’s cruise from the capital city of Port Moresby.
As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a bit of rain during our trek down from Port Moresby around the tip of the peninsula and up to Milne Bay, so we didn’t get to dive as many locations as we wanted to, but it’s tough to complain, given how much we saw.
I guess it just means that I’ll have to find my way back on another occasion to explore more nooks and crannies along the barrier reef.
We're headed back out in the morning, so I'll be underwater and offline again for a while...