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Tufi Wharf & House Reef

House reefs are a bit like next door neighbors - nearly everybody has one but how much time do you really want to spend with them?

Generally when I hear that the next dive is on the house reef I usually take it to mean that the best diving is over for the day.

But the house reef at Tufi is one of those sites that it’s possible to dive time after time and still find new & interesting stuff to see.

Tufi House Reef Location

The site is actually the area around the dive shop wharf, the nearby public wharf and the sloping wall that stretches out on either side.

The general location has been the loading & unloading point for the Tufi settlement and surrounding area for a very long time.

So around the two wharfs it’s very much a muck dive – loosely defined as a dive that takes place where there is no beautiful scenery!

Diving Tufi Wharf & House Reef

Scattered around is the flotsam & jetsam of several decades, including a lot of WWII debris from when Tufi fiord was the base for US Navy PT Boats – the wreckage of two of them lie nearby on the bottom of the fiord at nearly 50m depth.

My father always used to use the quaint English expression “where there’s muck, there’s brass”.

Loosely translated, this means that if there is dirt involved, you can make some money…

But with the Tufi Wharf it’s a question of where there’s muck, there’s critters!

The area underneath the two wharfs, in amongst the flotsam & jetsam, is the best place to find them.

This is particularly so during the dry season from July to September, and in the peak diving months of October & November, when the water is cooler and the critters come up shallow.

Tufi Wharf is not in the same league as say the Lembeh Strait when it comes to critter diversity, but it's good and what makes it different are the wide-angle photo opportunities under the dive wharf and along the nearby reefs.

The section of reef to the north of the wharf, which forms a small bay, can be particularly good in the late afternoon as the sun is going down and creates a "Golden Hour" effect.

Entry is from the dive shop wharf and the immediate area underneath and around it can easily soak up an hour of your time. If I am looking for critters I usually spend 10-15 minutes around the wharf and then head south to the public wharf and then onwards to wall area that leads out from the small bay into the main fiord.

Most of the critters and things to see are in less than 15m of water and it takes around 30 minutes or so to reach the point where the the bay becomes the main fiord and it's time to turn back.

Along the way you will find all sorts stuff to see & photograph such as pipefish, ornate & robust ghost pipefish, dumpling squid, twin-spot gobies, crocodile fish and lots of nudibranchs.

The Tufi dive guides know the area intimately and where to find the critters, so ask for a guide if spotting is not your forte...

The area to the north of the dive wharf also has a variety of critters but it's the late afternoon sun that creates some excellent wide-angle opportunities - if you can get the resident shoal of razor fish or some other local to position themselves nicely for you!

This area is worth diving with a wide-angle lens for it's own sake, but if you intend to dive the PT Boats then it's the automatic place to head when you have completed your deep dive and need somewhere scenic while you release that nitrogen...

Further round the bay the wall turns into a nice reef and there is a lot to be found in amongst the predominantly hard corals.

Most night dives at Tufi are conducted from the dive wharf and again the area around the two wharves is a target rich environment after the sun has gone down.

The area to the south of the wharves also takes on a different persona at night and there is much to see.

Plus it's possible to see things you have seen during the day in an entirely different perspective.

This pair of clown fish was tucked up for the night behind their early warning mucus membrane, together with the porcelain crab which is normally hidden under the skirt of the host anemone.

Underwater Photography at Tufi Wharf & House Reef

Tufi Wharf offers lots of photo-opportunities for both wide-angle and critter photography, although you will probably spend more time on the critters. The lens I use most when diving Tufi Wharf is my Nikon 70-180mm macro zoom and a lot of the images in the image gallery were taken with that lens.

But don't forget to try out wide-angle in the late afternoon and see if you can get some of the "Golden Hour" effect happening.

You will also need your wide-angle, preferably your fish-eye, lens to photograph the PT Boats at the bottom of the fiord near Tufi Wharf.

Tufi Wharf Image Gallery

Next Page: Tufi PT Boats