Uepi Island Resort - Uepi News.

Welcome to Uepi Island Resort
Natural Beauty Harmony Excitement Indulgence

Uepi News

Cool Winter Tales - August 2011

It has been COLD. My dive computer finally displayed 28C. I was sure it was stuck on 29C & occasionally 30C, but there it was 28C! I was a hanging a little deeper than usual at Uepi Point, trying to sneak up on 4 Eagle Rays sitting with motionless symmetry in the mild current, hoping they would not notice me. No doubt they saw me but they let me glide slowly closer until they filled the viewfinder. Pity it was so deep as despite the 40m viz and good sunlight the light was diminished, definitely in the ‘black blood’ zone. No good using a scary flash as I would only get one shot before they scattered, and besides Jill was stationed in position nearby hoping they’d drift past her. Eagle rays have been prolific on almost every dive. On a recent Point-to-Point dive entry we had continuous Eagle rays, one after the other, until we began the channel crossing.

The SE Trade winds blew erratically in July, stopped for a while, and then resumed at the end of August. At times in August we had some very rough weather across the Western Province but as always, because of our uniquely favourable topography, we were able to keep diving in all conditions. Add in Bapita and Wickham as trip options and everyone enjoyed a lot of diverse dive sites.

Cool water and an abundance of Eagle Rays normally mean we shiver a little but have plenty of Hammerhead sightings. We had more shivers than usual with some of us even reverting back to wearing wetsuits, but there were relatively fewer Hammers than expected, most being larger individuals who passed by a couple of times then lost interest.

In July & August the currents mostly flow into the lagoon from about lunchtime. The Points become the places to dive with intensified fish life and good incident sunlight at that time. Uepi, Charapoana and Mongo Points have all produced exceptional dives. BOTCH with Shark Bombie has also been outstanding, with people who might just think we are just taking them for a convenient dive off-the-front, surfacing with a look of surprise on their faces.

The outer face of Shark Bombie in good conditions is so very colourful with corals, sponges, hydroids and diverse fish. It also attracts turtles that feed on what must be a particularly delicious sponge, well at least to turtles who must salivate over prickly spicules. Our old Uepi DVD shows a turtle at Uepi Point ‘beak feeding’ a Rabbitfish with exactly the same sponge. Lately the dive staff had been casually mentioning a friendly turtle hanging around Shark Bombie. So when Jill, Josh & I grabbed a moment to get wet we eventually found ourselves scouring Shark Bombie. Then along came a turtle who proceeded to fossick for sponge right alongside us. Jill motioned to Josh to grab some of the sponge and offer it to the turtle. Without hesitation the turtle accepted the offer and began munching on the sponge which Josh was tentatively holding. The turtle continued to be handfed until it needed to breathe, then it headed for the surface. We all thought “well that’s that”, but no, down it came, went to Jill, came next to me and by this time I had a piece of tempting sponge in my hand, ignored me, and went right over to the human sponge cafeteria Josh. Ok, so I have no ‘turtle appeal’ I can live with that, move on! This amazing interaction continued until computers were chirping and regulators were straining and we had to leave. The outcome of this very cool interaction can be seen on the Uepi Facebook video aptly named “Josh and the Turtle”.

Inside Point has again been the site for playful Octopus. Once these amazing Cephalopods come out of their lairs they lose all their shyness and proceed to hunt, feed, fight, mate and play. Provided divers act quietly and are not too intrusive in the beginning the Occys often become quite inquisitive and approach divers. Such antics are captured on another rather humorous Uepi Facebook video “Josh and the Octopus”. Yes we are trying to turn Josh into a Media Mega Star, every Resort needs one.

As well we have had a good period for less common or unusual sightings; Leaf-fish, Jawfish, a rarer coloured Dart fish & a fleeting (where did it go?) Ghost-pipe fish. Especially interesting was a guest discovering a quite small brown Frogfish and at the same place maybe 20 pale coloured Sargassum fish, which are also Frogfish and is most likely the same species as the brown one. This find was on a snorkel during a beach picnic excursion. Juvenile Batfish were also abundant. We eagerly viewed the photos and have been busting to find one ourselves but have only managed one brief excursion during which we discovered how many animals other than Sargassum Fish inhabit floating weed. This weed drifts across the lagoon to Uepi from benthic beds near the main & inner islands so we still have some hunting to do.

