Coral Sea Fish Guide - fishes of the Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and beyond at Mac App Store analyse

Bob Halstead is the original and most significant pioneer in exploring the reefs of Papua New Guinea. I had the good fortune to share some of his early adventures, and sent groups of divers to the boats he skippered for many years. Bob was a magnificent host, and his knowledge and insight into the colorful marine life enriched his cruises for thousands of divers. His new book is not only filled with astonishing color and variety, it contains many species divers will never have seen before. I confess that he has showed me tiny, exotic creatures in places I would never have even thought to look. Underwater, this man as your dive buddy is a treasure for any photographer! This collection will immediately become the authoritative work on the marine life in this sector of the Pacific, and a must-own for anyone interested in diving there. I am thrilled for him and his readers as the e-book/ITunes channel makes his work so easily accessible. Carl Roessler

I wrote this book review in 2002 and the App takes the original book and improves on it — a must for the traveling diver and fish lover. In terms of complex biodiversity and sheer abundance of species, there are few underwater areas richer than the Coral Sea, the aquatic universe defined on maps as lying within the land boundaries of northeastern Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Even after nearly two decades of diving in this region, I come up from every dive with two distinct impressions: a sense of sensory overload from the magnificence of the reef life at hand and new questions about what animals and phenomena I have seen, often in the “what the hell was that?” category. Inevitably, I head to a ship or resort’s reference book library to try and find answers to what has been in front of one’s face and exactly what has been observed, none of which is necessarily intuitive. Time and again, the book I reach for first (and usually last, as once an intelligent, thought-provoking and satisfying answer is found why look elsewhere?) is CORAL SEA REEF GUIDE by Bob Halstead. The book really should have been called “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Fish and Invertebrates, Reef Life and Adventures in the Coral Sea But Were Afraid to Ask and Once You Did, Boy Did You Get More Than Your Money’s Worth and Brilliantly Illustrated” but modesty is still a virtue so CORAL SEA REEF GUIDE it is – ask for it by name. For anyone out there who has had their head in the muck and doesn’t know what’s going on, Bob Halstead and his beautiful wife Dinah pioneered diving in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1970’s (and especially liveaboard diving since 1980) and have continued to dive there ever since. They put Milne Bay on the map as one of the world’s premiere dive destinations and the Halsteads located the majority of the dive sites popular to this day. A simple review of the dive magazine articles of the last 20 years are a roll call of the world-class/world-famous sites they discovered: “Dinah’s Beach”, “Banana Bommie”, “Observation Point”, “Deacon’s Reef”, “Black and Silver”, “Kathy’s Corner” (or “Valerie’s Reef” in the northern region of Kavieng, for that matter), the list goes on and on and on. Every money-making operation in Milne Bay owes them a tremendous debt even if, sadly, the petulant egos of late-arriving competitors would have it otherwise. (Further, any operator who would call “Dinah’s Beach” by any other name, including the geographical name of “Lauadi” instead of paying recognition to the stewardship of this very special site by Dinah Halstead’s family, is as wrong-minded as one seeking to rename scientifically-recognized taxonomy or to argue that black is white. Shame on you!) With more than 10,000 hours underwater, there is very little Bob Halstead has not seen, especially since he has had the great advantage of having as his partner in life and partner in diving, Dinah, who is gifted with the keenest set of observer’s eyes known worldwide and has an equally generous spirit of sharing each new discovery with anyone who has interest. By the way, for those who have their heads in the muck, it was the Halsteads who introduced the technique to tourists as well as coined the now-accepted (but at the time radical) term‘muck diving’ – searching for bizarre and interesting sea life in shallow-water areas close to shore – while running their Telita cruises in the early years of PNG diving. On those 10,000 plus dives, Bob Halstead had not only as Dinah for company, he has also had his camera. (Dinah has one too and she is every bit as terrific as a photographer as she is as a person and her contributions to the book are highlights.) The result: no one in the world has more or better images of the sea life, fish, invertebrates and phenomena of the Coral Sea than Bob Halstead nor has anyone captured these things on film with such creativity, variety and beautiful artistic vision. (No, we’re not related.) Usually, sea life identification books can be somewhat one-dimensional as most authors do not have the faintest clue of what is important and interesting to the reader. In the case of CORAL SEA REEF GUIDE, not only does Bob Halstead explain where to find a certain animal, he gives a snapshot of their personality and leads the reader on a journey to other animals and environments. Interspersed with the photographs and descriptions of 1,000 or so marine animals are great stand-alone stories of adventures and phenomena that have been experienced over the years by the author, all brilliantly photographed and written about with wit, intelligence and insight. A particular point of interest to macro-life aficionados will be the section on the discovery, by Dinah Halstead, of a strange-looking scorpionfish that has become the most-sought-after sighting and must-see critter on every visit to Papua New Guinea: the Rhinopias! Other great accounts describe in-water encounters with salt-water crocodiles, dugongs, chambered nautilus, a manta ray cleaning station, coral spawning and my favorite, an answer to the question of what happened to the dinosaurs. There simply is no reason to read or buy any other guide book to the Coral Sea region, Bob Halstead’s book is not only a good book, but for divers visiting this magnificent area, it is the Bible -- the truest definition of ‘the Good Book.’