Rabaul PNG - Dive Report

[planetary soul]

January 2008
Rabaul, Papua New Guinea

We dove with Gerry at Rapopo Dive Centre who was really friendly and even took us around to some historical sites after the dive. Recommended.

Iwate Maru - So-so shore dive in a calm bay. Due to rough weather we couldn't go to some of the better sites. The wreck isn't in such good shape and the viz was pretty poor that day. The water was unbelievably warm and we did see an interesting fish that I'd never seen before. Have to look that one up still. A good variety of lionfish and lots of batfish here.

Submarine Base - We beared the rough weather and struggled our way to this dive site, but it was well worth it for my 100th dive! A beautiful wall dive but we had terrible viz and the dark skies didn't help with it. Apparently it's the worst viz Gerry had ever seen here. Unlucky us! In any case, it was a very nice dive and I can only imagine how great it would be with good visibility. Our dive was cut rather short due to a mistake on the part of the dive shop.

 

[planetary soul]

the viz wasn't so good, but here are a few photos anyway

 

[saipandiver]

What was the dive shop's mistake?

 

[planetary soul]

They didn't fill one of the tanks up after the last dive so it was nearly empty. No spares either, so disappointingly, it was a shorter dive than planned. Apparently it's tough to get reliable help.

 

[silent running]

Thanks for the report PS. Did you dive anywhere else in PNG?

 

[planetary soul]

No, just the 2 dives in Rabaul. Would've been nice to do more though!

 

[Steve Saunders]

Hi PS,

I work at the Rabaul Volcano Observatory, I saw your image of the Sub Base tunnels. Now I'm interested in the geology I was wondering if you have a higher resolution copy of *.103.jpg? You can see plenty of faults. I will go and measure them and get close-up images, but your view from a boat is ideal. Also do you have anyother photos of the cliff face.

Back in 1998 I was diving on the drop-off at Sub Base and we had a magnitude 7 earthquake, we could actually hear it as a rumbling and the fish darted about for a few minutes.