A rare visitor for us was a small Whale Shark at Uepi Point. Also schools of High-finned Snapper have been prolific from about the 20m depth and below. We presume they come to spawn but we have yet to witness this. A common companion on Uepi Point is our ever more friendly Maoriwrasse.

There have been many enthusiastic divers relating their experiences at the bar and during dinner, some believable. A very recent and true account of a morning dive by John O’Brien on North Log would be hard to beat:
“The guide Robert and I entered the North Log site along the drop-off wall where the overhangs with falldown sections and coral gardens are. We finned down a short tunnel passing through the raised reef to about 20m. Once there we saw a baitball swirling above and below us with Trevally, grey reef sharks and other fish attacking madly. This was pretty spectacular. We eventually swam the wall and ascended into the overhangs and coral gardens which were very colourful and diverse. We began our 5m safety stop moving out with the wall just visible. Three dolphins swam by having a curious look at us; then some eagle rays with one coming straight up at me from the deep veering away at the last moment; then three pygmy mantas soared by. Finally two dolphins came back for another look.” Hearing this Jill and I felt a bit office bound. During the last few months there have been good dolphin sightings by divers at Landoro Gardens, Elbow, North Log, Uepi Point and KuruKuru. And of course even more regular topside sightings.

When John O’Brien returned from the subsequent afternoon Point-to-Point dive he mentioned that the baitball, now smaller, was at Uepi Point. This was too much for us so we headed for the Point and as we tumbled in were buzzed by swarms of Blue Trevally, GTs, Whalers and numerous other fish. The Baitfish were stretched across the front of the Point from a depth of a few metres to about 20m. By this time they were no doubt thinned out by successive hours of attack by predators, but were still very actively going through all the routines to avoid being eaten. One second there was a mass of fish closely aligned together, the next seemingly nothing. I perched myself at about 20m with some nice fans in the foreground and tried to capture the event. I was hoping to get attacking fish bursting into the bait school but whilst I saw plenty of this I missed ‘the shot’ as the images below demonstrate. Jill was nearby and got some nice video. This will soon be on Uepi Facebook and may possibly be titled “Baitfish without Josh”, completing the trilogy.

The Wickham Wrecks have been getting some close attention. Some groups have headed off in fairly choppy conditions with some rain about, but conditions at Wickham have been good. Nigel Marsh was in one group and as expected got some nice images.

Masthead lantern

Artillery

Hull of one of the Wickham wrecks

Nite Dives – always producing good images! Most were at Uepi Point but one of the best I have had in years was with Naomi Stern, a fantastic diver and friend of ‘elder’ years, at Inside Point. Naomi has great eyes for picking out small and hard to find critters like crustaceans. We spent an hour or so going over a small section and finding many small treasures.

Shrimps are great macro subject and two very common ones are:

With the good breezes the Hobie cats have been well used. And we have been sending the kayakers downwind which we have not done before. There are some great rivers to paddle, nice village scenes and good reef as well.

On the Community side things are moving along quickly. A high-tech portable ECG has been donated to the Seghe AHC (Hospital) by GE. This generous and valuable gift came about from the considerable efforts of Roslyn Exley, a guest at Uepi. Thank you Roslyn and GE.
To help us better administer the growing amount of donations by Uepi guests and to qualify for other institutional donations we have registered in the Solomons a charity “Solutions par Marovo”. Our mission is to not only manage our established activities such as education scholarships, health assistance, etc, but to seek donor funds/donations for issues which we identify as important for Marovo and within our abilities to address. Our advantage is that we live right here in Marovo, know Marovo and its culture, are well known in Marovo, and have our own infrastructure and resources. Please contact us if you want to know more.

One who has literally gone the extra yard for Marovo is our very own Rhonda from our TPPL. Thanks to everyone who supported Rhonda in her Half-marathon run in July. She was able to raise around $800.00 for the kids of the Marovo Lagoon without really raising a sweat.

Finally something quite hot but really COOL, our new PawPaw Chilli Sauce. Don’t forget to try it, it is worth the journey.

“Leana Via’ from Grant, Jill and olgeta Team Uepi

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.