Tufi

Nobody had told me about the fjords. I had booked a flight to Tufi because a diver I met in Wewak described the reef as one of the least-dived in the Pacific, and I arrived expecting a typical north coast PNG arrangement: a village on a beach, a guesthouse with mosquito nets, maybe a boat. What I got instead, stepping off the tiny aircraft onto a grass strip carved into a headland, was a view that stopped me mid-stride: below me, drowned river valleys cut deep into the jungle coastline in a pattern that, in any other context, I would have called Scandinavian. The water in them was the particular dark blue of enclosed marine depth, the valley walls were solid green right down to the waterline, and the whole thing was entirely silent except for a bird somewhere in the trees behind me making a sound like a tuning fork.

Tufi is on Cape Nelson in Oro Province, and what happened here geologically is that a series of river valleys were inundated by rising sea levels, leaving the jungle-covered ridges standing as the walls of fjord-like inlets that run inland for several kilometres. It is visually surreal in a way that photographs do not quite capture because the photographs can’t give you the silence or the scale. A longboat trip through the inlets takes you past villages accessible only by water, where children row out in dugout canoes to wave at passing boats with the enthusiasm of people for whom boat arrivals are an event.

The diving below these cliffs is what brings the small number of travelers who make it to Tufi. The reef is in exceptional condition — the remoteness of the location means there is essentially no fishing pressure on it, no runoff from agriculture, no anchor damage. I dove three times in two days: a wall dive off the cape’s point that dropped to beyond my depth certification, a muck dive in the shallower bay that turned up a blue-ringed octopus in a discarded coconut shell, and an early-morning drift dive along a coral garden where the current moved me through giant sea fans and barrel sponges the size of bath tubs. A hawksbill turtle came within arm’s length and ignored me entirely.

The village of Tufi itself sits on a peninsula above one of the fjord entrances and is known, among anthropologists, for its tattooing tradition — women of the Orokaiva culture have historically worn intricate facial tattoos that signify clan identity and feminine achievement. Younger women in the village today wear them less commonly, but the tradition is not gone, and the pattern of dots and lines carries information to those who can read it.

Food at Tufi runs on garden produce — pumpkin tips, sweet potato leaves, taro — supplemented by whatever fish the village nets brought in that morning. Dinner at the guesthouse one evening was fish curry made with a coconut so fresh the flesh was still gelatinous, served with rice and lemon basil. I ate a second helping and then a third and I was not apologetic about it.

When to go: May through October is the dry season for Oro Province, with calmer seas and the clearest diving visibility. Tufi receives flights from Port Moresby a few days per week, and schedules change — confirm well in advance and build flexibility into any itinerary. December through March is wet season, with rough seas making both diving and fjord exploration difficult.