5 – 15 June 2010
We have been on idyllic Lissenung Island Resort since June 5 and have spent wonderful time catching up with our friends Dietmar and Ange Amon, the owners and operators of this lovely little dive resort in the Pacific. In the past, Dietmar and Ange have house sat for us while we were away on a job and they were in Cairns for some much needed R&R away from their island paradise. It is work for them to live this modern day Robinson Crusoe existence in Kavieng, PNG – having a rustic island with diving at their beach step. And this era being the 21st century, the island is hooked to wifi to keep internet junkies online when they have had enough of nature!
Two degrees south of the equator, this New Ireland archipelago abounds with beautiful islands fringed with stunning white sand beaches and beautiful palm trees. This narrow island group has a labyrinth of reefs, that with the season, make for great surfing, fishing and diving. These sites are well known for strong drifts and pelagic fish life at every tide change with incoming tides flushing in clear water from the deep Bismarck Sea.
In the famed dive site Albatross Passage, there was pelagic action happening in the blue with grey reef sharks, dogtooth tuna and spanish mackerel making close passes, but Yogi kept his nose close to the reef photographing small critters. The walls of the passage had so much life – gorgonian fans and black coral trees hosted macro life after macro life. We asked all our other dive mates if we could dive it again and again. There is wisdom in repeating dive sites and it was great our new diver friends thought the same way! And other than our penchant for repeating dive sites (quality over quantity as we often say), Yogi likes repeating photographing subjects for that slim chance of a cool behaviour.
We didn’t go far to get to our favorite dive site – the Lissenung house reef shallows. Our first dive in the seagrass bed at 3 meters was for 120 minutes with 100 bars left! Our succeeding dives were always as long and the results were just amazing. The critters and shallow reef were so photogenic! We only surfaced when our stomachs growled.
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