Well, I didn’t call it an “adventure” for nothing!

After a lovely early morning departure from the Bilikiki on 08DEC, we were taken to the Mendano Hotel in downtown Honiara for a short while. It gave folks time to get to an Internet Café and get updated on the world a little bit! Then we were transferred to the Honiara Airport for our flights onward. Peter, Jeff & Ted headed home via Brisbane and Nadi; the rest of the group headed towards Port Moresby on AirNuigini.

Our first clue that things might be amiss was an aborted take-off! A few moments later our pilot came over the intercom to advise us that as he received clearance for take-off and gunned his engines, he noticed a “local” airline commencing a landing in front of him from the opposite direction! He commented to us that the “pilot was not in communication with the rest of the world!” After circling back onto a taxi-way and waiting for the plane to clear the runway, he commenced a safe take-off!Once we landed in Port Moresby, PNG, after clearing Customs and Immigration we were advised that Air Nuigini had SOLD our seats on the flight to Alotau that evening because our plane was slightly late!

Oh, the joys of world travel to Third World Countries! Air Nuigini made arrangements to put us up at a local hotel and booked us out on the 6:00 a.m. flight the next morning. I confirmed that our friend, Tim, who was joining us had, indeed, boarded our original flight, so we were ten unhappy campers, but with lots of great red wine and a wonderful dinner at the Airways Poolside Restaurant, everyone managed a good night’s sleep.

Onward…we thought! Well, when we landed in Alotau our ground transportation greeter advised us that the Paradise Sport had sailed WITHOUT us the night before! Air Nuigini apparently doesn’t communicate with their local offices and sat phone service is terribly unreliable, so no one from Paradise Sport could find us! After a one and one-half hour van trip out of Alotau to the southeast coast, we were greeted at the lovely Tawaili Resort where we waited for the Paradise Sport to come and fetch us!

Once onboard, lunch was served, dive gear was set up and diving began! Our first dive site was Kathy’s Korner, which is a signature Milne Bay dive site, followed by Dinah’s Beach (another world-class dive site) and the trip sailed on for the remainder of the week. Everything was seen on the various dives….we dove wall structures, bommies and “muck” sites. We were able to dive with the prehistoric Nautilus and fantastic photos were taken. We saw everything from pygmy seahorses (think grain of rice size) all the way up to a fantastic manta ray! A first for all of us onboard was a lacey scorpionfish….almost 1-1/2 foot long! He was GORGEOUS….light green/yellow/black and truly a wonderful find.

The weather all week was fabulous until the last night (of course) when it started to rain! For those of you who are familiar with the drill, dive gear is washed, rinsed and put out in the “sun” to dry once diving is completed, so our gear wasn’t able to dry properly. The crew did put it in the engine room for a few hours the last morning and it was about 60% dry when we packed it….I’m sure all of our luggage weighed more because of all the wet gear!

We’re now in the Alotau airport waiting for our flight back to Port Moresby. We’ll all overnight in POM and then Mike, Bruce, Lynn, Eamonn & Nicola head off to Brisbane and back to LAX…Geri, Tim, George, Joyce, Bob & I are going to be joined tomorrow by Marian and Simonne and we’re off to the 4th and last leg of the journey, the Golden Dawn diving the remote Eastern Fields between PNG and Australia…….no internet access again while on board so look for the next update when we get off the boat on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Season’s Greetings!