Dinah & Bob Halstead
Dinah was born and educated in PNG and received her Diploma in Teaching from Goroka Teacher's College (University of PNG) in 1974. She met Bob the next year and he taught her to dive. They were married in 1976. From 1975 until 1980 she worked as a research officer on the personal staff of the then Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare. Dinah became the first Papua New Guinean to become an internationally certified Diving Instructor (NAUI) in 1982, and has been taking underwater photographs since 1980.
Bob was educated in England and has a BSc Honours degree in physics/mathematics from King's College London University and a post graduate Certificate in Education from Bristol University. He learned to dive in the Bahamas in 1968 where he was employed as Head of the Physics Department at Queen's College, Nassau. He bought his first underwater camera the same year and qualified as a NAUI Diving Instructor in 1970. He came to PNG as an Education Officer for the Australian Government in 1973 and taught mathematics and science for five years, ending his teaching career as Head of the Science Department at Sogeri National High School where responsibilities included writing science curriculum for Provincial High Schools.
Dinah and Bob formed PNG's first full time sport diving business, Tropical Diving Adventures in 1977 based in Port Moresby, worked together from 1980, and, in 1986, started the first live-aboard dive boat operation, the highly successful Telita Cruises, with the 20 metre dive charter vessel, the MV Telita, a boat built in PNG to their specifications and under their personal supervision. In 1992 Telita was voted "Best Liveaboard Dive Boat in the World" by readers of "In Depth" Magazine USA.
Bob and Dinah have cruised Telita throughout all the coastal regions of PNG and have jointly made over 12,000 dives in the process. They have discovered several marine species new to science. A Sand diver fish, Trichonotus halstead, was named after them in 1996, a Goby Lubricogobius dinah named after Dinah in 2002, and Bob has a new species of Razor fish named after him, Xyrichtys halsteadi. See photos of these fishes below. Bob has won several gold medals in international underwater photographic competitions including Australasian Underwater Photographer of the year 1983. Dinah has also won prizes for her underwater photographs in international competitions. They have published numerous popular and technical articles on diving in PNG for various magazines including:- Paradise Magazine (PNG), Sportdiving, Journal of the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society and Scuba Diver (Australia), Skin Diver Magazine, Ocean Realm and Scuba Times (USA), Tauchen Magazine (Germany), and Asian Diver (Singapore). Bob writes a monthly column "The Adult Section" for Australasian Dive Log.
Bob and Dinah have a photographic library of over 60,000 35mm colour transparencies representing a unique catalogue of Papua New Guinea Marine Life.
