I had a chance to go on Mike Ball's "Paradise Sport" boat out of Kavieng this past June and it was nice. They followed the exact route laid out in the lonely planet PNG dive guide, which was written by Bob Halstead (I think he still owns the Febrina). The diving is very nice, but visibility was a bit reduced, sharks were featured but rarely appeared and the group was somewhat older, 50-ish so not everybody wanted to dive everytime.
Click here to see 23 photos from my PNG dive trip
Unfortunately I had completed the Coral Sea trip on Mike Ball's Super Sport just 2 weeks prior which was absolutely fantastic and set a high standard which the Paradise Sport never attained. Sure, it was more spacious and the food was just as great, but the visibility wasn't anywhere near what the Coral Sea had and there were fewer macro opportuinities meaning I took 50% fewer photos.
The Paradise Sport had accidently been lodged on a reef during the prior week's trip and still listed a bit, although not the full 30 degrees the crew said when the collision occurred.
The trip was most dissappointing in that they had told me in Cairns, AUS that the PNG trip featured a Nautilus dive where I could get photos of these elusive cephalopods. It was that point more than any other that influenced me to book the PNG trip on the spur of the moment.
Within hours of arriving at the PS in Kavieng they made it clear that Nautilus dives wouldn't happen. Allegedly, the cray (lobster) trap had been snagged on a reef the week before and was badly bent needing to be repaired. They normally send the cray trap down to gather the Nautilus and bring them up to ~80' depths to release for photographers. They had two Engineers on board and neither lifted a finger to fix the cray traps despite repeated requests by the guests. The excuse was they didn't have the the wire to repair the trap with.
I didn't believe this as I had seen the engineering room on the Spoil Sport trip and it was a great workshop, complete with welding and wire supplies.
My camera's flip-tray had sheared a pivot while on the second dive on the Spoil Sport trip. The trip director, Blake, was a real "can-do" guy and took it to their Engineer, Steve. I was thinking that my underwater photography was over and truly believed that it wouldn't be fixed, when in a half an hour Steve returned it fully fixed. I was amazed and he took me on a tour of the Engineering area and it was very well appointed.
To hear from the Paradise Sport that they didn't have wire to fix a cray trap was unbelievable. They had two Engineers on the PS, twice as many as on the Spoil Sport. It also seemed that the Paradise Sport engineer, Noel, got to be the first in the water on most PNG dives because he was shooting some personal video.
Oh well...
I have the impression that better diving can be found in the Coral Sea or Indonesia and would return there prior to going to PNG again, even with the Bali bombings. The Wakatobi resort looks great, anyone been there?
