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Marovo magic diving
August 2006

Its been like diving in the general assembly of the United Nations during August. Over ten nationalities, but all with a common pidgin language DIVING. Not many compared to over 1500 species of fish I guess! Strange, at breakfast you can struggle to get across the simple message "Please pass the Vegemite mate". But later as an eagle ray casually glides past between you at 30m on Uepi Point, the briefest of eye contact says it all: "Yeah, this is what its all about!". If we could spend all our time diving the world would be a happier & much more relaxed place. Especially if we could keep the pollies narked!

But Marovo World is very special as it is. In late July & through August Mother Nature has let us know who is really the boss, and it is not us mortals, that is very clear. Big high pressure cells south of us have sent chilly 26C southerly winds scudding towards us. As the air temperature dived into the high twenties, some big swells have rolled northwards to the Solomons, smashing the weather coasts; ships have sunk & sailors have been lost. Reassuringly not our boats or staff. Nested at Uepi we have been 'sheltered from the storm' & the diving has been full on. The yachties have finally become sick of pounding about aimlessly on the high seas & many have anchored in our calm waters at Uepi. Strange fellows these yachties!

The ocean has cooled & whilst the guests are warm in their lycra suits or even less, the dive staff have been shivering in layers of lycra & 3mm wetsuits in 28/29 degrees water. At times the viz has been outstanding & when that sun is shining the water has been blue blue blue. Great for wide-angle. But conversely when the viz is lower or it is overcast the fish seem to be less worried about divers & swarm all around without a care. With stronger currents later in the month the activity level lifted, the schools grew in size. The number of large Black Trevally & Giant Trevally seem more than ever, especially at Uepi & Charapoanna Points. The whole fish fleet helter skelter as these dark predators hurl themselves into a school hoping for a lucky strike. The fish diversity has been outstanding with many unidentifiable juveniles.

The hammerheads have not surfaced en masse yet & the sightings have been regularly irregular & unpredictable, sightings all along the drop-off, not concentrated at the Elbow like most years. Coincidently or not the eagle rays, believed to be "kiso charapae kai kai" (hammerhead food) have also not concentrated on the Elbow but all along the drop-off. Hmm!

Its been a very modest year for nudibranch species but it is normal for these populations to fluctuate greatly. But shrimps have been prolific with many variations of hosts, colours & behaviour. Hosts include whip corals, mushroom corals, soft corals, bubble corals, anemones, starfish and a multitude of small recesses where fish come to display "I am friendly & partly edible" & get a good cleaning. At times it seems there are cleaning stations everywhere. Some species of fish will stack up in queues like 747s at LAX, patiently waiting for their turn to 'land' & be serviced. This can go on for hours. Also more prolific than normal have been twin-spot gobies, fascinating as they bulldoze a gobful of sand, process it through their gullets & expel blasts of sand in rapid fire mode through their gills.

As the SE "Hetcha" trade winds, late in arriving & very spasmodic this season, fade away, the drier, calmer & warmer weather is drifting in. Yesterday the sharks & dolphins were dancing around each other at Inside Inside (not to be confused with Inside Point), gathering just off the point in strong current with mixed swarms of fish. Normally wary or maybe bored of divers a large dolphin with a smaller juvenile decided that the divers were interesting and carried out a very close arms length inspection of them all. That is except for Dave who was for whatever reason wearing red undies over his wetsuit!!! And we say yachties are strange? So absorbed were the divers they ended up inside of Inside Inside! Luckily our boat drivers know the secret code & retrieved them all. Maybe we should get credit card impressions before deploying divers to Inside Inside. The reef wall is covered in luxurious brightly coloured corals, soft hard & anything in-between.

Been to Uepi? Then send in your anecdote or comment or better still that cover shot you fluked with the $10 digital camera from E-Bay.

Leana via, Grant, Jill & all of the Uepi team.

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.