Dive Review of Walindi Plantation Resort in
Papua New Guinea/New Britain

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Walindi Plantation Resort: "A difficult place to reach and get out of", May, 2023, by John Morgan, AZ, US ( Reviewer 6 reports with 3 Helpful votes). Report 12484 has 2 Helpful votes.
Photos Submitted with this Report Click on an image to see an enlarged version and captions
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations	N/A	Food
Service and Attitude	N/A	Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving	N/A
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I’ve been diving since 1983. In that time I’ve got 1500 dives and countless trips under my belt. This one was without a doubt the most difficult and dangerous. It started when I got into Brisbane, turned on my phone, and got a notification that my flight from Port Moresby to New Britain Island had been cancelled by Air Nuigini. This eliminated one full day at Walindi since I had to sit in a Hotel overnight in Port Moresby. I found out later it’s a matter of a shortage of mechanics. Air Niugini has 10 Dash Propeller planes for their inter-island flights. But only 5 of them are working at any given time, and yet they schedule flights as if all 10 of them are functional. Getting into the domestic terminal that day so I could make my flight to New Britain was a nightmare. I had 2 hours to make that flight and there were hundreds of people in front of me. There were no individual lines for each flight or airline. It was a giant loud mob. The only reason I made it was I kept cutting in line. Some people were nice enough to let me get ahead of them when I explained my flight was coming up. I begged and pleaded with a security guard and he moved me up. I boarded the plane with 5 minutes to spare. I get into New Britain and the weather is terrible. Rain, wind and clouds for about half the trip as it turns out. It seems there was a massive Typhoon in Guam, and even though we’re a 1,000 miles south of there, it affected us the whole trip. The first 2 days at Walindi I did 2 tank morning dives from the resort. Even with the increasingly bad weather, we had some good dives. The Bommies are full of fish life and we even did an airplane wreck dive. A Japanese Zero. The staff and food at Walindi are excellent. The Bungalows are nice, but it’s rough being in the tropics with no AC in your bedroom. I then board the MV Oceana Boat (large catamaran with a spacious dive deck, salon and suites) and start the 10 day trip. For the first 3 days the weather gets increasingly worse. We ended up diving the Brothers Islands for 3 days since this spot is farthest from the Typhoon. But Day 1 we had to hang around some reefs close to Walindi. Why? Because Air Niugini cancelled a flight for one of our divers and he did not get into Walindi until Day 2. We had some of the roughest weather I’ve ever seen- 5 foot swells for exampe. Dishes flying everywhere. It reminded me of some of my California trips. Some of the dives had multiple current changes and a huge amount of surge. Given the conditions, we still had some excellent 50 foot visibility dives. That’s not bad given the weather. We had some great reefs, schools of barracuda, cuttlefish, stonefish, sharks, jacks, and tuna. The Sea Mounts were impressive. The skipper’s plan was to keep heading east and end up in Rabaul. Then we hear we’re turning around and going back to Walindi Resort again. Why ? To evacuate a diver who has a stomach issues and bad infection. A doctor on board diagnosed him and said he would die if we did not get him off the boat ASAP. He got back to Hawaii safe and we heard he got the care he needed, but DAN had to arrange a private charter plane to get him out of there. It’s a good thing we had veteran divers and a good dive team on board. We were dealing with advanced diving. Deep walls. I often ended up below 100 feet and low on air by the time I got back to the boat. Schlepping a large camera system with strobes is very difficult when you’re fighting strong currents. The three dive masters were excellent at finding little critters-ribbon eels, nudibranchs, mantis shrimp, leaf scorpion, and crocodile fish. The food was excellent. The captain was an experienced Australian. That made all the difference. He personally trained the whole dive team. One of the divers brought a drone and he sure had fun buzzing the canoes. He flew it over the jungle too. We had a diver whose air gauge exploded underwater. It sounded like a gunshot. The divemaster quickly gave her his octopus regulator and assisted her to the surface. We wake up on day 5 and the conditions were perfect. Dead flat seas. Sunny. Unfortunately, the typhoon had stirred up a lot of silt and it limited visibility for the rest of the trip. We headed up to the Witu Islands and had some pretty good dives. We anchored most days inside a flooded volcano crater. Garove Island. It’s shaped like a horse shoe. Most of the dives were around this island. We had some good muck dives and we did a village tour. The last couple days the visibility improved. On the last day we dove close to David Doublet Island. It’s the spot where he took his famous split shot-half reef, half island with natives in a canoe. Most days the natives would paddle up to the stern area to sell us fruit. The big thing they wanted in trade ? Soap. CONCLUSION- With good conditions, which they had the week before, this place would be spectacular. 100 foot plus visibility on the sea mounts is the norm. But the Air Niugini and Port Moresby Airport issues make it too difficult. Everyone said they would not come back if they had to face the same issues with cancelled flights.
Websites	Walindi Plantation Resort
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	Over 1000 dives
Where else diving	California, Hawaii, Palau, Red Sea, Carribean, Maldives, Cocos, Socorros, Sea Of Cortez, Philipines, Indonesia, Coral Sea
Closest Airport	Hoskns	Getting There	Qantas from LA to Brisbane to Port Moresby, Air Nuigini to Hoskins
Dive Conditions
Weather	rainy	Seas	choppy, surge, currents
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	40-80 Ft/ 12-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	1 or 2	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	1 or 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	Both Walindi and the Oceana were very good to photographers. They deftly handled my big Sea & Sea Rig in rough conditions. The boat had ample space on deck for cameras and a big charging station in the Salon. I'd ask the Captain every day what dive spots were suitable for wide angle and/or macro. His recommendations were always dead on.

Report currently has 2 Helpful votes

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Dive Review of Walindi Plantation Resort in Papua New Guinea/New Britain

Walindi Plantation Resort: "A difficult place to reach and get out of", May, 2023,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Walindi Plantation Resort in
Papua New Guinea/New Britain