Posts Tagged papua new guinea

Purple Haze

Fri, Jun 25th, 2010  |   Places, Adventures 2 Comments

Some of the most amazing sights I come across in my travels are above water.

Take this sunset for example:

sunset in port moresby

I took this picture last year in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, just outside the yacht club. I’m a huge fan of diving in PNG, but I don’t think most people would associate the city of Port Moresby with the word “beautiful”.

Well, on this evening…just before we departed for the Eastern Fields…Port Moresby was certainly beautiful.

The entire city was bathed in a breathtaking, iridescent purple glow at sunset.

Trip Announcement: PNG

Mon, Jun 14th, 2010  |   Featured, Places, Adventures, Trips, Workshops 4 Comments

Since putting up my video of the amazing diving in the Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea last week, I’ve been planning a series of new adventures with Craig on Golden Dawn. It’s taken a few emails and Skype conversations, but we’ve finally worked out the details.

I’m planning to visit Papua New Guinea twice in the coming months, first in June 2011 and second in January 2012.

blenny

Note: If you’d like advance notice of trips like this in the future, please sign up for my trip e-newsletter. I won’t spam you!

June 2011 Itinerary: Port Moresby to Milne Bay to Walindi
Some time ago, I received a brief email from Craig that went something like this: “Tony, Wow! You gotta see this!” Nothing more. No response to my: “See what???!!!” email for a few days. (This is normal behaviour for Craig.)

As it turned out, he had just dived some reefs on the Papuan Barrier Reef, not too far from Port Moresby, but far enough that no one dives there, at least not on a regular basis.

Now…Craig gets easily excited at times (picture a little boy with knee-socks getting a colourful candy lollipop), so I usually have to calm him down and ask pointed questions to figure out what’s what.

Fortunately, Bob Halstead was also on the boat at the time, so I was able to get independent confirmation for Craig’s enthusiasm.

Craig had stumbled upon some amazing reefs.

Most of the time when people tell me they’ve come across “amazing” such and such, I’m sceptical. But if there’s one thing Craig knows…it’s unspoiled reefs. Bob is no slouch either.

Craig later elaborated, telling me that of the sites he’s dived/ marked, one is a deep passage with a two-stepped wall that has a stunning vista comprising row after row of very large fans. He saw lots of large mobula and eagle rays, wobbegong sharks, silver tips and grey reefs.

Another location apparently has at least 20 bommies like Suzie’s. If you haven’t dived at Suzie’s, here’s a photo to give you an idea of what it’s like:

lionfish at suzies bommie

So basically, it’s a “Wow! You gotta see this!” kind of place.

[Update 19 June: Just received another update from Craig, who's out in this area right now: "Just wanted to let you know about a new discovery. We just finished a dive...and it's awesome!!! We had a large population of female grey reef sharks, 20 plus easily, a few species of grouper, including a giant grouper, 8 or 9 eagle rays flying in formation, mobula rays, many huge dogtooth tuna, some with mackeral and other species of jacks, rainbow runners galore, fusiliers and the list goes on...Truly spectacular!!!"]

We planned the June 2011 itinerary specifically so that we start in Port Moresby and explore the “Wow! You gotta see this!” reefs first. To date, Craig has dived the reefs twice, so there’s still plenty to explore and no doubt new things to discover. If you’re an adventurer at heart, this trip is for you!

Diving along the barrier reef will naturally takes us over to Milne Bay, which is, in my experience, some of the most amazing diving anywhere…critters like you wouldn’t believe, as well as beautiful corals and big stuff too (there’s a manta cleaning station). It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the area, not because I haven’t wanted to go, but because there aren’t many dive operators there now.

Back in the day…there were several liveaboard boats and a couple of land-based operations, so Milne Bay was relatively easy to dive. These days…not so much. Quite a shame, as it’s a world-class destination.

