The primitive northwest coast of New Britain Island in Papua, New Guinea is the home of countless virgin reefs and waters unexplored by anybody. Last June, Sportdiving Magazine Australia invited Gutsy Tuason to board the FeBrina and join an exploratory trip through the islands of Tolokiwa, Umboi, Sakar, Ritter, and Borgen Bay. The resulting adventure was a spectacular underwater tour of marine life highlighted by Silver-Tip sharks, Pilot-Whales, and a Crabb 2nd B-25 bomber wreck from 1943. The low point: a near-crippling brush with the bends that almost sends our man to the decompression chamber

This has got to be one of the longest weekends of my life.

It started off on Saturday morning after only three hours of sleep. I flew out to Taytay to shoot for Nat Geo (French edition) the whole day Saturday. I slept well that evening, and the next day I caught an 8:00 A.M. flight back to Manila. Got in the car and drove three hours to Anilao for the Mares shoot. Got back into the car and drove to Manila. Met with Nat Geo and Mares to download pics. Walked across the street to the internet cafe, and captioned (or tried to caption) my 30-page Raja Ampat story for Rogue. Got home at 1:30 A.M., and packed for this Papua, New Guinea trip. Had about an hour’s sleep before I had to get up and catch my 7:30 A.M. flight to Singapore. The three-hour flight was fine, but didn’t get to sleep.

Arrived in Singapore, George La picked me up. Went and grabbed some coffee, then went straight to Asian Diver. Met with Carol, had some lunch, and then went to see Andrew at Sea & Sea. Sorted out my housing and bought a couple of strobes, and before I knew it, I was back at Singapore Airport in time to catch my 8:55 P.M. flight to Port Moresby. I thought I could finally get some sleep during the six-hour and 20-minute flight, but the fuckin’ flight was so bumpy (with thunder storms breaking out)—and to add to my trauma, there was a two-year old kid with a set of lungs that would put Tarzan to shame. No sleep, got into Port Moresby at 5:00 A.M. Got ripped off at immigration (visa fee of $50)—shouldn’t have been charged. Grab a courtesy van to Airways hotel, and they want to charge me $150 for a room for the day. Fuck that. Made my way back to the airport. Nowhere to hang out ‘til my 3:00 P.M. flight, so I find a spot between the domestic and international terminal. Crash out on a concrete bench for like an hour until the security guard wakes me up. He offers to take me around town—probably not a good idea, but I say yes. He gets off work in like 30 minutes, which at this point gives me little time to think about whether this is such a good idea. I got the movies Hostel and Turistas going through my head, but I trust the stranger. He gets back, and I gotta sleep, man. He takes me to a motel that charges 50 kina for two hours of sleep. At this point, I’m really thinking Hostel!!!

Really dingy place, but I am so fucking tired. I gotta crash. So, my new friend leaves me to sleep, but, before leaving, he says, “I will be back in two hours. Do not open the door for anybody else!” Holy shit, this IS Hostel!!! I don’t know how I slept, but I did—and woke up still in bed and not strapped to some operating table with a guy standing over me, holding a scalpel in one hand and a power drill in the other. All good. Grab a beer with Karap (the security guard), we chat about our lives, and I ask him to take me to the local market so I can take some snaps of the locals. He tells me stories about rascals and robbery at the markets, but said that—since I was with him—No problem. Probably not a good idea again, but we go check it out before the mob gets too unruly. We split for the airport. It is so nice and cool at the departure lounge, I crash out, thinking that Barry (Publisher of Sportdiving Magazine Australia) will wake me up. But he’s late for his connection and passes right by me, doesn’t see me sleeping. A stranger wakes me up and asks if I’m going to Hoskins. Fuck yeah, run to the plane, make it, and after a two-hour flight, finally get to Hoskins. But it’s still another hour by car. Barry and I have a couple of drinks for the ride and finally get to Walindi Resort. It’s June 12, 7:00 P.M. I meet Max, the owner of Walindi and part owner of the FeBrina, the boat I will be getting on for the exploratory trip throughout the northwest coast of New Britain Island, covering the islands of Tolokiwa, Umboi, Sakar, Ritter, and Borgen Bay. I meet the group that I will be going with, the Austin boys—John and George. They have actually heard of me, and are very enthusiastic about having me on board. These guys actually planned this trip in the hopes of finding the Crabb 2nd B-25 bomber that went down in Borgen Bay in 1943. It is also to find some pristine reefs. After a great dinner, Barry and I headed off to the room, had a couple more drinks, talked about music. I found out that he actually likes R.E.M., and, because he is 67 years old, I thought that was pretty cool. He found out that I like Gordon Lightfoot, and I think that he thought that was pretty cool as well. The time had come, finally, after not sleeping for two nights, to hit the hay.

