Any receent shots/experiences from Tawali/PNG?

Seems all that I can find on Tawali on the net is from years back. Anyone got recent experiences (07/08), advise, or images to share? Going next month... Also curious about any topside experience fron the Sepik river...

Seems all that I can find on Tawali on the net is from years back. Anyone got recent experiences (07/08), advise, or images to share? Going next month... Also curious about any topside experience fron the Sepik river...

Hi Marjo,

I was there about a year ago. Had a good time. Very nice diving with a good mix of macro and wide angle. NOt too many big animals for us but I'm told you can get them there. A few spots near the resort showed signs coral bleaching, etc. but most sites were pristine. Resort is very nice with large clean rooms. Food is decent enough if not exactly exotic. They had some mechanical issues with the various boats they use but I don't think we missed any diving as a result. Dive guides did a great job finding stuff for us to take pictures of.

Tawali Gallery

Clinton

I was there in Sept. of 2007 and echo what Clinton said. Nice big rooms, OK food, reefs were really great with some good muck sites as well. Saw two spanish dancers on the house reef and even got to to see the hairy ghost pipefish

Phil

http://gallery.mac.com/philsokol#100038

P.S. Watch out for the crows ah..ah..ahhhhhh. You'll understand when you hear them...

My sister just got back TODAY from Tawali. She loved the area, the food, the resort. However, we have dived extensively in PNG and she was disappointed in the diving there. She was sure that there were great spots around, but the resort has not bargained well with the nationals to gain diving rights close to the resort. She said most of the diving was muck (good muck). The reef areas were an hour or more away!

Having dived a lot with Alan Raabe, I know how hard he works dealing with the local people to get permission to dive the local reefs. You simply cannot dive anywhere you want to there. Sometimes negotiations get very "rough" as the locals want compensation for everything that goes on in their waters. Things got so bad on New Ireland Island, Alan hardly goes there anymore.

Marjo

The others have spoken about Tawali so that should be good enough.

The Sepik can be done 2 ways, on a dugout canoe over 4-XXX days from Ambunti Lodge or via the Karawari Lodge and the Sepik Spirit (which is a real boat).

Ambunti has motorized dugouts which I used for the upper Sepik journey. I used a normal dugout with a guide for my lower sepik journey (3 days)

The dugout canoe option still rings in my mind. I covered a large area doing the 3 sections (upper,middle and lower) of the sepik, travelling up the Hunstein range and staying at various villages. I ended my tour is Wewak where I jumped on the Golden Dawn. I had my gear sent to the boat before I embarked on the Sepik journey.

If you are not used to rats and creepcrawlies at night sleeping at traditional villages, I suggest you use the lodges for the sepik. My then gf left me after 4 days to return to Ambunti Lodge So much for the adventurous ozzie girl.

Thanks a lot everyone! Great pix Phil and Clinton. Thanks for sharing!

Allison, that is interesting. I was under the impression that the reef diving would be close by. Oh well... At leat my main objective is to shoot plenty of macro looking forward to muckdiving. Do you or your sister have images on th net somewhere?

Thanks Drew! Do you have pictures?

I think no lodges for me.. the plan is for a local friend of my hubby to take us first to his mothers village Tambanum and then we're going in a dugout canoe from her village to his fathers village (Sango, somewhere close to the village Pagwui) and plan is to stop along the way to stay in different villages.

Not so worried about rats and crawlies, but AM worried about tippy canoe and what might happen to camera gear... + also a bit worried about the trip back in PMV not knowing how safe it will be carry the camera gear.

Eh... well... Maybe I'll try to send a hint to hubby&friend about the motorized canoe you mentioned...

Thanks so much for sharing!

My sister just got back TODAY from Tawali. She loved the area, the food, the resort. However, we have dived extensively in PNG and she was disappointed in the diving there. She was sure that there were great spots around, but the resort has not bargained well with the nationals to gain diving rights close to the resort. She said most of the diving was muck (good muck). The reef areas were an hour or more away!

 

Having dived a lot with Alan Raabe, I know how hard he works dealing with the local people to get permission to dive the local reefs. You simply cannot dive anywhere you want to there. Sometimes negotiations get very "rough" as the locals want compensation for everything that goes on in their waters. Things got so bad on New Ireland Island, Alan hardly goes there anymore.

Hi Allison,

For sure the best reefs were a long way away from the resort (though the best muck diving was close by). I didn't see any evidence of difficulties with the locals. Owner Rob Vanderloos is a good guy who has been running the Chertan in the area forever. I gather quite a few of the people on the north end of the peninsula work at the resort and view it favorably. From what we could tell it was mostly a matter of the more distant reefs simply being better than those close by. Ran into Craig DeWit a couple of times on the trip (airport both ways, on one airplane and at the resort when the Golden Dawn came through) and during our various discussions he said a number of the reefs right near the resort had been damaged with recent warming events and this was borne out by the dives we did closer in (still nice though). I suspect the resort has been planned long enough that the site was selected before this damage.

Anyway, some of the more far-flung sites like Wampus were really awesome. The long boat rides might limit your diving a bit if you want to do five dives a day but there is plenty of nice diving in the are IMO.

Clinton