I filmed a documentary in Milne Bay several years ago with NHK of Japan, along with Dr Eugenie Clark, Bob Halstead and Rob Vanderloos. It was an absolutely amazing experience (to say the least!) with my only regret being that I wasn’t able to spend more time in the area.

From Milne Bay, we’ll head north to Kimbe Bay, ending up at Walindi Plantation Resort. Again, there are great reefs along the way that are almost never dived (see the common theme?), with lots of unspoiled marine habitat and no other people around…absolutely perfect for photography.

Of course, that’s a lot of territory to cover, so we’re dividing the trip into three sections:

1. Port Moresby to Milne Bay (31 May to 7 June)
2. Milne Bay (8 to 14 June)
3. Milne Bay to Walindi (16 to 26 June)

Here’s a map to make it easier to get a handle on the geography (click the markers for more details):


View PNG June 2011 in a larger map

Essentially, this makes it possible to get on or off the boat for any of the segments, or hop on board for two or even all three segments of the trip. (The international airport is in Port Moresby. Alotau airport is at Milne Bay. Hoskins airport is at Walindi. Good planning, no?)

As a bonus(?), Bob Halstead will be joining us for the trips. Bob is one of the pioneers of diving in PNG, and in particular, he knows Milne Bay like no one else. Bob is articulate, well-spoken, knowledgeable, and perpetually struggling for a half-decent comeback when I insult him. He’s quite a fish expert, and even has a couple of fish named after him (small, nondescript ones of course). Even more amazing, he still uses a film camera. Well, he knows how to push the shutter release in any case.

All kidding aside, Bob is a treasure trove of information and experience, particularly with regard to the areas we’ll be visiting. I have the greatest respect for him, and it will be a pleasure and an honour to have him with us.

Pricing for the trips is as follows:
1. Port Moresby – Milne Bay (31 May to 7 June)
Cabin 1 US$2800/ person
Cabin 2 US$2625/ person
Cabin 3 US$2450/ person
Cabin 4 US$2800/ person
Cabin 5 US$2800/ person

2. Milne Bay (8 to 14 June)
Cabin 1 US$2400/ person
Cabin 2 US$2250/ person
Cabin 3 US$2100/ person
Cabin 4 US$2400/ person
Cabin 5 US$2400/ person

3. Milne Bay to Walindi (16 to 26 June)
Cabin 1 US$4000/ person
Cabin 2 US$3750/ person
Cabin 3 US$3500/ person
Cabin 4 US$4000/ person
Cabin 5 US$4000/ person

Click here to see the cabin layout on the Golden Dawn.

Please get in touch via my contact form if you’re interested.

purple queen anthias

January 2012 Itinerary: Eastern Fields
I probably don’t need to write too much about the Eastern Fields, as I can let Craig do the talking in the video I posted.

What I can add is that the Eastern Fields atoll system, like the areas I described above, is not over-dived, is not over-fished, and is not sitting next to areas suffering from over-development.

In case you haven’t noticed, I like travelling to unspoiled places. I don’t mean “unspoiled” in the over-Photoshopped-vacation-brochure sense. I mean truly unspoiled…as in, “almost no one has ever been there” and “you definitely won’t see anyone else underwater there” unspoiled.

school of barracuda

The plan for January 2012 is to do two trips. On the first trip, we’ll visit several of the best sites around the Eastern Fields. Depending on how the weather and water look, we may dash over to another reef system called the Ashmore’s. The exact itinerary will be a judgement call based on prevailing conditions.

The second trip will concentrate on my personal favourite dive site in the area, Carl’s Ultimate…a site named after my friend and mentor Carl Roessler.

It’s a small bommie in the middle of a channel that gets swept by nutrient-filled currents. To say the marine life is “amazing” is like saying the Great Barrier Reef is “big”. It’s a major understatement.

