The Pacific Gas Wreck

When the conditions are good, the wreck of the Pacific Gas in Bootless Bay has to be one of the best dives in Papua New Guinea.

My first dive on the wreck was back in 2002, and it stands out as one of the best wreck experiences I have personally had. The wreck’s location near Horseshoe Reef offers protection from the south-east trade winds, but is exposed when the wind comes from the south-west as it was that day, creating an uncomfortable 1m swell. It’s a fairly deep dive so it’s obviously important to be thoroughly briefed on both the wreck and the prevailing conditions, as the currents can be quite strong.

Our briefing achieved that and also advised us that we must descend by the mooring line, secured to the bow of the wreck in about 18m, as a free descent would probably mean being caught in the current and being swept past the wreck.

So as I bobbed up & down in the swell waiting for the signal to begin the descent, I was wondering what this wreck dive would bring. Not a lot was my initial thought as I pulled myself down the line in less than 2m of visibility. If it’s like this at the surface what can we expect at depth - was this going to be one of those “if only you had been here last week” kinds of dives…

Then at about 10m the visibility suddenly cleared and beyond was the incredible sight of the 65m long Pacific Gas wreck – all of it! The complete wreck could be seen from our vantage point just above the bow and circling the wreck were large shoals of schooling jacks, snapper & sweetlips.

It was a truly amazing sight! There are other wrecks that have more intense fish life, better soft corals or more critters, but I have yet to dive one that is still so intact & clearly recognizable as a ship.  It has such a great diversity of marine life and is so photogenic!

Every time I went back to Loloata I was always keen to dive the Pacific Gas, but the conditions always seemed to work against me and I only managed a couple of dives on the three subsequent trips. But I was determined to do a full article on the wreck and finally in September 2007, with the support of Dik Knight the owner of Loloata Resort, and the terrific assistance of his dive team I was able to conduct a series of dives on the Pacific Gas and document what I saw.

But first a little bit of history to put the whole story into context….

The Journey of the Pacific Gas to Bootless Bay

The Pacific Gas actually started its life in 1967 in Hiroshima, Japan as the MS Nanayo Maru. Built by the Kanawa Dock Company as a liquefied gas carrier for its owners Okuda Gyogyo KK, it went into service as a Japanese merchant ship transporting gas cargos between Japan, Taiwan & Singapore under charter to Esso.

The liquefied gas was stored in two large cylindrical, refrigerated vessels located in the middle section of the ship.

The Nanayo Maru was subsequently sold to the Australian company Liquefied Gas Carriers in 1972, renamed the Pacific Gas, and then put into service transporting gas cargoes between Australia and PNG for Boral Gas until 1980, when it was assessed as being at the end of its effective operating life. As part of it’s de-commissioning the gas storage vessels were removed and installed on dry land at the Boral Gas facilities in Port Moresby & Lae.

The hull of the ship was subsequently sold to a group of enterprising Port Moresby businessmen, led by the prominent politician Sir Hugo Berghauser, who planned to run it aground on Ela Beach and convert it into a seafood restaurant & nightclub….

Unfortunately for Sir Hugo & his partners, permission to ground the Pacific Gas was refused by Port Moresby’s Town Planner and the ship ended up moored in the harbor until June 1986.

After several missed deadlines to remove the vessel because of its poor condition, the Harbors Board issued a final ultimatum to remove the ship within 14 days.

Bob Halstead & the Pacific Gas

Bob Halstead is probably best known for his role in pioneering the liveaboard dive industry in Milne Bay aboard his boat the Telita. He actually started his diving business in Port Moresby back in 1976 with his wife Dinah and they both played a pivotal role in the final resting place of the Pacific Gas.

Their original diving venture was called Oceanic Enterprises, but changed to Tropical Diving Adventures late the following year when Bob & Dinah bought out their business partner Len Capon. Tropical Diving Adventures catered for both local & tourist divers & concentrated on the reefs of Bootless Bay for its open water dives and then in 1978 Bob enlisted the help of the Port Moresby Sub-Aqua Club to create the first wreck dives in the area.

Two condemned ex-government vessels the MV Parama and the MV Jade were to be towed out to sea and scuttled, but together Bob & Dinah and the Sub-Aqua Club were able to get them sunk in Bootless Bay adjacent to Horseshoe Reef.

I contacted Bob when I started to research this article and he told me an interesting story about how he had tried to get Horseshoe Reef declared as the first marine park in PNG. Bob received strong support from the PNG government   all the way up to cabinet level, but a lack of funding eventually derailed the idea, so in true Halstead fashion, Bob made a “Unilateral Declaration of Marine Park” by just telling everybody it was a marine park. This apparently worked just as well as a formal declaration….

