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G'day from Diversion Dive Travel,

This year's Minke Whale season on the Great Barrier Reef has been very exciting.

"To be in the water with 16 whales at a time was not unusual and many happy faces came back from these special excursions" and John Rumney from UNDERSEA EXPLORER had a big smile when he spoke about it.

While everyone had a great time diving, a lot of new things have developed, so there are a number of stories in this edition:

Australia

Nimrod Explorer - new itineraries
With more divers demanding longer itineraries to the Coral Sea and the Ribbon reefs,Nimrod has announced that it will run a new schedule from Jan 03 with some dates in September and December 2002 already following those schedules as well. Nimrod Explorer will be offering 3 separate itineraries ( following a two-week cycle ) , starting with a Tue-Sat (4night) Ribbon Reef trip, then a Sat-Thursday (5 night) Coral Sea trip and a Thursday-Tuesday (5 night) Ribbon Reef itinerary. Turn around will be in Cooktown or Cairns. This will provide more varied excursions and take in the excellent Coral Sea dive region on a more regular basis:

Itin#1 Tuesday-Saturday (.pdf file)
Cairns - Ribbon Reef - Cooktown:
Starting on Tuesday afternoon in Cairns, Nimrod Explorer goes on a northbound cruise along the Ribbon Reefs for 4 nights where you get full 3 days of diving. The dive cruise ends on Saturday morning in Cooktown, the place where Captain Cook first set foot on Australia. In the morning you can explore this historic place before you take your bus transfer to Cairns or you might opt for a scenic flight to Cairns.

Itin#2 Saturday-Thursday (.pdf file)
Cooktown - Coral Sea & Ribbon Reefs - Cooktown
Starting on Saturday morning, you fly or take the transfer bus to Cooktown. Free time to tour Cooktown. Cruise over night to the Ribbon Reefs, start diving the next morning. You get 5 nights on board and 4 full dive days. Dive 2 days at Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea and 2 days at the Ribbon Reefs.
Thursday morning you will be back to Cooktown. Take your bus transfer or a scenic flight to Cairns.

Itin#3 Thursday-Tuesday (.pdf file)
Cooktown - extended Ribbon Reefs - Cairns
Starting on Thursday morning, Nimrod goes on a southbound cruise. You can fly to Cooktown or take the transfer bus to get there. Free time to tour Cooktown. Cruise over night to the Ribbon Reefs, start diving the next morning. You get 5 nights on board and 4 dive days at the Ribbon Reefs.
Tuesday morning Nimrod will be back in Cairns, your trip finishes here.

Cooktown - a piece of Australian history
Basing some of the new Nimrod excursions in/out of Cooktown reduces travel time by sea and adds some Australian Outback flavour and historical significance to the overall travel experience. So let us tell you a bit more about this outback town: In 1770 James Cook landed at the Endeavour River, the place where Cooktown now stands. It was the first European settlement in Australia and Cook's Pillar, a stone monolith on the banks of the Endeavour, marks where Cook beached his damaged vessel.

Cooktown is adorned with history, most stone buildings dating back almost a century. It has an ancient historic cemetery and a historical museum featuring original artifacts recovered from James Cook's vessel. As the gateway to the Palmer River goldfield in the late 1800's, Cooktown had a population as high as 30 000 and a main street more than 2km long. At one stage it had over 200 pubs serving the needs of the gold diggers.
Today the population has decreased to a few hundred, and it has become a sleepy little town. You can still experience the tranquil, unspoiled beauty of an area, which remains much the same as Cook and the Aboriginal inhabitants knew it 1770.

The view from grassy hill is a must visit, as are visits to the two historical museums (Maritime and James Cook museum). The pioneer cemetery tells many stories of the past.
Getting to and from Cooktown gives you a number of alternatives. You either take the outback all weather road, or in the dry season you can travel via the very scenic 4WD track through the dense rainforests of the Daintree National park. Finally, you can always get there by plane.

New luxury cruise to the Coral Sea - Spirit of Freedom
At 37 meters, Spirit of Freedom is the largest live-aboard dive vessel in Australia. She features 3 spacious decks including sun deck with spa, lounge & bar, dining saloon, expansive dive deck and luxury accommodation for 24 passengers.

Spirit of Freedom, the perfect dive vessel, based in Cairns, will start to operate a regular schedule very soon. Her first trip is starting on 12th December 2002! Spirit of Freedom will offer 3 and 4 day dive adventures to Australia's Coral Sea and Cod Hole. Some of the world's best diving can now be experienced from a world class dive vessel.

