Describing Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay as a “remote” diving destination is akin to calling Everest a “tall” mountain. The long indentation of blue water that splits the far eastern foothills of the island nation’s Owen Stanley Range beckons at the end of a two-day journey from Los Angeles. And that only gets you to the starting line, where the provincial capital of Alotau serves as the jumping off point to more than 400 coral-fringed islands and cays stretched between PNG proper and the Solomon Islands.

For divers looking to put to sea at Alotau and crisscross the heart of Milne Bay’s most fruitful diving grounds, a day boat just won’t do. It takes a big ship—one with the range and the room to run hard-core diving expeditions through deep-water channels pockmarked with oceanic seamounts, and into far-off protected coves where volcanic, black-sand beaches plunge beneath placid waters, sporting weird, wild marine life on some of the best muck dives in the Coral Triangle.

Only a handful of dive boats ply these waters—period—so the choices are few. But the newest option, offering a vast 10-day diving itinerary, is the Dancer Fleet’s Star Dancer. The spacious, 110-foot, 16-passenger motor yacht previously operated out of Kimbe Bay further to the north, but moved in March 2011 to launch a wide-ranging itinerary in Milne Bay. “The other liveaboards in this area focus primarily on critter diving,” says Star Dancer captain Chris Guglielmo. “We’re trying to offer a mix of muck sites, pinnacles, and reef dives.”

On an exploratory expedition at the beginning of April—Star Dancer’s second Milne Bay charter ever—the trip kicked off with a bang at the first dive site, Manta Ray Cleaning Station. The rubble bottom didn’t elicit many cries of joy at first. But by the second dive, one of the ship’s divemasters, a local who grew up in the village on the adjacent beach, had scouted the reef with a knowing eye.

“Would you care to see the mantas?” he said in his soft, Aussie-tinged island brogue. And within minutes of cranking up the chase boat, he deftly dropped the first group down the center of a swirling pack of ten footers. At the peak of an encounter that lasted to early afternoon, four of the winged behemoths flew in formation around a small coral head, back-rolling and dive-bombing just feet from the divers’ face masks, perpetually accompanied by swarms of eager remoras and cleaner fish.

With the group’s big-animal fix sated, the next day started with world-class muck diving off Samurai Island. The historic Samurai Wharf was once the province’s most prosperous port—now long moved to Alotau—but the pilings and the stacks of clam nets and other detritus scattered beneath the old piers still see unprecedented marine-life traffic.

At the end of the crumbling pier where local women and children jigged hand lines tied to Coke bottles, the group back-rolled into a dense cloud of their silver-sided quarry. And on the bottom, choose-your-own-adventure was the name of the game—whether hunting for wobbygong sharks beneath the lava rocks on the fringe of the pier, playing peekaboo with a pair of harlequin shrimp directly under the Star Dancer’s swim step, or gingerly tipping up bottles, boots and old coconut shells among the pilings in search of pipefish, stonefish, and octopuses.

From there, the charter alternated between open-ocean pinnacles and black-sand slopes off isolated villages where warm islanders greeted the Star Dancer in hand-carved outriggers loaded with homegrown fruits and vegetables. The savvy galley crew kept the guests well fed with hearty, impeccably fresh meals by bartering bags of rice and packaged noodles for everything from mangos and passion fruit to sweet potatoes, pumpkin greens, and fresh tuna.

The pinnacles—boasting names like Doubilet’s Reef, Crinoid City, and Calypso—rise from the inky blue depths and feature innumerable examples of the region’s unprecedented coral varieties. And while fishing has clearly taken its toll—schools of large pelagic fishes and sharks are virtually non-existent, with the exception of the occasional black-tip or tawny nurse shark—critters steal the show on these dives. The eagle-eyed dive guides make quick work of revealing pygmy seahorses clinging desperately to tiny gorgonian branches, lacy scorpionfish nestled among the rocks, and crocodile fish flattened against the seafloor.

And on the black-sand muck dives, the divemasters proved their worth even more clearly, seeming to conjure exotic creatures like imperator shrimps, cockatoo waspfish and stargazers from the backs of grazing sea cucumbers, piles of leaves, or the silty substrate itself.

In a nod to the WWII remains that still occupy many parts of Papua New Guinea’s forests and coastlines, the exploratory expedition climaxed with a single deep dive on an intact B17 “Blackjack” bomber plane, sitting in 155 feet of water at the foot of a serenely beautiful coral wall. “Unfortunately, this will probably never be part of the normal itinerary,” Gulglielmo said after motoring through the night to isolated Cape Vogel. “Even for Milne Bay, it’s just too remote.”

Need to Know

When to go: Weather and dive conditions remain good, but predictably unpredictable, year round. In general May to November can bring strong winds and rain, while January to March can bring calm, warm weather, but squalls and rain happen unexpectedly throughout the year.
Dive Conditions: Water temperatures range from the high 70s to the mid 80s. Muck sites are generally in protected coves with modest visibility. Expect unpredictable currents and surface conditions on the pinnacles, where visibility can top 150 feet.
Operator/Price Tag: Star Dancer runs 8- to 10-night charters year round, with 6 1/2 to 8 1/2 days of diving. Prices range from $2369 to $2995.