A love rekindled in Papua New Guinea

In our ever changing and increasingly busy world, could it be possible to lose your passion for diving? "Impossible" we hear you cry! Everyone should make time for diving, after all it's good for you - physically, emotionally and socially. Kate had lost the bug however, but her adventure in Papua New Guinea put things right.

I have a confession to make. I lost my passion for diving. It is no secret to those of us who treasure our marine environment that it is under more pressure than probably any of our other natural habitats. Although the excitement of having that wonderful privilege that scuba diving gives you, of being able to enter another world never left me, I also began to see the effects of violent weather and pollution and my enthusiasm for diving became tainted. So I stopped. 

But then I realised I really missed it; I missed hauling myself into unforgiving neoprene, pushing spit around a mask, the inelegant shuffle when burdened with tank, weights, and fins. So I phoned Dive Worldwide. 'Papua New Guinea' I was told, without hesitation. Diving there would restore my enthusiasm for the underwater world.

Papua New Guinea is far away and takes a correspondingly long time to get to, so we wanted to make the most of our time there. We had just over two weeks and started at the resort of Lissenung, which occupies a tiny island off the coast of Kavieng. Small, simple and unpretentious it was the perfect peaceful place to arrive with jetlag, a stack of books and our dive kit. Our very first dive, to a site just twenty minutes away, made me realise just what I'd been missing. The reef was magnificent. A riot of colour and diversity and the fish were so abundant it was sometimes hard to see beyond them. Every dive had a highlight.

From there we headed to the mainland resort of Tufi, perched in a magnificent setting above a fjord. Again we were struck by the sheer beauty of the reefs and the amount of species we'd see on one dive, and it was here that I saw a creature that had long been on my wish list. We had seen sharks on almost every dive; grey reef, black tip and white tip, but nothing prepares you for the sheer adrenalin rush that hits you when out in the blue you catch site of the torpedo that is a hammerhead.  We returned home and immediately starting planning our next underwater adventure.

Once again, I'm hooked!

This article is featured in our current seasonal brochure. You can order your own copy of our seasonal brochure on our website.

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