Vacation was a real dive
Al Houston was not quite sure of Papua New Guinea's location in the Pacific, but knew he wanted to dive there.
One of the top-rated locations in the world for scuba diving, Papua New Guinea, located north of Australia on the island of New Guinea, promised the adventure Houston and his wife, Jeane, were looking for.
After a trip in 1999 to the exotic Pacific location, they promised to return in 10 years.
That promise held true in January, when the Houstons of Mars and Kathy Tracy of Jackson Township traveled to the opposite side of the globe for a serious down under water adventure.
The Houstons and Tracy traveled with a group of 13 others on a trip led by Bill and Jean Downey of Downey Diving in Baden. The group arrived in Papua New Guinea about three days after departing their homes. Most traveled through California and met in Tokyo to fly to Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby. According to Al Houston, the port is more than 9,500 miles from Pittsburgh.From there, the group flew to the southern city of Alatau, Papua New Guinea, where a bumpy bus ride was followed by a short boat trip to Milne Bay. They stayed for four days at the Tawali Resort."The resort was very remote, but very nice," Tracy said.Although members of the group did shore dives several times a day while staying at the Tawali, the next step in their adventure was to board The Spirit of Niugini, a dive boat owned by the resort.Al Houston, 60, explained that there are two approaches to scuba diving: shore diving and liveaboard diving. Shore diving is taking short boat trips from the shore to dive locations. Liveaboard diving is taking a multiday trip on a boat passengers can live on and spending a majority of the trip diving.Shore diving is more physically taxing on the diver because they must set up their gear including tanks, wet suits and other items on a dive boat about 30 minutes before it leaves the dock. They then travel between 20 minutes and two hours to the dive location.
Dives last about 40 minutes, and divers need an hour afterward to recuperate from their time under water. They also have to take care of filling their tanks and storing equipment.Shore diving makes a diver "pretty beat by 3 or 4 p.m.," Houston said. "Four dives is a lot of work."Tracy said shore diving can be better for teenagers since it is "not as much intensive diving" compared to liveaboard diving. Liveaboard diving is all about diving as opposed to shore diving, where divers can choose to do other activities during their trip.Liveaboard dive trips typically last several days. They are hosted by a full crew including a captain, kitchen staff and divemasters or guides that take care of everyone's needs on the boat.Houston prefers liveaboard diving because divers do not have to move their gear at all during their stay on the boat. Each passenger has a designated place on the dive deck for gear."Your stuff, your seat," he said.The crew fills air tanks and passengers are served meals and snacks immediately between dives.
Tracy explained the liveaboard schedule as "When you're dry, you dive. When you're wet, you eat.""(Diving is) not that physically taxing unless you get stuck in a current," she said. But the sport still keeps divers burning a lot of calories to keep their body temperatures regulated. "You're always eating and drinking," she said.The dive schedule on The Spirit of Niugini began at 6 a.m. with a cold breakfast followed by a 7 a.m. dive.Hot breakfast was served around 8:30 a.m. and divers got back in the water at 10:15 a.m. After an 11:30 a.m. lunch, they dove again at 2 p.m. and came up for a snack. At 4:30 p.m., they took one more daylight dive before dinner. Night dives were available, but some passengers opted out."You gotta be comfortable going into pitch black water with a flashlight," Tracy said.The number of dives taken was a personal choice, Tracy said. Sometimes they would forsake the afternoon dive to relax on deck or take a nap.<br>
The sea life on display for the diving group proved to be a photographer's dream. The group took hundreds of images of anemones, fish, coral reefs, plants, critters and divers during the eight-day liveaboard trip in Milne Bay.Also a fine art photographer, Houston said, "For me it was the coral. I'm a photographer by nature and passion." Though his camera flooded a few days before the trip's end, Houston managed to capture many images of diversely colored coral, anemones and fish as well as divers enjoying the creatures.Particularly fascinating were the pygmy seahorses, according to Houston and Tracy. Tiny pygmy seahorses are about the size of a fingernail clipping and are camouflaged to match their host coral.Tracy said the divemaster, or guide, would flick a coral lightly to check for seahorse movement. Without moving the coral, the seahorses would be almost impossible to spot.Muck diving or critter diving is very popular in Papua New Guinea."Completely different creatures live there," Tracy said of the sand, silt and mud in which divers searched for creatures.
