Papua New Guinea 2005: Kavieng, Karawari, Mt. Hagen, Bensbach, and Ambua

As a prize for Best of Show (and others) in the NCUPS Sea2003 photo contest, I received a complimentary week aboard the M/V Febrina, a live-aboard dive vessel in Papua New Guinea. In general, Papua New Guinea is not well known to American travellers except in small pockets of the dive community. At the time, I only knew about PNG because I had read Jared Diamond's excellent book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. But after I found out that I would be going, I purchased and read First Contact (Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson), Throwim Way Leg (Tim Flannery), and Malaguna Road (Sarah Chinnery), which were all recommended to me by Judy Hemenway, a well-travelled woman I met while diving in the Solomon Islands. I discovered that to read about Papua New Guinea is to want to spend time there, and decided to book my time aboard the Febrina coincide with a 14-day land tour that included attendence at the annual Mt. Hagen Cultural Show. The following pages contain notes and photographs from my three-and-a-half weeks in Papua New Guinea. (next page: kavieng, topside)

Comments on this travel journal? I'd love to hear from you!

The images in this travel journal are selects from the greater image collection I returned with. If you're interested in seeing the whole collection, you can see them at my smugmug site, which will also allow you to purchase individual prints.

Folks aboard the Febrina, scuba diving in Kavieng:

Eric Cheng, Anita Frankenberger, Dave Patchen, David Reid, Denise Eisermann, Doug Ebersole, Lucien Schmidlin (TopDIVE) , Robin Mellecker, Son Ly, Toshaki Masuda

People I met and travelled with, topside:

Son Ly, Anita Frankenberger, Bill and Elaine Wagner, Carol & Rodney Westmore, Cheryl & Steve Demos (Silk Soymilk), Denise Eisermann, En-Lai Yeoh (AP), Liz Fong and Professor Chris Wills (Biology, UCSD), Mary Jane Murray, Megan and Alan Pryke (Photographer, Sydney), Michael Bates (Trans Niugini Tours), Mr. Shimada, Nahoko Kahara, Paul D. Stewart (BBC), Peter Guber and Family (Sony Pictures/Mandalay), Professor Masaruki Nishie (Linguist), Robbie Gregory, and Jeime, Neville, Kevin, Helen, Gay, Daniel, Naomi, Wayne, and Kathleen.

kavieng - topside & peeps	kavieng - underwater	karawari river and lodge
mt. hagen cultural show	bride price payback	bensbach river and lodge
	ambua lodge & the huli	photography notes

Reader Comments

Please leave me a message!

-- posted by Eric Cheng @ Saturday, September 10 2005, 11:13 am

wow... i am completely amazed.

wonderful photos as always! you are so gifted with such talent!

i also like the smiles on the faces in your photos, especially the kids! they received you warmly so they smiled so warmly.

-- posted by annalise @ Saturday, September 10 2005, 12:16 pm

I read your comment about using insect repellent with 17.5% DEET. I don't do much backwoods shooting, but I've heard that DEET is strong stuff that can wear away at anything plastic it touches... Did you have any problems with it and your expensive equipment? I'm going to the South Island of NZ, so I might be needing some strong repellent to keep the biting flies away.

-- posted by ben @ Saturday, September 10 2005, 03:40 pm

Good point, Ben. I always wash my hands or wipe them off as well as I can after applying DEET. I've seen someone apply 100% DEET (stupid!) and literally dissolve the grip of his Canon SLR.

Don't touch plastic, waterproof jackets, etc. if you have DEET on.

-- posted by Eric Cheng @ Saturday, September 10 2005, 05:58 pm

love your photos and detailled travel report - it creates a sense of having been there myself. and the objection of "white man" vs. "banana" is hilarious ;)

ps: anything new about wetpixel?

-- posted by markus @ Sunday, September 11 2005, 04:54 am

wow sick pictures as always! The underwater shots are magnificant. How do you blow rings under water? Is it like the same as blowing smoke rings topside? that picture was especially cool

-- posted by shindogg @ Sunday, September 11 2005, 11:11 am

Amazing photos Eric! How was the mud crab claw? Did it taste good? If you are still in Taichung, perhaps you might want to check out the beautiful Central Cross-Island Highway. It is one of a kind. Thanks for the wonderful pictures. Take care!

-- posted by Egg Roll Monster @ Sunday, September 11 2005, 05:50 pm

Brilliant photos as always and excellent choice for the front page. You are The Master. Let's plan to get together when you're back and less busy (relatively); I'd especially like to schedule having you shoot me blowing glass since the current studio shots at davidpatchen.com are pretty weak. I'm down for any other warm water trips (I can hear you making fun of me--stop! :)

-- posted by Dave Patchen @ Monday, September 12 2005, 12:25 am

Great to see your amazing pictures. Thanks for your information about PNG. Very helpful !!

-- posted by Jens @ Monday, September 12 2005, 05:13 am

as always, Eric, a huge pleasure to read. .thanks again.

-- posted by John Teng @ Wednesday, September 14 2005, 08:22 am

It's always a pleasure to look at your photos. These sets of photos are amazing. I love how you captured the trailing water droplets from the legs of the egret taking off the ground. Just lovely, although the white on the egret's neck seems too one-dimensional (maybe due to over-saturation or extreme brightness during the shot).

One thing-- there seems to be some mismatched thumbnail-fullsize images on the last third of your "kavieng - underwater" set.

-- posted by stevec @ Thursday, September 15 2005, 11:01 am

thanks, Steve. I fixed the mismatching.

-- posted by Eric Cheng @ Sunday, October 30 2005, 03:15 pm

Sweet photos and looks like an amazing time... my wife and i want to go to the mt hagen show next year!

-- posted by jordanh @ Sunday, December 18 2005, 12:32 am

will be going to PNG to work for Karawari lodge in the next few weeks, iam a avid photographer did you have a problem with humidity and your gear, i have a few small bags of silicon in my bag. do you have any other tricks or suggestions to keep you gear in a good condition for a long period of time?

-- posted by wade mckenzie @ Tuesday, January 23 2007, 09:25 am

Thanks for the memories!! I grew up up in Mt Hagen, and your fantastic photos brought back lots of great memories - makes me want to go back before it changes too much. It was a great place to grow up, we had lots of great adventures :-)

Thanks again!!

-- posted by Ginny Daniels @ Thursday, May 17 2007, 02:27 am

I would love to go once for the experiance but tese pictures look scary, I think it would be an wothwile adventure though.

-- posted by Gavin @ Travel Adventures @ Wednesday, May 13 2009, 08:55 am

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