|
|
|
Welcome to Uepi Island
Resort
Natural Beauty Harmony Excitement Indulgence
Uepi
News
"Dazed & Amazed"
Uepi
Island Resort - May
2009
"Dazed & Amazed", the slogan of a Group of South Australian
divers just 'diving through' Marovo caught my imagination. These guys
& girl have been sucking on regulators for a good time now. They are
so full of healthy enthusiasm that it made me realise that typically Divers
are happy, "Just Do It" kind of people. Couch potatoes do not
dive!
So I ran over in my mind what they as divers had experienced in the past
2 days to see if all that enthusiasm was related to the rewards of diving,
or just due to escaping the South Australian winter. Hey as I grew up
on Kangaroo Island & still love the place. I think I am entitled &
well qualified to comment on the winter weather in SA!
On Thursday the D&As went on our Bapita trip. After travelling through
the mysterious backwaters of Nono Lagoon they began the days diving at
the magical Bapita Sinkhole. Conditions were not the best with an outgoing
current (necessary because of the low tides later in the day which make
the backwaters very shallow in parts), but despite this Bapita is always
a very good dive & the location unique.
From there to the beautiful corals of Penguin Reef. This place is amazing.
It suffered a little damage from a violent storm earlier in the year but
has already recovered fully. Layer upon layer of corals like an extravagant
wedding cake! The reef actually shimmers with small colourful reef fish
that swarm, swish, back & forth, hovering over the safe haven of a
coral plate or branch. More colours than you can imagine. Extended panoramas
of hard corals, heavily populated with various anemones with attendant
fish. On this day a turtle or three, Spaniards, a few isolated tuna speeding
by, an eagle ray sitting in the current. Then every now & then an
overhang with brilliant soft corals & a copse of sea fans. The scenery
looking at the shallows on top of the reef reflects back the rich reef
colours, with the blue sky providing that special cyan that you only get
when looking at the sky from under the water.
Lunch this day was on a calm sandy beached cove, the shoreline lined with
rich tropical vegetation, the bombies a short way out into the bay well
worth a dive or snorkel themselves.
The 15 minute boat ride from here to the Taiyo fishing wreck is just beautiful.
Stunning. The wall of raised coral reef forms the basis for a complex
of cliffs, caverns, fissures & walls, all topped by rich green forest.
This kind of scenery stirs the imagination, of picture proud headhunters
holding deeply spiritual rituals in the natural cathedrals. You look for
keen eyed warriors observing you from the concealing darkness of a hidden
place. Or you conjure up a ridiculous fantasy of actually living here,
marooned or not, enjoying the simple life, happily in tune with nature,
dropping out, replacing the DVD with the ultimate Hi Def wide screen made
by "Mother Nature". All images in RAW of course, no processing
needed.
The Tayio boat was as always, a surprise. It is different, very visual
even disorientating, intriguing, a puzzle. For those not in the know,
the wreck of a 38 metre Tuna fishing boat is sitting vertically, bow up
at about a metre under the surface, stern down at about almost 40 metres,
the keel nestled against the sheer reef wall.
From here they travelled to the interesting Dauntless Dive Bomber &
the very good P38 WWII aircraft wrecks near Seghe.
On Friday at 0715 the D&As, snorkels in hand jumped in a dive boat
& went a few minutes away from Uepi to link up with a couple of friendly
Mantas. Close encounters of the Manta kind were enjoyed by all. We call
this Mantasising & it is a regular event & a great way to start
the day. The D&As came back for breakfast buzzing. We are hoping that
from June onwards this reef area will have even more Mantas for the next
few months as the Manta food, a small type of krill, is usually much more
prevalent at this time.
The morning dive was split between Kura Kura & Binusa, two very colourful
wall dives located along the outside of a nearby island. Kura Kura is
almost as far as the renowned Mongo Passage taking about 18 minutes to
reach. We have not dived it that much but certainly will be from now on!
The dive started with a slow swim along the wall which was nice scenery
but was relatively uneventful. At Binusa on the other hand, some turtles
& eagle rays provided entertainment. Then we reached an area of superb
multi coloured fans. For whatever reason these fans are sculptured, looking
more like the Sydney Opera House than a McDonalds. Some of the fans are
huge & all are very colourful. I struggled to do justice with some
HD video recording, but I was probably too aware of the beauty of these
fans to concentrate properly. Once in this area the corals in general
just kept on getting better. I was always a bit behind the D&As but
back in the boat they kept on listing all the fish they had seen, most
of which I missed seeing.
In the afternoon the D&As dived Charapoana. The current was finally
behaving itself & the incoming provided some nice visibility as well
as the heaps of fish life & the activity that this dive site is well
known for. And a few of the local dolphins dropped in for a squiz too.
Last week at North Log some Dolphins decided to 'dive in' on some "Dive
Inn" divers so the underwater dolphin encounters are becoming more
prevalent, as observed over the past year.
So that was it, a great day of diving for the D&As. Well no, not actually.
That evening Jill kitted up & off they went into the crystal clear
waters of Uepi Point for a night dive. All the usual night critters were
there & the gutters on the face were choked with fish. Night dives
usually have a few surprises & Jill saw a new fish & a new sea-hare.
In hindsight I think the SA winters were a long way from the minds of
these Dazed & Amazed divers.
It was great fun during May to have Rachael & Mark from "Dive
Inn" mentor me through a First Aid Instructors update. Not to forget
Bill who although a bit of a dummy played his part. Being isolated we
struggle at times to keep contact with the latest trends & ideas.