Woke up, got a great eight hours of sleep. Haven’t done that in a while. After breakfast, headed into town and checked out the local K-Mart (Kimbe Mart). Fucken mad house, tons of people all over the street. I buy some supplies (choco, toothpaste, alcohol—for my ear), and head to the wholesale store with John and George to buy supplies for villagers in Tolokiwa—a war village. George took up a collection during his goodbye party and was able to muster up $1,000 to buy school suppplies and other stuff for the local school (Moi Moi Community School). It took forever to sort out the supplies, so we headed back to the resort, had some lunch, and I went back to work on some e-mails (again for Rogue magazine). These bastards have me working even when I’m not on a shoot, which will eventually end up with them anyway. As the day drew to a close, a massive thunderstorm loomed overhead. The rain and lightning came down like shrapnel in a Baghdad market. We had a problem, two guys on the trip were coming in on the afternoon flight, but had to turn back to Port Moresby (couldn’t land due to weather). So our departure was pushed back to the morning instead of the evening. We dined on the boat and hit the hay fairly early.

We awoke to dive in Kimbe Bay while waiting for the two late divers. I skipped the first dive to give myself some time to set up my camera. The day was spent diving around Kimbe Bay. The sunset was stellar, sailing towards Widu Island in glass seas to be there by midnight—in time to pick up our guide and interpreter, Dickie Doyle.

Kimbe Bay. Joelle’s Reef. Clear visibility, good, hard coral. Barracudas and jacks. Mantis shrimp. Lots of reef fish, bommie.

South Ema. Oceanic triggerfish, more barracuda, jacks, groupers,lance blenny, bommie.

Annie Sophie’s Reef. Lots of nice large, orange sponges, striped trevally, big-eye trevally, dogtooth tuna, grey reef shark, barracudas, bommie.

Woke up at 5 A.M. Was making myself coffee, and talking to one of the kitchen girls. I asked her if Dicky had arrived as I emerged from the lower cabin deck. Nice guys and a wealth of information on the area. Dicky was born in Rabaul, and has lived on the island for 40 years. We were anchored in Widu Island—and looking down off the side of the boat, it looked like one hell of a muck dive site. Dove around Widu and had four pretty good dives before heading out to Tolokiwa Island. Captain Al figures it will take 12 hours to do the run. Al is a pretty funny guy. He told Barry just before dinner, “If I took the bandage off mi nose, you wouldn’t eat ya dinner!” We all had drinks on the bow at sunset—flat, calm, and ready for what was in store for the next day.

At dinner, seas started getting rough.

Widu Reef, Widu Island. Drift dive, wall, bumphead parrotfish, eagle ray, pygmy devil ray.

Zee Arches, Widu Island. Denise seahorse, surgeonfish, barracuda, snappers, sweetlips, arch formation.

Zee Arches, Widu Island. Shot wide-angle reef scenics.

Warage Island. Riger Island. Bommie—not much. Looks like it was damaged by dynamite. Porceline crab, blennies, gobi on whip.
Woke up several times in the night, sea’s rough as shit. Galley looks like a bomb hit it. As the sun rose, could see the beautiful outline of Tolokiwa Island. We finally set anchor next to Midi. Sooner than you could say “Papua New Guinea,” there was a canoe heading towards our boat. It was the villagers the Austin boys met last year. After a brief hello, the exchange of goods was made. So, we went off diving (great dive, by the way—see DIVES # 8 and # 9). We get back, and apparently there was a situation with some of the villagers. The bastards wanted more stuff, and they didn’t want to leave the boat until they got it. So Captain Al had a bit of a strong word with them and off they went—which sort of reminded me of one of my favorite sayings: No good deed goes unpunished. We did two dives on Tolokiwa, and then pulled anchor and headed towards Umboi Island. As soon as we got to a beautiful anchorage at Umboi, the villagers paddled out to give their greetings and to sell some of their wares. I did a couple of dives at Umboi (they were O.K. at best), and then slipped into the water on snorkel and shot the village people on canoes. Pretty cool shots. We all had drinks at sunset and headed in for dinner. After a round of jokes and stories, called it a night.

