Diving at Tufi is on reefs about 10 to 12 kilometres from the village. After walking down the steep road to the wharf (there is only one vehicle in Tufi), you board the twin engined diesel boat for the hour long trip out to the sites. See the Tufi Resort page for more information about Tufi.

Our first dive was at Tonys Reef on Greaves Reef. This dive site consists of a saddle between two shallow reefs where the maximum depth required is about 35 metres. On the northern side there was an enormous gorgonia and sharks and barracudas were seen. The southern side of the saddle had a reef that was only five metres deep but dropped to more than 30 off its edge.

Back towards the mainland was our second dive site, Red Light. This site was located on Stewarts Reef with a red (port) channel light as its only above water feature. Starting at the light, a drift with the slight current to the north enabled nearly the whole reef to be seen before we returned back across the shallow reef top. Once again, sharks and barracudas were the most popular fish seen.

As indicated above, Tufi has a wharf. This wharf was originally held by the Japanese and was the site of a US World War II PT boat station. Off the wharf there is a large amount of wreckage and debris, including a PT boat with three engines, torpedo, gun and depth charges. As well as these items, there is a large concrete boat, empty 200 litre drums and anti-tank barriers. A very interesting dive of almost 50 metres just a short swim from the wharf. Click here to go a more detailed article on the wrecks here.

Our final dive here was on a previously unnamed reef which we called Jonesy's Reef. I unfortunately followed it to the north (where it was good) but the best apparently was to the south where there were numerous caves, tunnels and overhangs. More sharks and trevallies made this a pretty good dive site.

If you get a chance, I can recommend Tufi Dive Resort for your next holiday.

Michael McFadyen travelled to PNG courtesy of Dive Adventures, Air Niugini and Tufi Dive Resort. If you require any information about the resort, contact Dive Adventures on 61 2 9299 4633.