Ever read a National Geographic article about some bizarre and totally unique marine creature, or an extremely remote area, and say to yourself, "I wish I could experience something like that on my next diving trip"? Well, you not only can, you should! 

The most experienced divers and photo professionals will agree that Papua New Guinea (PNG) is it! Simply put, the diversity of the marine life found concentrated in these waters is greater than anywhere else on Earth. Most of us do not get as much vacation time each year as we need and deserve, so I encourage you to use this valuable commodity wisely. Take an adventure to some exotic land, so satisfying it will sustain you until your next escape. 

I enthusiastically suggest exotic diving in PNG. One of the reasons this destination is so spectacular is that it is not in our backyard. PNG is one-third of the way around the world. Yes, the flight is long, but well worth it because of PNG’s remoteness, it sports pristine reefs (some of which have never been dived), that host the rarest and most unique marine creatures found on earth. 

Dicky’s Place, in the Witu Islands. This area is known for "World Famous Muck Diving." You may well ask yourself, what is muck diving? Well, the answer is that although on first glance the reef might seem a little mucky, with decaying palm fronds, logs and other assorted not-so-pristine debris cluttering the sandy bottom, upon closer examination with the help of our eagle-eyed guides, you can see all kinds of good stuff that lives down there amongst the flotsam, like orange mantis shrimp and pipefish, all yielding excellent photos opportunitiess. 

The pipefish float around the bottom trying to look like a piece of seaweed, nose down. They are about three to four inches long, very unusual looking, and from the seahorse family. They are so well camouflaged that if you didn’t see one snap up a little brine-shrimp snack, you would swear they were dead weeds. They’re so ugly they’re cute. On this dive, I also found a squadron of three- to five-inch-long iridescent squid that were very approachable. 

Dicky’s Place also has two different sets of leaf fish residing there, both light yellow with silver dots. The one that coaxed me out of a role of film was resting on top of a purple sponge network that looked like Chinese noodles. I was so mentally absorbed in these small creatures, that a whale could have been swimming over my head and I wouldn’t notice. 

Also residing on the black sandy bottom of this area were five carpet anemones, each complete with a school of panda clown fish. Panda clowns are all black and white with saddle-type markings, and they really do resemble panda bears. These special clown fish are very rare and found only in this one location on the whole planet. They share their anemone homes with a pair of white-black and red-dotted porcelain crabs. These crabs are one to two inches in width and they have little nets attached to the ends of their two front claws. Upon closer examination, I noticed that they were constantly raking the water with these tiny nets, picking up minute bits of food.