Tolokiwa Island. Great dive. School of bumphead parrotfish, Maori wrasse, rainbow runners, skip jack, dogtooth tuna, loads of reef fish, blennies, and one grey reef shark.

Tolokiwa Island. Chelsea’s place. Grey reef, white tip, loads of fish. Terrain varies from sheer drop off to sloping sandy area with bommies. School rainbow runners. Ended up in shallow water with waves breaking (with John).

Umboi Island. Lots of sediment on reef. Large school hunchback snapper.

Umboi Island. Anchorage area. Looks like it has potential for a muck diving site. Lots of gobies and blennies, some squid at the back of the boat.

Sunday. Woke up at four A.M. We pulled anchor at six, and headed for our first dive off Hein Island, 20 minutes from Umboi. Did three dives there. The last was our best dive so far. A real cracker of a dive (see Dive # 14)! Right after the dive, we had lunch while en route to Cape Gloucester. Because we lost a day, we had to skip Sakar Island—the mythical island that has a perpetual mist cloud on top of it due to the crater lake. Legend has it that there are crocodiles 3,700 feet above sea level.
We got to the reef marker just off Cape Gloucester/Borgen Bay in time for a dusk/night dive. The boat backed into the chase boat and almost sank it. John thinks it was because he was talking Captain Al’s ear off at the bridge. Hmm . . . am not surprised!

Anyway, did the night dive with the Austin boys, with no light. Wish I brought one. John went straight down about 100 feet. Was sharing with George when John came back up to where we were. We turned off all the lights and saw puffs of fluorescent clouds all over the water column. Very cool. It turns out that these little shrimp were making these clouds. Not quite sure what they were doing, but they looked cool—so I shot them and exited the water after about 45 minutes. Watched a war video until 10:00 P.M.

Hein Island. Kathleen Marie’s reef. Great dive, grey reef sharks, white tip reef, rainbow runners, oceanic triggerfish, hunchback snapper, sweetlips, groupers, fusiliers. Fuckload of fish. Sloping reef. Wall and sandy area.

Same spot as previous dive. Same sort plus a crocodile fish.

Bommie just off Hein Island. Top of the reef starts at 25 feet. Went down the slope against the current to about 55 feet. Ran into a small school of barracuda and then a frisky dogtooth tuna (five feet long). As the current picked up, a couple of grey reefies showed up. Fought current until we got to a basin at 130 feet filled with sand and surrounded with beautiful sea fans—then things really went off. At least six grey reefies going nuts over my strobe. Then the tuna came in together with a large king mackerel. At the same time, I was surrounded by schooling trevallies, snappers, the barracuda. There was even a two-foot long reefie wanting to join in on the action. Stellar dive!

Cape Gloucester. Beacon Reef. Night dive. Not much really, but a few lobsters and this amazing red shrimp in mid-water giving off phosphorescenct blue, orange, and yellow. First time I ever saw it. Well worth the night dive!

Slept in until 5:30 A.M. this morning. After the first dive, we headed to shore so the Austin boys could walk around and get a feel of what it was like during the “other D-day.” The boys got all dressed up for their on-shore excursion. Dicky went along to drop off something at the local hospital and to get laid. Apparently, he has a girlfriend at Cape Gloucester. The boys were back by lunch, and we headed for our third dive pack out on the reefs (see DIVES # 18 and # 19). We had one last dive for the day. As we grouped up underwater, I found myself buddying up with Baz, with J.D. lurking behind us. Alfie kind of led the dive. We hit the sweet spot. A white-tip shark came in to check us out, then saw lots of fish facing into the current. It was a good time to do my shark call. Had six grey reefs buzz us, and then out of the depths came a perky nine-foot silver-tip!!! This all happened in shallow water (65 feet).

