Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea

I’m writing from my suite at the Airways Hotel in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea where I am awaiting my flight home after spending the past two weeks traveling and diving in the Milne Bay area of Papua New Guinea.

New Guinea is the second largest island in the world. I traveled to the western part of the island late last year when I visited Raja Ampat, the islands to the immediate west of Indonesian West Papua. The eastern half of the island is the country of Papua New Guinea, independent for the past thirty years but formerly an Australian colony. New Guinea is a rugged island, consisting of a ridge of tall mountains covered by dense jungle and shrouded by misty clouds, steeply sloping into the ocean.

I arrived in Alotau, a town near the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea, in late September and spent a day there to attend a meeting conducted by the Coral Reef Alliance (w) and Conservation International (for the purpose of establishing marine protected areas in the Milne Bay area), a week at a small resort on the island’s north coast and a week on a boat cruising to the region’s outer islands.

Alotau is a town with a small modern airport, a harbor, a couple of hotels, a hardware store, a market and even an internet café. But only a short distance from Alotau, the narrow but paved road turns to gravel, and then again to dirt, as it weaves through the dense jungle vegetation, frequently offering a glimpse of the brilliant white sand beaches lined with tall, thin coconut palms, and surrounded, of course, by the blue ocean.

Spread along the road were small clusters of tan or brown colored huts woven from thatch, with the local people going about their everyday business. At one village, palm fronds and tree limbs were scattered across the road; a local speed bump. Near Alotau, pigs wandered along the side of the road, piglets hurrying to keep up as their mothers crossed the road in front of our car, but as we traveled further to the northwest there were fewer pigs, but more chickens, a sign of the decreasing affluence of the villages further from town, where many people lack adequate protein in their diets (even the reef fish from the adjacent ocean fails to provide sufficient protein for many people).

New Guineans are friendly people, universally stopping to smile and wave at passing vehicles, their teeth stained red from chewing beetlenut, the local vice. Similarly, everywhere our boat stopped, villagers came out to meet us in their outrigger canoes, offering to sell shells they had collected or produce grown in their small gardens, or fishing with string of monofilament attached to a used soft drink bottle and using coconut for bait. Apparently the ancestors of these villagers weren’t always so friendly; during my visit I hiked to a couple of ‘skull caves”; caves filled with human skulls implying that the people here were once not so welcoming of strangers.

Of course, my primary reasons for traveling to Milne Bay were diving and underwater photography, so that is how I spent much of my time in the area, first at the new Tawali Resort and later on Mike Ball’s Paradise Sport.

The reefs of Milne Bay consist mainly of fields of hard corals, although some of the reefs, particularly those found at the outer islands of Nuakata and Normanby, enjoy large and colorful sea fans and soft corals. Large barrel sponges thrive and elephant ear sponges in yellow and green are abundant on many reefs. Tall trees of green tubastrea corals are commonplace, often surrounded by swarms of small orange anthias (a small fish) and large colonies of yellow cabbage corals cascade down many reefs. The water in the Milne Bay area is very clear and blue so visibility is often outstanding.

Milne Bay is one of the most biologically diverse coral reef environments in the world. Assessments conducted in Milne Bay several years ago recorded nearly 430 species of coral, 950 species of mollusks and over 1,100 species of fish, many found nowhere else.

While I was diving, this diversity of marine life was very much apparent. Tiny, colorful gobies were abundant, staying close to their homes of coral or on the sand. Anemonefish of many species were found in their host anemones on nearly every dive. Venomous lionfish were plentiful. Unusual marine life such as harlequin and hairy ghost pipefish could be seen with what could almost be called regularity. Colorful sea slugs, called nudibranchs, were commonplace. On several dives I found Crocodilefish staring at me with their large, bulbous, lace covered eyes, and octopus peered cautiously from their hiding spots in the coral. Large fish, turtles, sharks and even manta rays were occasionally seen but were less common, obviously facing fishing pressure from the local population looking to supplement their diets.

At Lauadi, named for the adjacent village on the north coast, a dense school of yellow and silver fusiliers numbering in the thousands swam in only fifteen feet of water over the reef near the sandy beach. Soon, a large silver trevally began to stalk the school of fusiliers. The trevally slowly circled the fusiliers, rounding the school into a tight ball of fish. With in a sudden burst of acceleration, the trevally struck. Startled, the fusiliers scattered; their silver sides reflecting the afternoon sunlight like a stream of thousands of small mirrors rushing through the blue water. This took place over and over until the trevally achieved its goal, swallowed its victim in a single gulp and disappeared into the deep water past the reef.

The area’s best known dive site is further up the north coast at near Cape Vogel; the wreck of the B-17 Bomber “Blackjack” which is considered by many to be the finest World War II aircraft wreck in the world. Following a bombing run to Rabaul in July, 1943, the Blackjack lost two of its four engines and after flying through the night in an effort to reach friendly territory was ditched by pilot Ralph Deloach. Fortunately, the ten crew members of the Blackjack all survived the crash with the assistance of the inhabitants of nearby Boga Boga village. The wreck now rests on the bottom of the ocean at the base of the reef in just over 150 feet of water.

Here, my plan was to dive with Peter, the chef on the Paradise Sport; the dive boat I was staying on for the week, and to photograph Peter as he explored the wreck. Peter and I entered the water from a small inflatable dive boat and immediately began to descend along the face of the reef. Following a line attached to the wreck, we saw the Blackjack emerge from the dimly lit blue water. Blackjack is a large wreck, spanning one hundred ten feet from wingtip to wingtip with a seventy five foot long fuselage. I approached the Blackjack from the tail and proceeded along the fuselage toward the starboard wing where I positioned myself in front of the wing between the two engines to photograph Peter, who positioned himself over the cockpit. After ten minutes on the wreck, we began our slow ascent to the water’s surface, being careful to take our required decompression stops to reduce the risk of decompression sickness, also known as “the bends.”

I mentioned earlier that when I first arrived in Alotau I attended a meeting conducted by the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), w, and Conservation International for the purpose of establishing marine protected areas in the Milne Bay area. CORAL facilitated a week of meetings with local marine recreation operators and resource owners to discuss practices for sustainable coral reef tourism and a strategy for financing conservation activities (an effective user fee system). These meetings were an early but important step in the Milne Bay Community Based Marine and Coastal Conservation Project which is focused on the conservation and sustainable use of marine resources in the area, including development of community managed marine protected areas to protect the marine ecosystems and preserve biodiversity. Toward this goal, CORAL is assisting in the development of Milne Bay as a coral reef sustainable destination, one where marine recreation can successfully coexist with thriving coral reefs.

Milne Bay is on the eastern edge of the “Coral Triangle,” an area containing the world’s richest marine biodiversity, stretching from Malaysia and Indonesia, north to the Philippines, and east to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Papua New Guinea. Because of the richness of these reefs in the Milne Bay area, they have great conservation value and potential for ecotourism. Ecotourism could be a potentially life improving economic opportunity for local residents, but without thoughtful implementation it could fail to fulfill its promise and could degrade the environment.