The itinerary is fantastic too, giving the opportunity to dive the Ribbon reefs and some Coral Sea reefs, where hardly any other vessels are operating. Another plus: Nitrox is available on board. To top it all up: The price is very attractive too. 5 nights Coral Sea cruise start from AU$ 1050

Townsville - Dive the Yongala on board Aquarius III
Beginning in late July, the live-aboard dive vessel, Aquarius III, has taken over the 3 Day/2 night and 3 day/3 night Yongala trips previously offered by Divemaster.This is a great step in the right direction for these Yongala trips, now offering air-conditioned cabins and twin/double rooms with ensuites. A little more comfort never goes astray! Aquarius, being a much more stable vessel should also ensure less weather-related cancellation of the Yongala dives. Alternatively, Yongala is still visited by Spoilsport on its 6 and seven day excursions.

Papua New Guinea

Air Niugini updates
Air Niugini the national airline of PNG has announced the replacement of their Airbus with a modern Boeing 767 on most of its international flights into Port Moresby. Along with this comes a change in the international schedule. From Australia there are still daily flights ex Cairns, Brisbane now has six flights per week plus there are two flights ex Sydney. From Asia, the flights ex Singapore are Mondays and Tuesdays, ex Manila on Wednesdays and ex Tokyo every Saturday
All our diving clients who travel to PNG on Air Niugini from Australia receive 40Kg of check-in luggage allowance.
http://diversionOZ.com/en/flights.htm

Volcano eruption near Walindi Plantation Resort
The Mount Pago volcano, on the Papua New Guinea island of New Britain about 50 kilometres south of the town of Kimbe, began erupting on Monday 5 August 02. There have been large amounts of ashes but there have been no lava flows, a vulcanologist in the island capital, Rabaul, said.
The eruption has left many villages at the foot of Mount Pago under ash and has closed the nearby airport (Hoskins), disrupting regional air traffic. Kimbe, the nearest large town, has been unaffected. The volcano is still active, so it is difficult to say how long the airport will remain closed at this stage.
This regional event has not affected the famous dive resort, Walindi, which is situated about 50 km away from the volcano. However, due to the closure of Hoskins airport, it is currently not possible to access the resort directly by air.

Plans to open a secondary airport for smaller aircraft near Talasea are underway and should allow to get divers to the resort again in a week or two.
Live-aboards operating in the area (Febrina and Stardancer) are monitoring the situation and will adjust their itineraries to different ports as long as Hoskins airport does remain closed. Visitors to other parts of PNG are completely unaffected by this situation.

Telita Live aboard cruises
Telita - One of the nicest Live-aboard options in the Milne Bay region of PNG has seen a change in ownership. The previous owners, Gary & Frances Zamperutti have retired for health reasons. The new owners are very well known in the diving community. Vilia Lawrence has been promoting PNG diving in her capacity as secretary of the PNG Diving Association for many years. As the new owner of Telita, she will continue the operation with the existing crew. http://diversionOZ.com/en/telita.htm for details on the cruise itineraries.

New Airstrip at Ambua Lodge
At some 6800 feet (2100 meters) above sea level sits Ambua Lodge, overlooking the great Tari Basin. The Tari Basin and surrounding mountain slopes are home to the famous Tari Wigman and his Huli clan groups. The colourful culture displayed here rivals the colours of PNG's reef systems. A visit to the highlands should be included for any traveler to PNG.

A new airstrip is currently being built next to AMBUA LODGE. This means that clients traveling between Mt Hagen, KARAWARI LODGE or the SEPIK SPIRIT and AMBUA LODGE will not have to experience the roads and bridges between AMBUA LODGE and Tari. It is expected that the airstrip will be open for Twin Otter and Islander aircraft in about two months.

Micronesia

Yap - much more then Manta Rays
Yap is world famous for its large population of resident manta rays. On Yap a manta dive does not mean diving hoping for a manta encounter, it means diving to see the mantas.
Yet, many divers overlook the fact that there's much more to diving in Yap than just Manta Rays. Yap's outer reefs abound with species of tropical reef fish, invertebrates and corals. When coupled with the abundance of larger species like mantas, sharks, and turtles, More than 200 species of hard and soft corals form the reefs of Yap.