Borgen Bay Reef. Near Reef Beacon. Clear water, some O.K. macro life, but not much fish at all. The Austin boys had a good dive. They went over the saddle and had plenty of action.

Borgen Bay Reef. Near landing station. Small reef—macro, blennies, clownfish.

Borgen Bay Reef. Backhander Reef. Went with Alfie. Water super clear. Brought the bottle. Had three reefies and a large mackerel. Eagle ray to start off the dive. Sharks did not come too close. They look like guppies in the photo. Great wall 90 degree drop.

Borgen Bay Reef. Kenny’s Korner. Shallow dive. Zebra dartfish, gobies, blennies, schooling rabbitfish, great visibility.

Borgen Bay Reef. Porky’s. Captain Al’s pick. Reef damaged from storms. Decent macro. Schools of surgeonfish, white-tip reef sharks, six grey reef sharks (one quite an impressive size and—to top it all off—a silver-tip). Brought them in using my fish call!

Tuesday. Woke up at 3:00 A.M. Downloaded pics, and then got ready for the same dive as the last dive of yesterday. The plan was for Alfie to bring the bottle down and work his magic (see DIVE # 21). Spent some time at depth. My computer read a deco stop for three minutes at 20 feet—and then 11 minutes at 10 feet. Got up from dive, did all the deco stops, and was fine. Did the second dive which was hard with lots of swimming. The only violation I made was probably when I went back down to 45 feet to shoot another subject. Got up from the second dive, and after about 10 minutes—as I was sitting down to download, my right arm started to hurt a bit. About a three on a scale of one to ten. It sort of felt like the time I got DCI (bends) four years ago. I still went on the third dive. Nothing crazy, max 80 feet. No deep dive. I can’t remember if the pain went away during the dive. Got up from dive 3, and the pain starts up after about five minutes. This time: a four out of ten. I feel fine, just my arms and shoulder hurt. Getting a bit nervous now. I mean, am not too worried about myself. Worst case: type II DCI, nothing life-threatening. Just don’t want the guys to have to skip any dives because they have to run me back to the resort or fly me out to Port Moresby. Thirty minutes later, I tell Barry my arm hurts, and then five minutes later I ask Doctor Greg about my pain. Two minute assessment. Time for oxygen. Fuck! No diving for the rest of the day. Am sent down to the cabin to bed with massive oxygen bottle. As the rest of the guys go for a great dive, I spend five hours in the room on oxygen. Dicky and Alan sort me out, the doctors come in to check on me, and the Austin boys as well. John feels really bad about it. Everyone is great, thanks. Pain goes away a bit—from a four to two by dinnertime.

At dinner, Barry tells us a story about six guys who save up to go on a coral trout fishing adventure, hired a boat and everything. On day one, one of the guys drops dead from a heart attack. They have a meeting and decide that they have two options. Go back to port and lose all their investment or continue (which Mat would have wanted them to do if he was alive). They stick him in a freezer, and continue with the trip. So, everyday as they deposit the catch in the freezer, they’d see Mat and say, “Oh mate, we had a great day. Wish you could have been with us.” I was laughing so hard, my arm was starting to hurt again.

Porky’s Reef. Borgen Bay. I made a plan to dive the same spot with Alfie, but this time bringing the magic bottle with me. I did my call, saw one grey reef, but it was keeping its distance. Hmm? Kinda weird. Alfie is about 100 meters away. All of a sudden, he is banging his tank like a madman. Hmm . . . this doesn’t sound like just a call for a grey reef. I head towards him, and—out of the blue—a big silvertip comes into view. Big bastard, three plus meters. At this point, I dig into my trench, so to speak, at 165 feet, and the shark makes numerous passes at me. There is nothing like being able to call a shark from the wild and keep her interested in you for more than just one pass. Coming back with images makes the encounter even sweeter.

The site looked good from on top, but turned out to be a real dud. Lots of algae and no fish, current, or coral. Hard dive and—about 10 minutes after the dive—my arm was starting to hurt just a bit.

