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New Britain scuba diving features

MARINE LIFE:
boxer crabs
reef sharks
muck diving schooling fish

TOP DIVE SITE:
Lama Shoals

DESTINATION OVERVIEW
Kimbe Bay, on the north coast of New Britain, is best known in diving circles as the location of Walindi Resort. From this world-renown spot you can dive inside Kimbe Bay then join a liveaboard to head east to the Fathers Islands or north-west to the Witus. The entire region has bountiful marine life, warm water and superb visibility. It would take pages to cover this superlative area completely, so here are just a few highlights:

KIMBE BAY: reef surfaces are encrusted with pristine corals and sponges, minute boxer crabs live in the rubble and moray eels free swim around your fins. The local populations of grey whaler and whitetip reef sharks swoop along the walls.

THE FATHERS: open water reefs thick with damselfish, angels and fairy basslets; huge schools of barracuda, Spanish mackerel and schooling jacks; octopus mate as you watch and you can even snorkel with spinner dolphins.

THE WITUS: tiny, primeval bays surrounded by coconut palms, ficus and liana vines. Beneath the water, black sand is dotted with detritus and a mass of weird critters. Tiny green crabs take on the appearance of coralline algae, hairy pink sangian crabs nestle on a sponge, and spider crabs pretend to be seagrass.

Seasons
Year round.
Visibility:
10 - 50+ metres
Water temperature:
25 – 30º C.
Deco chambers:
Port Moresby

Flights via Australian east coast cities or from Singapore.
Accommodation
Walindi Dive Resort and MV Febrina

PROS AND CONS
Flying to PNG is expensive. There is little mass tourism so few flights in and out of the country and that keeps the prices high. However, this is also the countries greatest advantage – there will never be hoards of other dive boats moored up over your site.

SCUBA DIVING
Right across Papua New Guinea the diving is spectacular. Lying across the bottom edge of the Coral Triangle, there are 40,000 square kilometres of coral reefs and species diversity is extremely high. Conditions vary by region but tend to be easy around New Britain with warm water and great visibility.

OPINION
After years of hearing about the glories of scuba diving in northern New Britain, the second largest island in Papua New Guinea, we finally managed a week on the 'infamous' Febrina. Her reputation, and that of Captain Alan Raabe, is almost mythical. Although this isn't a cheap trip, it is a fantastic one. Diving on Febrina is truly unlimited. We averaged
4-5 dives a day and that was without night dives, so it was exceptionally good value.