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PAPUA NEW GUINEA
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THE DIVE BOAT - Star Dancer

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Rabaul Caldera Volcano
The Schaffers and Matt
Other Divers
The Crew
Star Dancer
  Star Dancer off the coast of Kokopa, Papua New Guinea

 

The Schaffers and Matt Onboard the Star Dancer

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  Donna and Charlie   Charlie going for the bananas!  
  Fresh coconut   Matt on the Star Dancer deck  
  Lounging on the Star Dancer deck    
 

Views of the Rabaul Caldera Volcano

In 1994 the Rabaul Caldera erupted and in a few days covered the >50,000 person town of Rabaul with more than 12 feet of ash. Fortunately there was no loss of life, but almost all the buildings were destroyed. The people moved to the next town over on the island - Kokopo. Where Rabaul had city planning and charm, Kokopo has had rapid (rabid) development to deal with the influx.
As for the volcano, ever since '94 it's been an irregular geyser of ash. When we first arrived on New Britain Island the volcano was belching every 10 minutes or so, a week later it was going off about once or twice an hour.
During WWII Rabaul was the Japanese headquarters for this whole area of the Pacific - I wonder what would have happened if the volcano would have chosen that time to explode.

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  Schaffers at the Rabaul Caldera   Rabaul Caldera  
  Pointing at the Rabaul volcano   Seeing the Rabaul volcano from the Star Dancer  
  Rabaul volcano   Spurt of ash from volcano  
  Site of former Rabaul airport   Overlook of Rabaul volcano  
 

The Divers from Spain

There were 12 passenger/divers total on the boat, the four of us from the U.S. and a group of eight people Spain. It gave Matt a chance to practice his Spanish!

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  Young Spanish lady on Star Dancer    
  Third Spanish Lady   The Spainards lounging on the Star Dancer deck  
  Dive Cameras   A Spanish Dane  
    A Dane from Spain  

 

The Star Dancer Crew

Charlie and I have been on 10 liveaboard diveboats trips in various places around the world. This was the most luxurious trip, mainly thanks to the hard efforts of the 9-person Star Dancer crew.

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  Matty the Divemaster   Maria on the Star Dancer  
     
  A native member of the Star Dancer crew   Theresa  
  Getting things out of the freezer on the Star Dancer deck   Matty and Theresa  
 

The Star Dancer at Port in Kokopa

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  The public pier in Kokopa, New Guinea   Star Dancer at Kokopa pier  
  Kids on the Kokopa pier   Charlie at the Star Dancer  

Unless noted, all of the above pictures were taken by Donna Schaffer in July, 2001. She used an Olympus C3040Z digital camera.
This site was designed and produced by Donna Schaffer using Photoshop 6.0, ImageReady and HomeSite 4.5.
It looks much better in Internet Explorer than with Netscape - but I'm working on it!

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©2001 Donna S. Schaffer
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