Downey said, "It's in the top 10 (dive locations) for critter diving. You could kneel down and see a dozen species."The people of Papua New Guinea also played a key role in the divers' adventures."It was like Christmas for the natives to see the dive boat," Houston said. "It's a truly native culture."Tracy noted that "for a week, we did not see one electric light, not one (other) motorized boat in six days."The lack of electricity in the islands made divers feel like they were in a planetarium of stars each night, Tracy said.Each night, the natives negotiated small docking fees with the boat's crew. In the mornings, "the kids would jump in the water and swim around with us," Tracy said.The crew traded with villagers for fresh fruit, vegetables and fish. Passengers also bought carvings, jewelry and shells from their visitors. They gave the children lots of pencils, Houston said, and his wife gave the girls hair ties.The group took several side trips when docked to see the Papua New Guinea way of life. They explored skull caves on the islands where natives deposited human skulls as an honorable burial. Flowstone in the caves creates a sparkly film on the skulls, making them look almost other-worldly.<br>
For scuba divers, the Caribbean is the natural location to dive. The Tracy family took their first scuba vacation to St. Lucia in the Caribbean.Tracy later took her first liveaboard scuba trip to the northeast Caribbean islands, the Netherlands Antilles."Saba is where the diving's really good," she said. Saba is an island in the Caribbean not typically visited by American divers due to its remote location.Tracy said Atlantic or Caribbean diving and Pacific diving reflect drastically different marine environments. She enjoyed the "National Geographic type of experiences" in Papua New Guinea.Bill Downey, who hosted the trip with his wife Jeanne, said some of the most popular Caribbean destinations are Cozumel and Grand Cayman because they are very tourist-friendly and easy to access.The Houstons' first diving trip was to the island of Guadeloupe, also in the Caribbean."We had a blast," he said.
Tracy and her son, Ian, plan to travel next to Cozumel, Mexico, for diving this summer. Ian said he wants to continue diving throughout his life and his dream is one day to dive in Indonesia.The Houstons take one major diving trip per year. Al has gone wreck diving in North Carolina to explore sunken military ships and submarines. Sometimes divers enter the boats and go where sunlight is no longer visible."You can start diving just about anywhere you want," Downey said, "a lot of local lakes are good for diving."A weekend trip he recommends is traveling to the St. Lawrence Seaway between the United States and Canada where divers can explore sunken wooden ships from the 1800s.Though many divers are middle-aged, Tracy said the sport is really for any age. She has helped the Downeys in some of their classes by teaching young children the basics of scuba."You'd be surprised. There are a lot of kids that dive," Tracy said.In fact, Tracy started diving two years ago when Ian, then 12, saw a flier at the YMCA in Cranberry Township and wanted to enroll in the class."My sister dives, but she's not as into it as I am," Ian said of his 17-year-old sibling.Houston also plans to get his 12-year-old grandson certified soon.
Al Houston, 60, of Mars and his wife Jeane, 55, met in the late-1990s through their love of scuba diving. Jeane has been certified since 1978 and Al has been certified since 1989.Al encountered scuba diving when he was a manufacturer's representative for Nikon. He often called on dive shops with his underwater cameras and was convinced to try diving. He is now certified as an assistant instructor and takes at least one diving trip per year.Jeane was involved in an adventurers group that was into hang gliding, spelunking and scuba diving."She was passionate about diving," Al said.———Kathy Tracy, 50, of Jackson Township teaches water aerobics and arthritis aquatics. She is also a computer consultant.Her son 14-year-old son, Ian, got the family into scuba diving two years ago and now he and his 17-year-old sister, Anna, dad, Bill, and mom are a scuba-certified family.Kathy and Ian plan to dive in Cozumel, Mexico, this summer.Though she has "a long way to go," Kathy is working to become certified as a divemaster.
