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UEPI DIVE REPORT – August 2007

Forget the Cowgirls - at Uepi even Divers get the Blues. Well that is Blue skies & Blue water. As the so called ‘doldrums’ saunter in with the arrival of Spring, the sky gets clearer & bluer & this is amplified in the warm Marovo water. The days begin with subtle pink & yellow sunrises sneaking over the eastern ocean & end with dramatic saturated red, yellow, green & orange sunsets sinking into the Kolo river valley framed by the black-blue New Georgia peaks: At times the evening canvas opens & it is like looking into endless outer space with a unique blue-green pool of transparent light backdrop; my favourite colour of all.

Not to be outdone, the coral reefs reflect & absorb the strong incidental sunlight & with clear blue water present the best tropical diving conditions. Seemingly the array of small reef-fish is more diverse than ever, in particular the wrasses, with sightings of ‘new’ fish not uncommon. With good currents the activity level has been high & every fish seems to be dealing with encroaching neighbours, getting food, not getting eaten themselves, getting cleaned or making new fish.

The predators are prolific, with the coral trouts, giant trevally, black trevally & blue trevally all cruising around scattering schools of smaller fish in all directions. The so-called ‘baitfish’ take to the shallows trying to avoid becoming a taste sensation, but the larger carnivores including blacktip sharks give them no rest & the birds dive-bomb them all day long. Out in the blue the dolphins & tuna round up the baitballs, charge in & eat their fill as the frigates & gulls eat the icing off the top.

A highlight of this colourful season is our DekuDekuru dive site. Three shallow caves (Dark Cave, Open Cave & Hidden Cave) are linked by a brilliant fringing reef running along a raised coral island. The 10m coral cliff is detailed by various geologic & biologic events whilst dripping with green rainforest vegetation hanging from the canopy rising above. To cap it off a brilliant cyan sky. Forget the Marlboro’s this is genuine Wide-Angle Country, home of the “under & over” or ‘half & half’ image. Imagine sitting at a shallow depth focussing on a bright coral foreground, looking up at the reef-edge, catching the reflection of the reef-edge, framing the white cliff, the rainforest green & cyan sky….. all in one frame. Or a ‘wet’ foreground of sharply defined coral with azure blue fish, choosing a meniscus to suit, then filling the ‘dry’ upper portion with cliff, forest & sky. The results can be unexpectedly brilliant & even surreal. The value of digital really shines as you can review & trial & error to your hearts content or your memory cards capacity. “Leave me here I wanna stay forever!”

We recently had a nite-dive at Deku, our first. The outstanding feature being the many shrimps that sat exposed in the open & did not scurry away like they normally do. The moon was almost full, perhaps a factor. The Open Cave swim through was covered in bright yellow coral polyps & the moon shone into crystal clear water.

Not to be outdone the endless walls & swim-throughs, abounding along the Marovo dropoff never fail to provide exciting diving. Uepi Point is undoubtedly a world class day time divesite & we normally use it as our nite-dive site even with an outgoing current. The outer face is always clear & abounds with crayfish, slipper lobsters, varied shrimps, sleeping & wide awake fish & all the night critters. Strangely we have divers who try to plan a short nite dive (why bother) but then after executing our 60 minutes planned dive want to stay longer. Recently a diver with over a thousand dives who had only done 3 night dives, went to Uepi Point to buddy his lady & could not stop saying how good it was. Gotta agree it was.

We have outfitted another Rayboat with a Honda 150 similar to our “Kiso Charapae” (Hammerhead Shark) so improving the travel times & comfort for divers, especially for trips to further away sites. This has been opportune as Mongo Passage has been brilliant recently. The golden soft coral wall followed by a cathedral of white soft coral, fish streaming down the face, is stunning diving. Always best with a good incoming current the finning back along the reef-edge to the face is well worth the effort; once there hovering in the uplifting current with the fish schools looking over & down a reef rich with invertebrates & feeding fish.

The past month has had its share of surprises. One guest who has run a dolphin & whale watching business in NSW for many years had never seen dolphins underwater, until snorkelling at Uepi when she was well checked out by an curious pod. Several other sightings have happened as well as close encounters with kayakers. Two species of nudibranch never seen here before have recently been sighted, still not identified. There are more in waiting no doubt. Cuttlefish have been mating & laying eggs, often placing them in firecoral. We have been trying to be there for a ‘birth’ but have not yet broken out the champers.

Charapoanna Point has been gathering large fish aggregations. Cruising amongst the schools are the usual Giant Trevally, other Jacks & Yellowtail barracuda. But the most impressive hunters have been some large Dog-Tooth Tuna. These guys are like animal torpedoes, sleek, muscular, steely blue colour, move without much effort & can really get along when they want to. They like to cruise back & forth at about 40m depth, often in groups of 3 or 4. When they decide to speed a little it seems so effortless.

With a forecast of blue skies & clear water, warm air & warm clear water the next few months are promising. With many first class dive sites within minutes of Uepi, others just a convenient distance away, and our epic Bapita day trip we have a lot of top diving to show you.

‘Leana’ Grant, Jill & the Uepi Staff.

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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.