He also emphasized just how supportive the PNG Department of Environment & Conservation had been about sinking the wrecks by assuming ownership of the vessels in case of any future liability problems. When Bob heard about the final ultimatum from the Harbors Board, he approached Sir Hugo and ultimately was able to convince him that the best solution to the problem was for the Pacific Gas to join the growing list of wrecks in Bootless Bay!

The Sinkingof the Pacific Gas

This is how Bob described the actual sinking of the Pacific Gas - "Pacific Salvage cleaned up the vessel and towed it out to a spot I had marked in the shelter of Horseshoe Reef with the stern in 40m of water. We moored the ship and Ian Short, a local commercial diver & explosives expert, planted the explosive charges which worked perfectly and sank the Pacific Gas in just 12 minutes.

The bow hit the bottom first giving it a ding, and then the rest of the vessel sank perfectly upright with the stern in 43 m of water. There are photos of the vessel sinking which I will get for you.

At the same time we started operating Telita in Milne Bay and moved our operation from Bootless so we actually missed out on many of the benefits of the sinking - but it is a wonderful dive and I am proud of it.”

Scuba Diving the Pacific Gas

Lying as it does on a slope and with the stern in 43m of water, the logical way to dive the wreck is to descend the mooring line to the bow in 18m of water. There is a lot to see around the bow, but it’s best to save this for the end of the dive as there are some significantly good things to see down deeper!

The mid-section of the wreck is where the large LPG storage tanks used to be and they have left some very large holes! I am pretty sure that if you had the time to explore there would be quite a lot to see, critter wise, down in the mid-section but I have never had the time and/or air to do this…

Instead I make a bee-line for the bridge area and the stern where most of the real action is. There used to be a line running from the bow to the bridge which would allow you to find it even in the worst visibility, but when I returned in 2007 to dive the wreck again and write this article the line was no longer there.

The advantage of the line was that it allowed you to stay relatively “shallow” on the way down, so as to conserve air & bottom time for the best part of the wreck.

Plus on the way back, when remaining air & deco time are becoming a real issue, it got you straight to the bow and mooring line for your extended (in my experience) deco stop before surfacing.

The bridge is a great area to explore because all the glass in the wheelhouse was removed prior to the sinking, which allows the resident population of snapper, sweetlips, puffer & angel fish to roam around at will.

Plus it’s easy and relatively safe to squeeze in through the open doorways and enter the wheelhouse itself as there are no doors to worry about closing on you once inside.

The area to the rear of the wheelhouse has much to see, with it’s derricks and handrails rich in soft corals and the Tubastrea hard coral, but by now you are in around 30m of water and your bottom time & air supply have to be monitored carefully as the best bit is still to come.

Underwater Photography on the Pacific Gas

Descending further towards the stern presents a superb view back up the whole length of the ship and if you swim past the stern in open water at about 40m you can take in the tremendous vista of the wreck. This was “the image” I really wanted for this article as it basically encapsulates the ethos of the Pacific Gas wreck and it’s location on the slope near Horseshoe Reef.

Franco (AKA Francis Tolewa) my incredibly patient Loloata dive guide was the perfect model, even to the point of somehow making his dreadlocks stand up so that they were silhouetted against the sunlight! Capturing the actual image required both us to do two deep dives and as I had to be below the stern to get the view upwards I ended up at 43m and it was quite a challenge to force my nitrogen muddled brain to work out the right balance of ambient & strobe light to achieve the correct exposure – especially as I was acutely conscious of both my rapidly declining remaining bottom time and air supply as I fought the current to stay in position.

I am not sure how Franco managed to hover so perfectly in position for so long, but he must been politely wondering what on earth I was doing….but he did a great job and as always was the essence of the great dive guide & instructor he is.

The angle that the wreck lies at makes the descent fairly easy once the depths around the stern have been sampled, as you simply head back up to the wheelhouse and then up to the bow. If you have enough air left it’s well worth exploring around the coral encrusted winch & hatches at the bow as there is quite a variety of critters such as ghost pipe-fish and leaf scorpion fish to be found in that area.

Its still about 22m in this area, so whilst your bottom time may have expanded your remaining air has not and I am always anxious to ensure I have enough to complete the extended safety stop on the mooring line I inevitably incur.

Once I am at 5m and know that all I have to do is wait out my stop, I can relax and settle down to look back down on the wreck and watch the schooling jacks, snapper & sweetlips reclaim it again after the temporary visitors have departed.

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