Devoting most of an 8-day trip to a single dive site would normally be madness, but believe me, once you see this site, you’ll want to stay.

carls ultimate

I’m co-organising the Eastern Fields trips with Eric Cheng and Wetpixel again, so there will no doubt be lots of photographers on board!

Prices and dates are as follows:

1. 10-20 January 2012, Eastern Fields
Cabin 1 US$4320/ person
Cabin 2 US$4050/ person
Cabin 3 US$3780/ person
Cabin 4 US$4320/ person
Cabin 5 US$4320/ person

2. 22-30 January 2012, Carl’s Ultimate
Cabin 1 US$3456/ person
Cabin 2 US$3240/ person
Cabin 3 US$3024/ person
Cabin 4 US$3456/ person
Cabin 5 US$3456/ person

Click here to email Dan Baldocchi, who is handling the bookings for these trips.

An overview of trip logistics from our previous excursion can be found here, and here is a trip report that Eric posted after our trip.

My trips videos from last year’s excursion are here and here.

Summary
Trips aboard Golden Dawn are always an adventure, with lots to see, terrific food, wonderful conversation and unforgettable experiences.

All of these trips will be dedicated to photography.

The waters of Papua New Guinea are teeming with marine life, and you can’t get to many of the places we’ll be visiting except on a liveaboard. Even better, at any given time, we will probably be the only people in the water!

If we find some place or thing that everyone wants to spend time on, we’ll adjust accordingly. Similarly, if we see that conditions aren’t right, we’ll move on and look for a more suitable location.

In other words, we’ll have a plan, but we’ll go with the flow to maximise fun, safety and photographic opportunities.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to sharing an adventure with you!

lizardfish face

Behind The Scenes

Thu, Jun 10th, 2010  |   Equipment, Technique, People 2 Comments

In the process of cleaning up my folders, files and such after wrapping up the editing for my Eastern Fields video, I came across this snapshot I took of Craig right after I finished interviewing him:

craig dewit

What you see in the foreground is a Canon 5D Mark II with a 17-40mm zoom lens, which I used to record the interview.

The furry thing on top is a Sennheiser MKE-400 shotgun microphone, which helped to reduce distraction from ambient noise (engine, aircon, people yelling, boat horns, etc.).

I mounted the camera on Golden Dawn’s steering wheel using a Gorillapod…certainly not the ideal configuration for the purpose!

But I didn’t have a proper tripod, so I had to make do with what was available, and the steering wheel was the only platform with sufficient height to get the angle of view I wanted. Balancing the camera and keeping it from flopping left and right was a bit of a challenge.

Doing the interview was probably the most difficult part of gathering material for the video. I knew that I wanted to get footage of Craig describing his personal experiences and feelings about the Eastern Fields to use as the backbone of the storyline.

But Craig is incredibly camera-shy, and kept coming up with excuses to avoid being interviewed. Finally, when he ran out of excuses, I had to wait a good 30 minutes while he showered, shaved, powdered his nose, and otherwise tried (in vain) to pretty himself up.

In case you’re interested, I set exposure and focus manually, striving for low depth of field. I think the aperture was something like f5.0, or thereabouts. Shutter would have been around 1/60 to 1/100. The frame rate was 30fps by default. I think ISO was 400, and the biggest technical challenge I had was controlling the overblown areas behind Craig.

I recorded the interview prior to having manual control of audio gain (a function which came with a later firmware upgrade), so it was paramount to keep ambient sound levels constant. Fortunately, no one else was around, and it was a quiet day in port, so we did everything in a single take per question, over a period of about 20 minutes.

Now…lest you get the (mis)impression that Craig always appears as Captain-like as I so deftly portrayed him, allow me to point out that you’re more likely to spot Craig in situations like this:

craig dewit
(Note: I didn’t take this picture. I don’t know who did. The file came from Craig. I bet he’ll regret giving me a copy after he sees this.)

