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"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
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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.

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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.