Monday, March 12, 2001 - continued
Alan Raabe, the captain of the MV Febrina, met us at the airport. Alan is an Aussie, and a very colorful one at that as became evident after about ten seconds. He and his crew collected our bags and we piled into a van to drive to the boat. It was raining when we arrived, but we were shown into the salon where we met Hannah, the cook, general cruise director and the one who keeps Alan in check. She's also Australian - her favorite line being, "It's no drama, love." She pulled me in and showed me to my cabin - wow! Since it wasn't a completely full boat, they could let me have my own room, and they gave me the front suite, with a double bed, and separate en-suite bath and shower rooms. Ooo-la-la! Just a bit of a jealous look from Mark and Gary, who were sharing a cabin with bunk beds that was about half the size of mine. :-)

We all got our dive gear unpacked and stowed upstairs on the dive deck. The Febrina has a great set-up: half the boat is dedicated to the dive deck, with cubbies for gear and tables for the cameras. There was a good sized kitchen just off of the main salon, which was laid out in a big horseshoe, with tables and banquettes around the edges. Very comfortable. Hannah introduced us to her "girls" - Michaelina, Valia and...oh, well, two out of three.

Alan explained the basic setup - first dive at 6:30, breakfast, second dive around 9:00, third dive around 11:30, lunch, naptime, afternoon dive around 4:00, night dive around 6:30, dinner at 8:00. Dinner the first night was chicken breasts with potatoes and veggies and some lovely Australian wines. The "girls" laid out the tables with cloth napkins and wine glasses - they have a different way of folding the napkins for every night. I went to bed early, and slept like a log.

Tuesday, March 13, 2001 - Kaviang, PNG
The boat moved at 5:30 a.m. and I discovered the drawback of my cabin - the anchor is right on the other side of my headboard. After a couple of minutes of thinking it was going to come through the wall, I went up to the salon. I had some hot tea and went out on deck to look at the scenery. Kaviang is at the northeastern tip of PNG on the island of New Britain. We will be going around New Britain and its neighboring island of New Ireland for the rest of the week.

At 6:30 we had our first dive at a site called Albatross Pass. It was a pretty simple wall dive, to give everyone a chance to check out equipment and weights. It was a nice dive and I saw some lovely lion fish and nudibranchs. After I came up I used Alan's satellite phone to call Richard. Everything was going well at the warehouse - I told him I'd tried to call later in the week as long as the phone was working.

We had breakfast - fruit, toast, bacon, eggs - and prepared for the next dive. This time we moved to the other side of Albatross Channel, just a few minutes away. The current was really picking up and we had to use a "Jesus Line" to get up and down - a rope is fastened to the base of the anchor line and one pulls oneself down and up the line from the boat. I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to get over the edge of the wall without getting blown back by the current, but managed to get down. Once we were past the edge of the wall, the current let up. The main attraction of current dives is the "big life" that one sees: namely sharks and rays. I saw about 5 reef sharks, including one about 5 feet above my head at 40 feet!

We did the next dive at the same site and I decided to sit it out. I use up so much air just getting down the rope on current dives that I usually don't have that much fun when I'm down there. The other divers said the current was even worse on the next dive, and one of the Aussies got blown past the anchor line and missed his decompression stop, so he had to sit out for the rest of the day.

Lunch was spaghetti with red sauce and linguini with carbonara sauce and salad - excellent. After lunch (and a nap) we moved to Chamiso Reef, which was a very calm, nice dive. There was a pretty swim-through on the reef, and we saw a lot of nice fish. Hannah made nachos for a snack and we moved to a little lagoon to anchor out over night. We had a small storm blow through and it made for a pretty spectacular sunset.

Wednesday, March 14, 2001 - Kaviang, PNG
We didn't have far to go to our first dive site in the morning. We dove the left side of a nearby channel and had a great dive. There was a nice reef top at about 20-25 feet and then a great wall dive over the edge. Andy, the divemaster, took the photographers to see if they could find pygmy seahorses - I figured I wouldn't get a chance to see much of anything anyway, what with all the "testosterone fish" trying to get pictures of it, so I cruised the reef instead. It was really lovely - saw some great anemones and a spectacular nudibranch. Luckily, Gary was swimming nearby so he got a nice picture of it and dubbed it the "Kaydibranch."

We dove the other side of the channel twice in the morning, but the current was really strong, so I skipped the second one. I tried to call Richard after lunch but the antenna on the satellite phone was broken.

In the afternoon we went to a small bommie dive. The most interesting part was seeing a krait, or sea snake, swimming in the water.

Thursday, March 15, 2001 - Kaviang, PNG
I wasn't feeling well when I woke up, so I took some aspirin and went back to bed. I got up a little before lunchtime - we had mud crabs for lunch. They are huge - the bodies are about 8-9 inches across. Very good, but messy!