Iwa island in the Marshall Bennet group of islands was our stop off point on the way to the Trobriand islands. We were greeted by the now customary paddle out by locals in their homemade fishing canoes. Everywhere we go the art of building these canoes is known and practiced. People in Papua New Guinea, particularly in remote areas, have learnt over hundreds of generations to be some of the most resourceful on the planet. The island is believe to be 4 million years old and is seldom visited by any yachts or cruise ships. Its sheer rock faces shoot steeply up out of the water to a height of 200 metres above the ocean. The island is surrounded by a shallow lagoon, the very narrow reef system drops off about fifty meters or so out from the shore line. The ocean plummets hundreds of meters down, so much so that there is no available anchorage, it's too deep! We drifted around in the current, occasionally turning the engine on and motor back towards the island.
A narrow beach lays at the bottom of some of the towering cliff face in other places there is no beach, only the bear rock. The beaches and the flat tabletop of the island are covered in rough, lush green jungle. One would have negotiate his or her way up 200 meters of cliff to the top of the island. Coconut trees poke their heads out above the lush green jungle canopy and their profile can be seen from a distance. There is very little fertile land on islands like these, for the many hours of toil the locals put in there's not much reward.
We did three dives, these could have been the first ever scuba divers to dive this reef. Being an ocean mount Iwa island is exposed to big oceans swells and storms which have an impact on reefs condition. In some places the reef was whole and healthy, coral bleaching had occurred in places, while big sea storms had destroyed others which are bare and barren. Even on this remote reef the diversity of coral species was exceedingly high, I counted at least five different types of plate coral and many other species. Being a very steep sloping drop off there wasn't much coral to be found past 25 metres, it's ran into bed rock and sandy patches. We encountered pelagic species on all three dives, giant barracuda, large tuna, jacks, trevally and on the last dive several scalloped hammerhead sharks.
Our first dive was along the South East side of the island, the current swept us along through clouds of fuzerliers and other reef fish. A small shoal of big-eyed barracuda patrolled up and down the reef past us. Four or five large tuna cruised by towards the end of the dive very close to the surface. At some points clouds of dirty water moved out from on top of the reef and caused a reduction is visibility to a depth of five or so meters.
The second dive was on the North 'slack side' of the island, on this day the current shot back out in the ocean before it reached this point consequently it was very weak/nonexistent on this spot. We saw a small pod of dolphins from the tender on the way. Pelagic action here wasn't anything like as good as on sides of Iwa that are exposed to currents however the coral growth and variety didn't appear to be affected.
The third and final dive site was done on the southern side of the island where the ocean current meets Iwa's sheer reef wall and shoots in different directions around the island. We encountered most of the fish life here, tuna, rainbow runners, large schools of surgeon fish, several species of barracuda and a brief and distant sighting of hammerheads. A strong current helped us along at a nice speed and provided the perfect environment for these species. We passed under several overhangs and part of sheer wall with no coral growth on them at all.
Unfortunately none of us made landfall on the island itself. I feel we barely scrapped the surface of Iwa island. Of particular interest are the hammerhead sharks we encountered, whether these sharks often frequent Iwa Island when the current and conditions are favourable remains to be seen. Another magical day in Papua New Guinea's incredible islands!
