“The more you get away from the land, the cleaner the water is”
Based in Queensland’s Port Douglas, a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, 115ft explorer vessel Beluga is perfectly positioned for owners Chris Ellis and Sandrina Postorino to indulge in their separate nautical passions.
“Chris and I have different interests,” Postorino says. “For me, it’s scuba diving, snorkeling and free diving; for Chris, it’s fishing.” However, having purchased the yacht in 2015, Ellis was keen to test the custom Moonen’s explorer capabilities outside of Australian waters. “We wanted to go to some of the places that we knew other domestic boats couldn’t get to,” he says.
After some debate the couple planned a trip to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. “They are both famous for having amazing diving, both in terms of wrecks and also in terms of fish life and coral. For me, that was the main attraction,” says Postorino, who is a PADI Divemaster. Looking at a map, the Solomon Islands look deceptively close to Australia, but in reality, more than 1,000 nautical miles of Pacific Ocean separates them. “It’s one of those areas that you always hear about, but