Sperm Reef. Borgen Bay (tail section). Great site, lots of fish and some sharks. Nice big elephant ear sponges, schooling surgeonfish, mouse groupers, sweetlips, several large kingfish, clownfish (white bonnet). Got up from the dive, my arm hurts. Oh boy, it’s the same feeling from four years ago! Fuck! Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad!!!

Wednesday. Woke up at 4:00 A.M., arm was fine which wasn’t that good because if it gets better with oxygen, then it probably is DCI. Skipped the first two dives, then decided to go for it on the third (see DIVE # 24). Came up from the dive, and everything was fine. Will have to take it easy for the rest of the trip. It’s funny—one moment all is good, and then after one dive, the whole trip is shot. Then, after another dive, all is good again. Did a second dive at the crater. Much of the dive was good (see DIVE # 25), but best of all, the shoulder is all good. Took too long, so the guys left me to go ashore. Shot some villagers trading fruits. Great sunset in the crater with locals in canoes around the boat. Quiet, still, and not a light around us.

Back in the saddle, had to see one of the signature spots in P.N.G. Cousteau actually spent a whole week just at this site. Lots of fish, screaming current. Huge school trevally and barracuda. Stayed mostly at 45 feet, max 58. Bottom time 35 minutes, safety stop 20 minutes at 15 to 20 feet. All good.

Widu Island Crater. Muck dive. Ribbon eels, inimicus, gobies, blennies, black ribbon eel (I think this variation is rare).

Thursday. Woke up at 3:30 A.M. Went to the back of the boat, and saw lots of box jellyfish in the back. Was thinking of getting in, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because there were a lot of little ones around as well. We pulled anchor, and went to dive Barney’s Reef (see DIVE # 26). After that, went to Krakerfat (see DIVE # 27). Shot Josie with schooling fish. For the third dive, went to Dicky’s place. He claims it’s the best dive in the world. Well, if I had found the red-spotted freckled faced blenny there, it would have been. After the dive, we were supposed to go check out Dicky’s house and sign the guest book which includes the likes of Cousteau, Peter Gabriel, and Paul Allen (Microsoft). So, after lunch and a tearful goodbye to Dicky, we headed out for our fourth dive. As we sailed for Kimbe Bay, the sunset was just stellar.

Barney’s Reef. Witu Island. Clear water shoals of snapper, jacks, sweetlips, rabbitfish. Easy dive, pretty dive.

Dicky’s Place. Shallow muck site. Looked all dive for the red-spotted blenny, but no luck.

Barney’s Reef. Big shoal of snapper. Lots of anthias. Visibility not so good.

Krakerfat Reef. Big school trevally and barracuda. Shot josie with the schools.

Friday. 3:00 A.M. Woke up to a windy, rainy day. The first of the whole trip. Our plan for today was to work our way to Walindi while hitting some of the good reefs along the way in. The first dive was a shark attraction dive (no feeding, just bait in a bucket that they can’t get to—really pisses them off). Makes ‘em frisky, too (see DIVE # 30). The second dive was the Intact Jap. Zero. Oh boy, the Austin boys creamed their wetsuits over this one. The last dive before heading in was superb. One of the most scenic reefs I have ever dived. We had a great Friday night barbecue at Walindi back in port. Had cold SP (one of my favorite beers) and met Nathalie Le Riche, a famous and talented P.N.G. artist. Her stuff is everywhere, and it’s really good. She is pleasing on the eyes, as well—with a nice bubbly personality. She followed the love of her life to P.N.G., and is now a huge artist there. Baz and I turned in early, while the doctors, Buckey, and J.D. stayed up chatting.

Inglis Shoal. Shark attraction dive. The moment I jump into the water, there are three grey reef sharks circling the boat in mid-water. Alfie set up a chum bucket at 55 feet, and for the next 45 minutes had eight grey reef sharks and one white-tip shark buzzing us. Great photo ops. At one point, had to back out of the “shark pit.” They were getting a bit frisky. Got great shots of grey reefs in action.

Fully Intact Japanese Zero from WWII. What more can I say—it’s a plane under water. Even instruments were still visible.

Susan Reef. Kimbe Bay. This has got to be one of the prettiest little reefs I have ever been to. Sea whips and sponges together with giant 10- to 12-foot seafans!

