Krakafat, Witu Islands, Papua New Guinea

By John Boyle on 14 September 2008

PNG never ceases to blow my mind with the diversity of its diving, the pristine corals and the huge schools of fish. Once all the planet’s oceans must have been like this before man made his mark. You can start a dive among huge schools of fish and end it staring at tiny creatures that you never imagined even existed – it is impossible to decide what camera set up to use on many dives. And anything can come along out of the blue – from orcas to the most amazing drifting oceanic beings – on one shallow dive I was amazed to encounter the world’s longest sea creature – not a giant whale but a siphonophore – a linear colony of individuals all with their own specific roles, reaching as long as 40 metres and trailing through the ocean with their deadly stinging cells.

The Witus

The Witus can only be accessed by live aboard; a group of tiny islands off the north west end of New Britain island. And close to the Witus are a number of sea mounts, the most spectacular of which is Krakafat. It was named by alan raabe, the legendary skipper / owner of FeBrina; while it appears to be a name of local origin, it comes from Alan’s graphic pre-dive briefings for the spot – “crack a fat” is Australian slang for getting an erection, and as Alan will tell you before the dive “Jesus mate, every time I dive here I crack a fat it’s just so good!”

The top of the sea mount lies at around 25 metres. It’s about the size of a football pitch, fairly flat, and slopes steeply at all sides down to hundreds of metres. The whole of the reef top is covered with colourful corals and masses of small bright coloured antheas in an ever moving cloud. You can find just about anything here – octopus, morays, nudibranchs – I’m sure that there is much to discover on the reef top itself, but there is never time, because your attention is dragged away to the blue water above that is so dense with fish that it casts a shadow. Just off the reef top, always current side, is a huge every circling school of many hundreds of circling barracuda.

But at first you hardly notice them due to the schools of countless thousand huge silver jack that hang in massive clouds over the sea mount. Sometimes you can’t distinguish individual fish – just an overwhelming shimmering mass of creatures. Check the tiny figure of a diver standing I the bottom right corner of the video clip to get an idea of scale – so massive is the school and so clear the visibility that the 6 foot tall human is dwarfed into insignificance by the gigantic spectacular school of jack.

Attituna

And then there are the pelagic visitors to the sea mount – my favourite is “Attituna” – a big old scarred lone tuna that hangs just off the action, a real hardcore fish with a real aggro attitide which is why we have given him this nickname.

But unlike most dive sites that are pleasing to the eye, Krakafat assails more than just the visual sense. There is an energy, a vibrancy about the place, surrounded on all sides by just so many fish. The whole place feels alive – there is a real buzz in the water.

And the sound is unforgettable. When the whole school changes direction as a predator sweeps in or something spooks them, there is an audible “snap” in the water, a whooshing sound of so many fish moving in perfect synchronicity that you can almost feel the vibration through the water.

The site is always prone to current – I guess that is why it is so profuse with life – and if you haven’t gulped your air in excitement, your computer and will tell you that it is time to leave this undersea wonderland well before you are ready to. As you take one last look at the teeming sea mount – clear below until the current whisks you off to complete your deco stop, all you want is to get back down there as soon as you possibly can.

Contact

Author: John Boyle
Email: info@travel-dive.com

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