Walindi Plantation Resort Trip Report

[Chris Ross]

Travelled to Walindi Plantation resort in May, it is located on the island of New Britain near the town of Kimbe in Papua New Guinea.  Getting there was relatively easy with a flight from Sydney to Brisbane (1 hr) and then connecting through to Port Moresby, the PNG capital (3 hrs).  A domestic connection through to Hoskins airport followed, about a 1 hr flight.  Connections on Air Niugini can be troublesome, but my flight left maybe 1 hour late.  The resort then picked up passengers for the 1 hour drive to the resort.

 

The resort has a series of comfortable bungalows and individual rooms on site, there is a central area with the restaurant, a pool and an air conditioned lounge, looking out over the scenic Kimbe Bay.  Food was very good and plentiful.  The resort is also the base for two liveaboard boats that travel further out to outlying islands.

 

A great many volcanoes can be seen from the resort.  This was my second attempt at getting there, the first ended when the Ulawan volcano erupted covering the area in ash the day I flew up.

Diving is from smaller boats which travel out into the bay each day doing either two or three dives with lunch served on the boat.  The crossings can be a little rough if the wind is up so picking the right season is important, I went in May during the doldrums and had quiet good conditions with mostly 20-30m visibility at the offshore sites.  The closer sites has around 10m.  A full explanation can be found on Don Silcock's website, this page gives an overview and describes the seasons:

Kimbe Bay Diving - An Overview and The Best Sites | Indopacificimages

 

The dive sites are mostly well out in the bay, a feature being the seamounts coming up to within 15-30m from the surface from very deep water and they attract big schools of fish with ach having a school of Chevron barracuda and another of Big-eye Trevally (aka Jacks).  Plentiful anemones with their resident anemone fish and many schooling fish.  Reef sites feature huge sea fans, giant barrel and elephant ear sponges and red sea whips in some locations and plenty of healthy coral.  The walls mainly feature plate corals which maximize light capture, which are, sometimes not so eye catching.  One site had a really large school of bottlenose dolphin that we saw playing on the surface and the boat put out nets where you could grab on and travel at slow speed with the dolphins coming in to check you out.

 

I shot wide angle and CFWA for the entire trip though there was another diver on my boat who did mostly macro and was happy with what they found.  I used the OM-1 with an adapted Canon 8-15mm fisheye in the 140mm dome.   Shooting was relatively easy though there was a lot of particles (which is what attracted the large schools of fish) to deal with and on a cloudy day at 30m, not so much light.  I shoot with INON Z-240 and found power a little lacking for the barracuda schools etc.

 

Some images from the trip:

 

Barracuda School at Bradford shoals:

 

 

 

 

Pink Anemone fish Inglis shoals:

 

From Kimbe North Reef

 

 

Big eye trevally school Bradford Shoals:

 

Not a great many sharks seen and they disappeared quite quickly, this Grey Reef Shark only hung around briefly on Kimbe bommie, shot at about 30m as soon as reached that depth on descent.

 

 

Reef scene at Kimbe North reef, a great many species milling above the reef:

 

 

[Chris Ross]

Some More images:

 

A Square spot Anthia, likely it was at a cleaning station:

 

 

More Pink anemonefish:

 

 

A busy scene with Clark's Anemonefish at 30m on Kimbe bommie.

 

Baitfish schooling :

 

A WWI Japanese zero fighter wreck in 17m, quite close to shore:

 

 

 

[humu9679]

@Chris Ross Looks terrific! Were you able to get refunded, at least partially, for the missed first trip? 

[Chris Ross]

3 hours ago, humu9679 said:

@Chris Ross Looks terrific! Were you able to get refunded, at least partially, for the missed first trip? 

Travel insurance got the extra flight expenses, accomodation expenses and the resort gave me a full credit and I booked again in May.  Hardest part was getting Air niugini to let me use my flight credit for the domestic leg.

 

The diving there is great., pretty warm and humid topside, made the splash into 30 deg water seem refreshing.

[RickMo]

Thanks, Chris.  Lovely images.  We were there in May 2023, and really enjoyed our time at Walindi (a week before, and three nights after, a liveaboard trip).  We were almost as lucky as you with Air Niugini; we had an unplanned overnight in Port Moresby, but we didn't lose any diving.  We were on the boat with three folks from Hawaii and they were not so lucky--three extra nights to get home.  We were beguiled by Walindi and PNG, and enjoyed the diving a lot.  For anyone considering one of the liveaboards (we were on Oceania), a highlight is a couple of nights spent inside a caldera; there's a collapsed wall that lets the boat come in, but then it really feels like you're totally enclosed.  Villagers using dugouts bring the fruits of their labor out to trade for rice and other staples. At one anchorage, a senior member of a tribe paddled a tiny dugout several (maybe 15?) miles to collect the minimal tax levied on the boat for using the tribe's waters. We saw no other vessels except a couple of inter-island ferries the entire time.  Hoping we can manage a Kimbe Bay trip (south, rather than north, of New Britain); reportedly the place where the term "muck diving" was coined.  The people of New Guinea are desperately poor; we took school supplies and clothing which were humbly offered and gratefully accepted.  

 

 

 

Edited July 26 by RickMo

[Luko]

On 7/26/2024 at 7:19 PM, RickMo said:

Hoping we can manage a Kimbe Bay trip (south, rather than north, of New Britain); reportedly the place where the term "muck diving" was coined. 

Bob Halstead who invented the word "muck dive" at that time moored his boat and went diving Dinah's beach aka. Lawadi, a place which is located near to Tawali close to Milne bay, easternmost point for the main island of PNG and 300 miles south from Kimbe Bay, a completely different location.

Having dived there, I reckon this is a really muck/black sand dive spot, the highlight being lots of Cyerce Nigra butterfly seaslugs (up to 5 spotted in one of the 4 or 5 dives I did there). 

 

What's a Cyerce nigra :

 

Funnily enough, this black sand spot is neighboring the famous Deacon reef which is a magnificent reef/drop off packed with pristine hard corals and seafans with 30+ m visibility and loads of fish. On my personal podium list of all the sites I dived.

It is unique to find such opposite kinds of dive sites a few 100m close to each other.  Milne bay is definitely a region of PNG I would recommand for diversity (from muck with sometimes Lacey Rhinopias sightings - the one you can only find in PNG or New Caledonia-  to blue water coral gardens, fish schools and sometimes hammerheads). 

 

View of Deacon reef

[RickMo]

OOPS--I knew it was Milne Bay, and my brain just went on autopilot.  Mea culpa!  We are now considering a Walindi-Kavieng trip in 2026, covering the northwest coast of New Britain and the entire east coast of New Ireland.  Kaviang was involved in the serious disturbances in January, however, and so we're waiting to see whether things seem to be less unsettled before making a decision.