Adventures With Craig

Tue, Jun 8th, 2010  |   Featured, People, Places, Adventures, Video, Multimedia 6 Comments

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been completely occupied putting the following video together:


Downloadable copy available via my iTunes podcast. Music by Alain Thomas via Musicalley.com

I shot all of the video footage and most of the photos during a month-long stay in Papua New Guinea last year aboard the MV Golden Dawn, a trip I co-organised with Eric Cheng and Wetpixel.

Of note…I captured all the video footage with DSLR cameras, using a Canon 5D Mark II underwater and a Canon 7D topside. This is also the first time I’ve edited anything with Final Cut Pro and Motion, both part of Apple’s Final Cut Studio software collection. (So cut me some slack if you see mistakes/ areas for improvement! I think I did an excellent job of making Craig look. No simple task by any means.)

In case it’s not obvious, the waters of Papua New Guinea are absolutely amazing. I’m planning a few more trips with Craig for June 2011 and January 2012. We’re still ironing out specifics, but check back soon for details!

Note: For contrast and comparison, here’s another video I posted earlier from the same trip, with footage taken with a very different type of camera.

Fun in the Eastern Fields

Mon, Jan 11th, 2010  |   Equipment, Technique, Places, Adventures 5 Comments

While preparing to head out to the Eastern Fields in November last year, it occurred to me that the trip would be filled with lots of experienced and talented photographers, armed with a plethora of fancy equipment.

So one thing I decided to do just for kicks was to experiment with something decidedly non-fancy, non-expensive, non-hi-tech.

After a bit of research, I came across a tiny toy camera called the Digital Harinezumi (harinezumi means porcupine in Japanese), pictured below in my hand:

digital harinezumi

In this day and age of inflating megapixels, improving low-light performance and extraordinary in-camera HD video…this little gadget certainly seems out of place.

It’s made in Japan by a company called SuperHeadz (what a cool name!), but I couldn’t find one in Tokyo before I jumped on the plane, so I picked this one up at a store in Singapore called 8 Storey Tree.

The camera shoots both still images (at 2MP) and video (at 640 x 480), with a unique look that reminds me of the way still photos and video looked back in the ’70s…a bit of nostalgia for people in my age bracket (or a history lesson for those of you who didn’t exist until the ’80s or later).

The camera was so small that I had to mount it on a Gorillapod in order to carry it around, which made most people do a double-take, since the set-up looked so ludicrous.

I only used the camera for video, and here’s the result…a visual scrapbook of a month on board the MV Golden Dawn:

(Fun in the Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea from Tony Wu on Vimeo. Downloadable version available on iTunes also. Music by Artificial Intelligence in Texas via Music Alley.)

As you can see, this is the exact opposite of shooting with the new video-capable DSLRs. There was no way to change lenses, no way to control aperture or adjust shutter…basically, no way to do anything except point-and-shoot.

But I love the result!!!

Just goes to show that it’s not always necessary to have expensive hi-tech gear to have a good time.

Apparently, there’s a new version of the camera out now called the Digital Harinezumi 2, which shoots 3MP still and 640 x 480 video (with audio too in this latest version I think) if you’re interested in picking one up to play with.

The only question now is…should I get a housing built for it?

What A Wall

Wed, Jan 6th, 2010  |   Places, Adventures 4 Comments

sea fanOn the first of my two recent cruises aboard MV Golden Dawn, we visited the Ashmore reef system, which is separate from the Eastern Fields.

Although the currents were supposed to be ripping according to the tide charts and moon cycle, we didn’t have much luck catching the strong current that we wanted, but we did dive on some beautiful sites nonetheless.

One of those sites was a spectacular wall.

Walls are generally not my favourite locations, because it’s difficult to hold steady while taking photos, but this was one of the loveliest, if not the prettiest, wall dives I’ve ever done. It was…in a word…magical.

A single photograph can’t do justice to the splendour of a long wall teeming with life, but this image is a snapshot of one of the many healthy (and big!) fans.

