Star Dancer Diving in Papua New Guinea, Part I

"Dolphins off the bow" shouts my husband bursting into our stateroom to get the camera. Startled awake from a sound sleep, I groan as my feet hit the floor and I grope for the fluffy Dancer robe. Good grief, it’s 6:30 in the morning—our first morning aboard the Star Dancer in Papua New Guinea. He races ahead with the camera as I test my sea legs, stumble down the companionway and up two sets of stairs to the Sky Deck. There they are just off the port bow—one breaks the surface as two more glide along just under the water. What a way to start our live-aboard dive trip in the Bismarck Sea.

"If this isn’t the end of the earth, you can certainly see it from here" I remark as we fly from Port Moresby to Rabaul on New Britain Island. We traveled over 14,000 miles from the West Coast of the US, through Singapore, and arrived in this remote part of the world anxious to get wet and explore the lush reefs of PNG.

Occupying the eastern portion of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world, PNG is the result of a massive geological upheaval along the Pacific Rim of Fire, with Rabaul precariously surrounded by active volcanoes. On the ride in from the Kokopo airport on the Gazelle Peninsula, our van passes by Vulcan, a gray crater-filled mound of ash rising 1,000 feet in the air. Quiet now since the devastating eruptions of 1994 that buried neighboring villages in 15 feet of ash. Across Simpson Harbor, rising even higher, Tuvurvur volcano spits clouds of ash and steam every few minutes. A vivid reminder of the earth’s awesome power and our inability to control these seething peaks.

We continue along the water’s edge passing World War II Japanese tunnels dug into the hillsides, a shipwreck rusting on shore, and arrive at the Star Dancer ready for a cold drink. Once everything is loaded we cast off for the Pigeon Islands. Settled in our cabins, dive gear set up on the main deck, we all enjoy a delicious dinner and get to know our dive buddies for the week.

Dive Log – Atun Wreck -- 7:00 am, water 88 degrees, 83 feet for 48 minutes

Interesting old freighter sitting upright on the sandy bottom next to a deeper wall on one side and shallow teeming coral reef on the other side. We descend through clear midnight blue water onto the top of the wall spying several large anemones with hovering clownfish.

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