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Dive News from the “Bay of Rays”
April 2005

Divers Bay is located just off the north-west “corner” of Uepi Island. It is also known as Kokotupi (Marovan for Bay of rays) or sometimes Landoro Gardens. The drop-off edge of the island fragments into a series of barrier reef bombies after Elbow Caves area and a deep sandy bottomed lagoon stands between the string of bombies and the inner reef.

Starting in the shallow lagoon behind the edge of the reef proper, divers and snorkellers can cruise over some coral rubble areas, great for small crittas like twin spot gobies, also anemones, cuttlefish and octopus. Juvenile fish of various species seem to favour this area as well.

Departing the nursery we watch out for rays resting or cleaning themselves in the sand, as we pass over the first deep gutter moving west toward bombie No 2. I have seen very large bull rays here, not every time of course, and you need to look closely because they only show up as two periscope eyes above a pile of sand if they are having some R&R. Possible turtle sightings, cuttles and lots of little fish for the next 20 metres then into the overhang, which takes you through the hole, and out onto the dropoff - always a buzz to see the blue drop down and down. Back to the overhang before we move on. The floor is sand and has a healthy community of various gobies and associated shrimps. As well as Fire Dartfish (Nemateleotis magnifica), a community of basket corals (Sandalolitha discoides) have set up home at the entrance, along with Polyphyllia talpina. It’s easy to find small exotica here. Juv Dragon Wrasse, Juv Bicolor Parotfish are common. I recently saw a new (to me) dragonet which remains unidentified (training dive - no camera). The walls have sponges, ascidians, hydroids (of course), stylasters, large fans of gorgeous colours, nudis, shrimps and much more. Anna the forensic archaeologist wanted to stay there forever because of the wall patterns made by the inhabitants; something many of us would not even notice.

If you manage to extract yourself from all of the above, the wall continues on, leading into the "coral gardens" area. A misnomer of course since its all living animals (not forgetting, associated algae, the token plant life), but gardenlike it certainly is. Terraces of Acropora (cythera, tenuis,
selago, loripes) and many, many more. Coral on coral, pastel colours, some vibrant greens and yellows, blues, pinks and the many creamy and light brown hues. Anemones are common with the various "Nemos" and each coral colony is alive with a vision of colour from the resident Anthias, Wrasse, Damsels and Chromis.

The larger reef dwellers hang out as well and we regularly see Turtles, spotted Eaglerays, bump head Parrotfish, humphead Wrasse, some devil rays, reef sharks and occasionally a hammerhead. However it’s the type of dive that is not dependent upon some large critta to provide the “wows”. This dive is a long slow look at a spectacular hard coral reef and the closer you look the more you see.

As ever the diving is great at Uepi - see you in the water,

Jill (and Grant) Kelly

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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.