Tufi Bay scuba diving features

MARINE LIFE

harlequin shrimp jacks
crocodilefish
orang-utan crabs

TUFI'S TOP DIVE SITE:
Tufi Pier

DESTINATION OVERVIEW
Tufi sits at the edge of some of Papua New Guinea's most dramatic coastal lansdscapes. Cliff-like hills drop sharply to narrow bays, the vista appearing just like a Scandanavian fjord. Above one of these fjords is Tufi village and resort and below them, a wooden jetty leads to some of the most incredible muck diving.

The pier at Tufi Dive Resort is a classic muck diving site – there are old crates with coke bottles, rubber tyres, boxes and all sorts of decades-old rubbish vying for space with tiny sponges and small corals. Divemasters lead the new diver tours and within half an hour, will point out a selection of critters that include mandarinfish, ornate ghost pipefish, toad fish, banded pipefish, juvenile scorpionfish and cowrie shells. Most exciting, but seen regularly, are pairs of harlequin shrimp, which are often spotted consuming starfish legs for dinner.

During World War II, Tufi acted as a base for American patrols and at the bottom of the bay are the remains of a torpedo tube, with the torpedo still in it, a 50mm gun and an intact Land Rover.

There's plenty of pretty reef diving too. Just an hour's sail away are a group of oval sea mounds that drop off to over fifty metres. These are a haven for an incredibly diverse array of marine species including barracuda, Spanish mackerel, schooling jacks, damsels, angels and fairy basslets. Cruising the walls, there are grey reef sharks and off in the blue, glimpses of mantas, tuna, spanish mackerel and small turtles.

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
Tufi Dive Resort

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. Visibility on the outer reefs is fabulous but it's quite low inside Tufi Bay – although that doesn't spoil the muck diving in any way.

OPINION
There's something very special about muck diving... a term that applies to dives often characterised by a less than pretty site. For those of us who adore dives where you can spend ages hunting for rare and unusual critters, Tufi Bay is one of the best.