Plan for the day is to do three dives on the day boat with the guest of Walindi. We were supposed to do Joelle’s, CJ, and Vanessa Reef. But I don’t know how these guys (Austin!) fucken sorted out another dive on the fucken zero! They just can’t get enough of the freaking plane! The engine went “kaboom” on the way out to the third dive, but it turned out to be a good time to set up lunch. Rescue boat arrives and we switch boats, do the so-so dive, and head back. Just as I had perched myself on the roof of the boat, cig in hand, dreaming of an SP, and an iPod in full swing (“Somebody Told Me” by The Killers), I see a pod of dolphins. But as we get closer, we think they’re some sort of small whales, and the crew shout out that they think there is an Orca amongst this group of Pilot Whales. Oh boy, I start creaming my boardshorts just at the thought of possibly getting Orca shots underwater. John and I get into the water, in the path of a large bull pilot whale. Sure enough, the whale darts past us, I can’t get a shot, but the crew on the boat shouts—no worries, there is one coming up behind you. I turn around, and it’s not a whale. It’s a silky shark, three or four of them! I start shooting away, fucken great, there is a trail of sharks following the whales. We try for the next hour or so to get into the water and shoot the whales, but the only thing I managed to do was knock off my housing and almost flood my D2X. I didn’t get the whale shots, but got the silky. So, like George said, it’s good to be a pig, but not a hog.

Zero. What can I say, except that the Austin boys just can’t get enough of that Zero. Better weather this time.

CJ Reef. I can’t fucken remember.

Baz and the doctors left this morning. Austins and myself are scheduled for two dives. We also try to work the passage where we left the whales yesterday. Before the first dive, we had some dolphins, and, after an interesting lunch at Restoff Island feeding kites chicken bones, we headed for Walindi. Two seconds out of the island, we run into a pod of dolphins. I try to shoot them by hanging on the net at the side of the boat. I felt like a dead fish on a gillnet. We got to see the dolphins, but I would have to say that it’s almost not possible to shoot dolphin through the net. Should have stuck to shooting them on the surface, hindsight being 20/20. Called it an early night while the boys had intense conversations with each other. Was a bit worried sharing the room with them—thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep because they would talk my ear off. But, when it’s time to sleep in Texas, it’s time to sleep.

South Ema. Kimbe Bay.

Vanessa Reef. Kimbe Bay. Great Coral, wide-angle heaven. Fantastic shallow hard reef.

Monday. No diving. Planned to go into town for priority # 1. Score some valiums over the counter at any Kimbe drugstore, and then go see Nathalie and shoot her at the studio. Well, I guess they changed the clause, no valium over the counter. Nat was cool, nice little gallery. Back at Walindi by lunch, and downloaded pics for the rest of the day. Turn in at 9:00 P.M. Got to get up at 3:00 A.M. for the flight to Port Moresby in the morning.

Tuesday. All good things must come to an end, and am ready to head back home as well. The boys were nice enought to get up and hang with me until I left for my 6:00 A.M. flight. From Hoskins—which is an hour away from Walindi—it’s a 30-minute flight to Rabaul, then an hour and a half to Port Moresby. Sat next to a man named Steven and his son Emmanuel who is deaf and mute. He kept looking at my pictures as I was shooting out the window, so I showed him the fish pictures. He loved the blenny shots. I knew kids would love the blennies. Anyway, I promised him I would send pictures to him. If there is one thing I have to remember to do after the trip, it’s to get those pics to Emmanuel!

I wasn’t even out of the terminal, and I could already see my man Karap waiting for me. His wife has made me a bag with the P.N.G. colors. Boy, this morning is just full of warm fuzzies. We check in and then head out to Boroko Market to score a few things. We end up leaving right away, though, because Karap recognized a bunch of notorious pick-pockets. I ask him if we’re safe, and he gives me the standard answer: No problem! I have my arm out of the cab on the way back to the airport, and Karap tells me to put it in or we’ll end up going to the Port Moresby General Hospital instead of on a flight to Manila. Haha, the guy has a sense of humor. We hang a few hours before his evening security shift at the airport. We say a long goodbye. I’m a bit beat. I doze off with this vision of Dingdong Dantes walking around the Port Moresby airport with two albino midgets . . . It’s time to go back home. 

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