Kavieng Dive Sites

Kavieng's dive sites are spread across the northern reefs and the channels between New Ireland and New Hanover, all within an hour or so of the harbour. Big-fish drift dives are the speciality: schooling barracuda, eagle rays, grey reef sharks, and the occasional silvertip or hammerhead. Coral cover is healthy by Pacific standards and visibility is typically 25–40 metres.

Several Japanese and American wrecks from the Second World War also lie in diveable range, most of them sunk during the 1944 Allied bombing campaigns. The Der Yang, a more recent Taiwanese trawler scuttled in 1988, sits upright in 30 metres and is the most popular wreck dive. Trips are run by a small handful of operators based at Lissenung Island and Kavieng town.

things to do sight
A story
The Steffen and Albatross Channels that flank New Hanover funnel huge volumes of water past the reefs on every tide, drawing in pelagic fish in numbers that have largely vanished from more heavily dived parts of the Pacific. Local operators time dives to slack water and then drift back out with the current — short but spectacular.