The dive site didn’t have a name at that point, but Capt. Craig was kind enough to name it Wu Wu Wall for me.

How To Impress a Potato Cod

Mon, Jan 4th, 2010  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 2 Comments

It’s the first Monday morning of the new year, and I’m back at my desk, staring at an incredibly long to-do list. I have lots of meetings to attend, calls to make, emails to answer, stuff to get, and things to send. Sigh.

Faced with such an overwhelming task list, the natural thing to do is procrastinate.

To kick off the year, here’s a profile shot of a potato cod (Epinephelus tukula) from the Carl’s Ultimate dive site in the Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea.

potato cod

There are four of these fish resident at the site, two of which are big, one medium and one small. They’ve been there for many years, and I’m happy that all four were still happy and healthy during my recent visit.

If you travel to the Eastern Fields and have an opportunity to say hello to one or more of these friendly fish, keep in mind that the secret to getting good photos of potato cods is to impress them so much with your swimming skill and photographic prowess that they can’t help but stick around to watch you…as Julian so aptly demonstrates:

Missing Mojo

Fri, Dec 25th, 2009  |   Funny Stuff, People, Places, Adventures 3 Comments

It’s Christmas morning. I was searching for a suitably festive image to post for the holidays, when I stopped and thought: “Nah, that’s boring. Everyone does that.”, and I decided to post something silly instead.

Phil immediately came to mind.

Phil was one of my fellow travellers aboard the MV Golden Dawn on my recent trip to PNG. He was a constant and reliable source of entertainment (the term “court jester” springs to mind), as is evident from this montage of Phil searching for his photographic mojo during the first day or two of the trip:

phil

Despite his resemblance to Dr Evil, Phil is actually much more of an Austin-Powers-type personality.

In case you were wondering, Phil located his misplaced mojo at some stage, as he stopped waving his hands around like a deranged supervillain…though he commenced singing excerpts from cheesy ’80s pop songs at random intervals.

Happy Holidays!

Frogfish Surprise

Mon, Dec 21st, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 5 Comments

It’s only been a day or so since I’ve gotten back from my trips aboard the MV Golden Dawn, and I’m still struggling to catch up with correspondence, phone calls and meetings.

There’s a lot I want to write about and many images and video I’d like to post, but the way things are going, it doesn’t look like I’ll have much time before I head out again in a few days.

The story behind this photo is too good to keep quiet though.

frogfish

Craig, who’s the captain of the Golden Dawn, has been visiting the beautiful reefs of the Eastern Fields for something like 20 years. In that time, he’s apparently never come across a large frogfish like this one (I think it’s an Antennarius commerson).

So, when one of our divers spotted this fish and showed it to Craig, he was so happy that he literally shrieked(!) with joy. I was at least 20 metres away, around the corner, when I heard him making a racket.

I assumed something was wrong and rushed over, only to see a half dozen or so other puzzled divers…everyone wondering why Craig was giggling and clapping his hands together like a happy little schoolgirl who had one Twinkie too many during recess.

The frogfish was pretty big, maybe 30cm or so in length, but they’re not particularly rare…so I (and everyone else) didn’t quite get what fuss was about.

“At least no one’s in trouble”, I thought to myself, and lingered for a while to watch as other people took photos of the frogfish.

In hindsight, I think the reason Craig was so excited must be because he’s partial to pink.

Reality Check

Mon, Nov 23rd, 2009  |   Musings, People, Places, Adventures 2 Comments

It’s been a hectic couple of days getting ready for the first group of people who’ll be getting on Golden Dawn with me. Captain Craig and the crew have been busy prepping the boat, and I’ve been helping out where I can. Everything’s looking good, and we’ll be picking passengers up at the airport and from Lololata Island Resort tomorrow.

In the midst of all the activity, Craig took me to see a little girl he’s been helping. Her name is Gaudi. She has meningitis…an infection that affects the outside of the brain. Gaudi just turned one year old recently, and she’s been sick for about four months.

