Star Dancer Diving in PNG, Part II

We’ve traveled all night to get to Father’s Reef in the Bismarck Sea off the Northern coast of New Britain Island. The diving here is on seamounts, or "bommies" rising up from the sea floor to within 30-40 feet of the surface. Off the port side we see a huge school of tuna feeding at the surface. Sea birds flock over the churning water to pick up the tidbits. We drop off the stern and descend to the top of the mount. Incredible growth of hard corals covers the sides and top of this undersea mountain. Giant anemones in red, orange, and purple are covered with several species of clownfish (anemonefish)—Clark’s, Pink, Spine-cheek, and Tomato Clowns. What a beautiful sight. We move down to 75 feet and work our way slowly around and up the sides of the seamount. A big school of batfish insists on following us around, curious about these big, bubbling intruders.

Many different colored butterflyfish are found in these waters. We see beautiful iridescent striped Ornate butterflyfish, Spot-banded, Saddled, Spotted, Pyramid, and Longnose butterflyfish. They are quick and skittish, so photos are always a challenge.

Clouds of schooling anthias surround every coral outcropping. Blue, pink, purple, and orange colors glisten in the filtered sunlight. I turn around and those batfish are still behind us, and a school of jacks glides between us and the surface.

Looking in nooks and crannies we find a few nudibranchs and many colorful cardinalfishes and small gobies. A vibrant coral grouper lies silently along the coral ledge hoping we’ll go away and not notice him. The bright red skin with sparkling blue dots is hard to ignore. Just then I see a scorpionfish draped over the coral up ahead. They usually make pretty good photo subjects because they lay still! He poses for me and doesn’t seem too upset that I insist on getting in close.

We’ve about exhausted our time at this depth and need to work our way up to the top of the mount. I’m always delighted to see the Oriental Sweetlips with its black, white, and yellow body covered in stripes and polka dots. You only see them in this part of the Pacific and their markings are so unusual. As we drift along over the top of massive stands of pointed finger corals the damselfish dart out to challenge us entering their territory. I wish we could just hover here for hours . . .

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