Instant Reader Report
on Loloata Island Resort / [same] in
Papua New Guinea / Port Moresby on
2003/12
by
LeRoy Anderson , Utah, USA
Report Number 031227215414701

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Send an email to the author of this report

 Palau, Little Cayman, Channel Islands, Hawaii, Florida Keys, Grand Cayman,
Yap, British Columbia, Milne Bay Papua New Guinea. 

Dive Conditions

None, other than four dives per day, including one night dive as optional.
  

Good subjects for photography, but no E 6 processing available.
  

Overall Rating

This was my second trip to Loloata Resort, Dik Knight has put this resort
together as a much better option for overnighting in the Port Moresby area
than would otherwise be available in the city itself. It is a great place
to stay while waiting for liveaboard trips or flights, international or
local. No malaria or dengue fever worries, as the island is totally dry
with no mosquitoes. 
The accomodations are very pleasant, with air conditioning, fans, showers,
and nice verandas with ocean and mangrove views. The dining is served
buffet style, and is quite good, though not five star gourmet.
The dive program is two boat trips per day, at 8am and 2pm, two dives per
trip, along with an optional night dive. The boat is comfortable and
adequate for the job, and the dive guides are enthusiastic and seem to
enjoy their jobs. A nice touch is the option of a warm fresh water rinse
on the boat after your dives.
Though it was at times windy, it did quiet down enough for some diving at
some outer, more unprotected locations. The "Pai II" is an
intentionally sunk wreck in about sixty feet of water offering soft coral
encrustations, many lionfish, hard coral fans, ornate ghost pipefish, and
a fabulous school of briefcase sized snappers circling about the mast.
"Susie's Bommie" is a small towered pinnacle rising from about
120 ft. to a circular reeftop in about forty feet of water. Despite calm
currents, it is covered by multiple types of healthy hard and soft corals,
smothered by purple and golden anthias, with the reeftop populated by a
school of about 100 sweetlips. Also smaller schools of moorish idols and
batfish. These fish were approachable to within a few feet, allowing fine
photographic opportunities. A bommie of glorious color and beauty.
"The Pumkin Patches are a set of several bommies in close proximity
resulting in dramatic underwater canyons and overhangs. On my first dive
here, fans of huge size, about ten by ten feet impressed me, along with
waves of thousands of mid sized  flourescent reef fish--fusiliers, rainbow
runners--coming up from the abyssal depths and swarming over the divers,
rising up from the canyons to the reeftops swarming with anthias,
sweetlips and napoleon wrasse. A moment of staggering hallucinatory
beauty. As a bonus, we found a yellow rhinopias scorpionfish towards the
end of the dive, making for an additional pleasant rare wildlife
encounter. During another dive here, a few days later, the current was
down, visibility was poor, the soft corals had gone into hiding, and there
were few fish. Goes to show how conditions can impact the same site from
one dive to the next. Ditto for another site, "Lion Island".
During the day, Lion Island revealed poor visibility, with little to see.
However, a night dive at this location was truly magical, with fabulous
muck diving in about twenty feet of water. Creatures seen included: sphere
crabs, hairy tarantula (fairy?)crabs, anenomes in the act of capturing
small fish, nocturnal cowfish, bioluminescent snake and oblong jellyfish,
plesthmobranchs, nudibranchs, hermit crabs, mini octopi, cuttlefish,
ornate ghost pipefish, bubble tailed pipefish, groups of bright red and
white cleaner shrimp, mantis shrimp, siphons, pillow starfish, sleeping
parrotfish, common cowries, and a small wreck festooned in brilliantly
colored encrusting corals and bright soft corals. All on one dive, thanks
to the expert help of my dive guide, Franco, who had accompanied me on the
same dive eighteen months earlier.
All in all, Loloata Island Resort is a great layover location, and
complements any other PNG dive destination or liveaboard. Why not? After
all, it is in PNG, and PNG diving is as good as it gets. 











 


















 

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