Uepi Island Resort - Solomon Islands - News archives

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Looking back on 2005 at Uepi Island Resort
December 2005

Well what a great diving year 2005 has been! The most hammerheads, the most Orcas, the most dolphins, the most ghostpipefish, the most new fish species, the best visibility, more & more sharks, the best night dives we have ever done, strange critters ..... and to top it off our guest divers have been the most knowledgeable ever and as keen as any before.

There have been some trends in 2005 for example:
The biggest trend is that almost half of Uepi divers now carry cameras & this is still growing. The effect of this has been remarkable. Every diver who images a creature wants to know what it is they have captured. The identification books are working overtime. Evenings are still spent downing a sunset soother or two or three, but often with a laptop slide show in progress & with a lot of OOing & AAARing & discussion (arguing) over identifications. On all types of dives, sheer drop-offs, coral gardens, drifts, caves, just lazing around our beautiful home reef right at the diveshop, the snappers (human type) are capturing those digital moments. The snorkellors are right in on the act too, getting some beautiful colours on the sunlit shallow reefs. Not sure what the record is for number of frames shot during a stay but it is certainly in the thousands!

During a recent trip to Australia travelling by road from Brisbane to Melbourne to Adelaide & back across the Hay Plains to Brisbane, I was astounded by how little natural environment was left in SE Australia. The coastline towns were all full of new million dollar houses, resorts & motels everywhere with the environment being overwhelmingly dominated, & disappearing rapidly. Even the remoter outback towns were fully 'renovated' with new flash motels & homes. I am so glad & thankful that Uepi is on the magical Marovo Lagoon, a relative haven for the natural environment, with a serene lagoon & reefs to dream off. And I understand better what Uepi has to offer to divers & other guests. We used to have as a slogan "Uepi - Harmonious in Nature - Allow yourself to be yourself" & I think it is probably even more relevant today than ever before.

Some good news is that the so called "Dolphin Resort", a cynical front for the exploitation & exporting of wild dolphins from the Solomons has folded due to a Government ban on the export of Dolphins.

As the warm humid weather accompanies us through the New Year, with some heavy but quick wet season downpours, we expect some fabulous diving. Big schools of spawning fish are aggregating, everything seems to have procreation on its mind; plenty of weird & wonderful animal behaviour to observe.

To all of you who have stayed with us over the years we wish you the fondest best wishes for Christmas & New Year & look forward to your company again soon.

Grant & Jill, Lee, Rhonda & all of the Uepi Staff

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.