Gaudi’s father Naume asked Craig for help when his daughter fell ill, and Craig, being the incredibly nice guy he is, has been sending money for the past four months…without ever having seen Gaudi.

Given that Craig has paid a lot of money over the past four months, you’d think Gaudi’s family were long-time friends of his. No. Craig met Naume, Gaudi’s father, only about a year ago. Craig had a bit of car trouble, and Naume happened to wander by with some mates and helped out. Naume catches and sells crabs for a living, so Craig has been buying crabs from him ever since.

That was the extent of their relationship.

Craig visited Gaudi in the hospital for the first time about ten days ago, and as he described it, was heartbroken by the sight. Little Gaudi was frozen stiff in pain, entirely unable to function.

When I saw her today, she was better. There was recognition in her eyes, and she even grabbed my finger…holding tight, if only for a moment. She’s still weak, but the medicine that Craig’s been paying for is apparently working. Gaudi is getting better.

It’s easy to get absorbed in our own lives, our own problems…all the tasks at hand. But experiences like this are a vital reality check…a reminder of the importance of helping other people. I’m not sure how much longer it’ll take for Gaudi to get better, but Craig’s committed to seeing her through to recovery.

AlI told, I spent about half an hour with Naume and his family at the hospital. I put together this little video for Craig to show passengers on Golden Dawn, in case any of his clients decide to chip in for Gaudi’s medicine. The people who were on Craig’s last cruise contributed about US$170, which will go a long way to sustaining Gaudi through her recovery.

Upcoming Adventures

Wed, Oct 7th, 2009  |   Places, Adventures, Trips, Workshops No Comments

There has been one cancellation for the upcoming 8 to 19 December 2009 Eastern Fields trip in Papua New Guinea that Eric Cheng and I will be on.

If you’re looking for a really special place to visit during this year end, this is the place. You can expect to see some amazing stuff, and dive where very few people have.

silvertip shark

Click this link to read more about the trip, and let me know if you’re interested.

While I’m on the topic of trips, there are a few spaces available for The Night Safari trip to the Lembeh Strait in Feb/ March next year.

In case it’s not abundantly clear from the trip name, the focus on the excursion will be on diving and photographing at night. It’s a unique opportunity to experience the dark side of Lembeh and see a lot of interesting behaviour that day-divers miss. The entire resort will be operating on a night schedule, so it’ll be like a big sleep over, except that we’ll be diving and changing batteries the entire time.

octopus

Contact Sanah or David at Scubacam for more information about The Night Safari.

And finally, my humpback whale trips for 2010 are fully booked as of now. If you’d like to be notified if a space opens up, drop me a note via my contact form.

On Golden Dawn

Mon, Sep 21st, 2009  |   People, Places, Adventures 4 Comments

For those of you who are joining Eric Cheng and me on our upcoming adventure in the Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea aboard the MV Golden Dawn with Capt Craig Dewit, here’s a brief preview of what’s in store.

If you’ve never been aboard the Golden Dawn, Craig generally works hard, though it may not always appear like he’s doing much:

Craig

He generally knows where he’s going, though sometimes, you find yourself deposited in places where it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of good diving to be had:

johan

Also, you should know that Craig has a little camera and fancies himself a good photographer. So it’s best to humour him, or better yet, recruit other people to listen to him and marvel at his photographic finesse, as I did here:

camera

Because on occasion, he manages to drop you into really interesting situations for face-to-face personal encounters:

shark

Or group discussions:

humpheads

Or just to appreciate pristine, unspoiled scenery:

reef

The upcoming expeditions in November and December are fully booked, but Craig and I are plotting another trip to visit reefs he’s just discovered (i.e., no one has ever dived before).

If you’re a glutton for punishment adventurous and think you’d enjoy picking on Craig sharing a trip with Craig, I’ll post more information when we’ve figured out the details.