Got it, Ewaiea. Next time for the big trip. You dog, that's a great commute. We're paying $1500 a piece just to get to the boats, let alone the boat cost. After no experience, PNG will blow your mind. Above and below water. When down on the dives in Hawaii, multiply what you see by, oh, 20, and that's what you'll see in PNG. Just package the whole fish id book and that's what you saw. Remember my words on dive 1 in PNG.
The "stuck on a boat" issue is exactly why I highly suggest a liveaboard in an area with multiple islands. I found out the diff when I went to Nekton St Croix, where you anchor off the same city in the same spot every night (not their fault, gov't regulations requirement). With islands, you don't typically spend a night in the same place. You might anchor all day at one place, then move to another, then anchor for the night, or only move the boat at night to the next place and wake up in a new spot. Incredible sunsets. The jungle sounds on shore. The bats. The moon. No mosquitos on board.
On top of that, you have time to get up and eat, relax, take photos of the latest island and water view, write in the log, change the camera, BS, whatever, then your dive commute is ten steps. Back in the water. Relax. Yet, if you do all the dives, you have little time to kill.
Some of those boats give you a whole experience not just a dive trip. The Bilikiki in the Solomons was very cool. You go through various islands diving at seemingly idyllic spots. People that don't have much live here and there but with paradise on their doorstep, their children can swim like fish and never quit laughing. You see the real deal huts on stilts. Every day local natives paddle out to the boat, in dugout canoes that they made, to sell local produce which the cook uses. Fruit, flowers, jungle limes. The children with streaks of blond in their hair. We never stayed in the same spot. Coconut plantations. Jungle. Amazing blue water. Out to Mary Island, where the dives are spent listening to the volcano, rumbling and cracking, 60 miles away. Bass rumbling literally drumming you in the chest, while the bait ball swirls above you.
Lastly, to set expectations because I like to know the facts, a liveaboard isn't a guarantee that everybody is in one big loving group. Because some people board in groups, they can tend to stay in those groups. Human nature. However, I'd say it's easier to fit yourself in, than having to fit you and your significant others personalities into the group. Funny how apparently the littlest thing forms people's opinions. Amazing to me that people have the openmindedness to fly half way around the world to visit some faraway spot but won't talk to you because you don't always share the same opinion. Got to have tolerance.
Oh yeah, looks like you have to marry that girl for a good trip. My wife only thanks me for that 12 day Komodo trip.