Yap Caverns, at the southern tip of the island, offers a truly spectacular dive with an array of caverns, swim throughs and pinnacles populated by Lionfish and sleeping whitetip reef sharks. Large schools of Huge Bumphead Parrotfish are often seen here. A unique feature of Yap Caverns is that the dive not restricted to advanced divers, beginners have no trouble negotiating the swim throughs, and are able to share the experience with more experienced divers.
A nice variety of different accommodations and dive operators makes for a very pleasant stay on the island and allows you to tailor your stay to your personal preferences.
For more information: - Manta Ray Bay Hotel - Traders Ridge

Big Blue Explorer - Value for money in Palau
This 51 m long, 10 m wide steel ship offers plenty of room for only 18 guests in twin/double cabins with private bathrooms. The vessel is fully air-conditioned and is equipped with stabilizers to reduce the roll.

Average cruising speed is 14 Knots. 7 night cruises around the Palau Archipelago get you to the best dive sites Palau has to offer. At USD$1699 per person it is very attractive for the budget as well.

Web-page update

One-stop Online Dive Travel insurance options
Unfortunately, there is not one insurance policy that covers all contingencies. Depending on your country of origin and your travel destination there are different insurances with different cover, premiums, etc. Then as diver, it is always recommended to carry a separate diving insurance to cove instances excluded by conventional travel insurances.
To allow you choice of cover for your particular situation, we have collected a number of options which should allow you to get the best personalised deal .

http://www.diversionoz.com/en/insurance.htm has links to online travel insurance booking facilities of a variety of companies from Australia and the USA. It also has the links to the relevant DIVERS ALERT NETWORK organisation of your region.

Winner of our online competition
We did receive an overwhelming feedback on our new look webpage. Most of it was very positive and very constructive. Some of the suggestions have been implemented immediately, other do have a high priority on the "to-do" list. We'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to participate.

The lucky winner of the 4 day dive cruise on Nimrod Explorer plus two nights accommodation at the Coral Tree Inn in Cairns is Peter Noehammer from Austria.

Peter is very excited about the win and he plans to take the price during a planned visit to Australia later this year.

Congratulations!

Other topics

Don't eat sharks
Famed marine biologist and diver Sylvia Earle doesn't eat fish because she knows how destructive fishing practices are destroying species. While you may not care to be as radical, if you're concerned about the oceans, there are some species you clearly should not consume. Chilean Sea Bass, Icelandic Cod, Monkfish, Atlantic Swordfish, all sharks (except the Thresher) and Atlantic salmon top the list. Get a full list of fish to avoid and the skinny why at http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp
You can also download a wallet-sized list to carry with you.
(from undercurrent.org )

Coral bleaching - what's the story?
Coral bleaching seems to be the number one indicator for the slow but constant deterioration of the marine environment. As this worldwide phenomena is only newly studied, not many hard and fast facts are established and we still rely very much on anecdotal and case study evidence. One contributing factor is the rise in water temperature over a sustained period of time. In a number of cases the effects of bleaching was reversed by favorable conditions and the corals have recovered. In other instances, the unfavorable conditions had been prolonged and consequently entire sections of reefs have been destroyed.From reports about the reefs in "our" region (which is Micronesia, PNG and Australia) a number of areas are suffering from Coral Bleaching.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has published a survey that after an unusually dry and hot summer in North Queensland about 95% of the Great Barrier Reef has been affected by Coral Bleaching in 2002. However, only very few reefs have seen major damage and the majority has recovered, as I write this. In fact, the Ribbon Reef section of the Great Barrier Reef which was ravaged by the "big bleach of 1998" is currently in better condition then before.

In a slightly disturbing development, it was noted on recent Coral Sea Live-Aboard excursions, that coral bleaching has had a significant negative impact on some parts of Flinders Reef in the Southern Coral Sea. Some areas of reef are verging on irreversible damage and not a lot of fish life is being seen.

Some damage has also been reported from Osprey Reef in the Northern Coral Sea.
However, Holmes Reef in the southern Coral Sea is currently in a wonderful condition, and the diving is something to behold at the moment. On a very recent trip, the writer was likening some sites on the Ribbons Reef to be equal to his underwater experiences in PNG !In PNG coral bleaching has destroyed some of the reefs in the Milne Bay region last year. All other areas are widely unaffected.In Micronesia, reports indicate that a number of reefs are affected by bleaching, but very few damages seem irreversible.

A positive spin: - Live-aboard Dive Operators have the flexibility in the itinerary to be selective in the reefs they visit and so provide their customers with the best possible dive experience. With the global environmental situation as is, unfortunately, this will be an ongoing phenomena. We therefore encourage our readers to report any experiences they might encounter during their dive trips. We also would like to encourage you to support moves to help protect our marine environment. A small list of organisations which provide in-depth information and work to protect the marine environment are listed on our webpage. http://diversionOZ.com/en/marine.htm

Specials
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