Bob Halstead

Bob Halstead (24 October 1944 – 18 December 2018), has made significant contributions to the sport of scuba diving in a multitude of capacities: photographer, author of eight diving books, early innovator in the development of dive tourism, pioneer in the dive liveaboard industry, diving instructor and educator, marine-life explorer and influential diving industry commentator. An ardent diver since 1968, Halstead has over 10,000 logged dives.

As a teenager in England, Halstead became fascinated by the underwater adventures of Hans and Lotte Hass. In 1968, armed with an honours degree from King's College London University in physics/mathematics and a postgraduate certificate in education, Halstead departed England for a teaching post as head of the Physics Department at Queen's College Nassau, Bahamas where he immediately learned to dive, fell in love with diving adventure, and bought an underwater camera.

In 1970 Halstead became a NAUI instructor (# 2000) at Freeport, Grand Bahama. In 1973 he moved to Papua New Guinea and started a systematic exploration of its reefs and wrecks that continues to this day. Halstead, with his diver ex-wife Dinah, formed PNG's first full-time sport diving business in 1977 with a dive shop and school in Port Moresby and ran adventurous "Camp and Dive Safaris" in Milne Bay Province, from their dive boat Solatai, starting the promotion of organized dive tourism to PNG.

A celebrated underwater photographer, Halstead has won many awards, including the Australasian Underwater Photographer of the Year award in 1983. In 1986, he started the first PNG live-aboard dive boat operation, Telita Cruises with the 20m dive charter vessel, Telita, a boat built in PNG to his specifications and under Halstead's personal supervision. This pioneering vessel, with Halstead as captain, was the first to explore and promote many of the diving sites now popular with diving visitors to PNG.

The areas he loves best are those marked on the charts "Caution, Un-surveyed." Halstead has led sport diving, filming and scientific expeditions exploring underwater all the coastal regions of PNG, and made over 10,000 dives in the process including as consultant to the Cousteau Society, the BBC, National Geographic and the late Eugene Clark of the Maryland Foundation and Mote Marine Laboratory.

Halstead has discovered several marine species new to science. A Sand Diver fish, Trichonotus halstead, was named after Halstead and ex-wife Dinah in 1996, and Halstead has a new species of Razor fish named after him, Novaculops halsteadi.

"Muck Diving", now a diving genre, is a phrase coined by Halstead to describe dives he led in less attractive environments searching for exotic creatures. He also introduced tourists to diving with living nautilus, when this was previously the sole realm of scientists. In 2004, already a NAUI instructor for more than 30 years, and more than twice the age of the next younger candidate, Halstead successfully completed a full PADI Instructor Course.

Halstead has published 8 books on diving and marine life, chapters in several other books, and hundreds of magazine stories on diving safety, marine life and PNG dive sites, characterized by fine photography, thoughtful messages and a sense of humor. His best known articles extol the difference between "Risk" and "Danger" and emphasize the importance of self-sufficiency in diving skills, knowledge and equipment. Halstead's Coral Sea Reef Guide – a book which has achieved iconic status in the region – provides divers with a beautifully illustrated reference to most of the fishes and invertebrates that divers are likely to encounter in the Coral Sea region which includes the Great Barrier Reef, PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.