In some ways this may be good as no doubt some patently stupid ideas come
& go without us even being aware of them at all. But on this occasion
the updates were very interesting & relevant: Working in tandem with
these two was plenty of fun. Thanks Rachael & Mark
.
It is interesting to observe how ideas & procedures that were axioms
of the Universe can change over the years & prove to be completely
wrong. Resuscitation is a classic example where the modern ideas are so
different to those of the past, sometimes with complete contradictions
or turn around of beliefs. I can see the indignation on the faces of long
gone First Aid Instructors when some of these practices were questioned
at the time! Now some of those questions are the answers. The same type
of dogma & lack of enquiring & open minds is sometimes still visible
in the diving fraternity today, with the more prominent issues to us at
Uepi being flying after diving & solo diving.
In a few days the good people from Help A Friend Foundation will arrive
to conduct, over ten days, a further round of medical clinics around Central
Marovo. These 10 or so doctors & Nurses come all the way from Salt
Lake City & work very hard whilst here. Along with the clinics they
are upgrading the Seghe hospital & by the time they leave Seghe Hospital
will have 24/7 solar power. It is hard to explain how much of an achievement
this will be. F uture goals will be to improve the hospital further so
that a full time Doctor will be attracted there. Uepi supports this project
as a Community Service.
The Uepi Scholarship Scheme is growing constantly, thanks to the support
of our guests. Almost 30 children are now receiving support for their
schooling, some of whom would not be attending school otherwise. We are
also arranging for direct support, from an Uepi guest, for Patakae Secondary
School so that difficult logistic functions (such as food for the students
to eat) can be realised. It’s a tough world out there.
In addition Uepi Island Resort, along with Marovo Lagoon Sustainable Timber,
is strongly supporting the Patakae VSAT project. The first training sessions
for the village operators has been held, a laptop has been presented to
Patakae School, and two laptops are ready to be handed to Chea & Chubikopi
Villages as soon as they are ready. Thank you to the donors. In partnership
with others we are trying to get funding to extend internet services across
the Marovo Lagoon. This will enable many sectors of the Community to manage
their lives better.
Recently I designed & budgeted a new Primary School for Chubikopi
Village to be funded by the World Bank. To provide a feasible & affordable
design of the basic building required which would meet their needs was
a fair task. Along the way I included some ideas on how to actually Project
Manage it, revealing how logistically difficult this will be. In the meantime
donations of books, pencils etc by Uepi gussets are invaluable. Thank
you all.
We are now in the SE trade winds season. Last year these winds rarely
blew. But already this year we have had some nice breezes, so perhaps
the general weather will be more 'Normal', whatever that is! The time
of year when we have Tidal Spring Lows has also arrived & our belief
that the general water level has risen seems to be justified. With zero
tides the reefs are certainly well covered & not completely bared
as in years gone past. Hopefully this will mean richer reef tops as existing
corals flourish. This is already evident on the expanse of reef straight
out from the Main-house deck where the cover & quality of coral has
improved. But other impacts such as changes to water flow in the lagoon
are a long way from being understood.
This afternoon as a break from writing this we dropped into the Point
to Point dive, just a minute away from the Diveshop. Chara was full of
life with some especially large yellow tail barracuda being very inquisitive
& the usual fish schools were jockeying around. Across the channel
was only average viz & a bit of a fin into a current. But Uepi Point
was well worth the effort. The whalers were active right on the corner
with many younger members busy. The reef top was packed with snapper,
fusiliers, large Red Bass, trevally & more, all wary of the need to
be careful. Infiltrating them as best they could were Giant Trevally &
Black Trevally, powerful & obviously out for a feed. You could feel
the tension. At one time we slightly changed our positions & as a
result every fish seemed to instinctively head for the same spot at the
same time. There were tonnes of fish occupying a very small space. The
sharks & big trevally came close. Realising the danger the various
schools began to quickly leak out of the cauldron leaving the predators
with a lost opportunity. I spotted a turtle working its way along the
wall directly towards Jill. I called & signed & she aimed her
video & then held her breathe for a long time as the turtle slowly
swam right up to her, almost brushing the camera then ambling away. Not
for the first time I wondered about the advantages of a rebreather to
get close to marine life. Maybe one day! Perhaps that video will make
our Facebook "Jillian Grant"
During the week Jason & Josh were over near the Tayio boat wreck,
spearing a fish for dinner, when 3 Orcas came past. They were on the move,
a big male, smaller female & a small calf. Often Orcas stop for a
rest, even a sleep, but this family was on the move, so were not at all
interested in stopping & playing. But nevertheless a good look at
an Orca from a boat is a great experience. Whilst in that area they also
had Pilot Whales coming right alongside the boat.
So with slightly cooler waters, the SE Trades "Hecha" looking
like they are going to blow a little, the whales appearing, the Mantas
still with us & maybe strengthening their ranks, the best time for
hammerheads hopefully coming up, we are certainly looking forward to the
next few months diving. Maybe we will see you here to DIVE THE DREAM.
Leana,
Grant, Jill, Josh & all the Uepi Team.
News
Archives
We
sincerely wish to thank the following people for use of their photographs
in our website:
Peter Lange, Peter Pinnock, Oceania Films/Matt
Guest, Eric Cheng, Fred Bavendam, Andy Belcher, Manuela Kirschner, Louise
Murray, Roberto Rinaldi, Mark Strickland/Oceanic Impressions, Jill Kelly,
Grant Kelly, Wes Kelly and Jason Kelly.
|