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Swept along with it all
February 2010

We have just returned from a few weeks in Australia. Lee & Colin from TPPL held the reins at Uepi. I think we picked the most disturbed period of weather in a long time to be absent!
One highlight was a week in Victor Harbour for the 'tribal wedding' of Ocean & Cub, with the wedding site Waitpinga Beach being a classic SA beach.
Then a week spent on my early home of Kangaroo Island which is certainly a magic place, still with a beautifully intact environment.
South Oz is thankfully still a bit laid back & has so much to offer. Adelaide despite its Arts & Festival focus & a level of sophistication still has a Country Town feel about it which makes it comfortable & easy & friendly. The economy is strong too. If only the water was a bit warmer.

Meanwhile back at Uepi things were happening as always. One yet another Uepi visit by Carol & Neil Buchanan, practically every square inch of reef was once again carefully inspected.
Amazing how they find animals that most of us just do not see. Carol mentions "Of course there's always something new to photograph! On two dives (Landoro and Uepi Pt), I found/photographed a goby with a nudibranch attached. I'd read about this relationship before, but never seen it. And on this trip, I managed to see it twice...what a bonus! I got quite a few shots...here's one for you. I went back to Uepi Pt the next day and found the same goby, but the nudibranch had gone. And here's a couple of links to articles about it: http://slugsite.us/bow/nudwk295.htm & http://www.rfbolland.com/okislugs/gobynudi.html
And I learned something else.......when there is a pair of shrimps living with a goby, one of the shrimps has a large left cheliped, and the second shrimp has a large right cheliped. Wonder if its a male/female thing? "
Since returning from holidays I have been keeping my eyes open but have to report no such sightings .... yet

Goby with nudibranch attached - Carol Buchanan

Black tip with pineapple fish - Carol Buchanan

Strong currents have been sweeping into & out of the channel. It makes for some speedy drifts & a good interchange of water between the open sea & the lagoon. It also leads to some different dive experiences. With lots of rain the water quality has varied & you can have 15m & 40m on the same dive depending on where you are. Good breezes for the Hobies. Several kayak trips experienced quite good conditions.

Jill & I jumped in at Chara during the full current a few days ago. We had planned to get in a bit earlier with less current as the others had done. We dropped a little too close to the reef so it was a bit of a fight to get down the face as the water swept upwards & over. Once at 30m it was calmer and we headed for the corner intending to do 'Point to Point", that is cross the channel to Uepi Point. At the commencement point the current direction seemed to change to right in our face, so we quickly realised that we had no chance of getting across. A quick "lets head with the current this side" soon had us swept into the channel. We were soaring down the channel at will, dodging bombies & fans, taking refuge behind them. The fans & whips were pressed flat against the walls. The fish, anemones, crinoids, in fact most of the life seemed to all be hiding in crevasses. Some of the anemone fish were almost homeless pressed against a minimal amount of reclusive host. Above us a green turtle tried vainly to swim against the current not seeming to realise he was going backwards. Several huge barrel sponges attracted our attention. Quite a way along the channel the current reversed, just as strongly in the opposite direction, due to a large eddy. So up onto the shallower reef where multitudes of banded pipefish continuously eat & mate amongst the fire-coral. A little wrung out but a fun dive. Jason & Josh have been spotting hammers, eagle rays & turtles whilst free-diving here.

On Uepi Point the current has made for some nice diving with many dives ending in a drift back to the Dive-shop. There have been plenty of fish feeding off the reef face, schools sitting in the current, frenzies of escape as predators charge at the masses. Endless varieties of reef fish frequent the many areas free of current, protected by topography & growth. It is nice to quietly slip into such a lee area & hang out with them. If you can get in position calmly they often are fairly unconcerned by your presence, even brushing against you now & then. Once having covered the coral garden areas on the reef top it is time to make the drift. One benefit of these drifts is you see the medium depth reef along the channel which has a great assortment of fans, sponges, soft corals & fish. The Grey Reef sharks also like the current pools generated by the protruding reef half way back. A surprising number of Whitetip sharks join in. On our last such drift we arrived at the Diveshop jetty, sat relaxing at 8 m watching some Blacktips check us out, only to have a large manta slowly glide right past us. It was Jill’s birthday & she had been filming mantas in the morning but this was still a nice way to end a dive.

Jill filming a manta

The other site that really shines in current is Inside Inside. This reef is further into the lagoon & catches the full brunt of an incoming current. Rather than being swept bare the face is a mass of very colourful fans, whips, sponges, soft corals, hydroids along with plenty of reef fish. This site is really looking good at the moment. Just off the wall are barracuda, mackeral, GTs, trevally & more. Turtles & rays are common. Viz is often very good here. The idea is to make it to the area of greatest current & settle down to watch. If you get swept around the point it is not that easy to get back, requiring a good choice of handholds. Alternatively keep going. The reef top is shallow but colourful & we need to send more snorkellors there as it is very colourful & easy.

As a contrast regular Uepi Groupie Tony Gan, along with Josh, led by our ever exuberant fearless Dive Leader Deliva, began to seek out new exciting sites in the gaps between our existing sites. Tony is a man who can look at a barren piece of dead coral or sand for hours & come up raving about something or other. It always nice to dive with such an enthusiastic diver. Anyway a large hole was noticed in the top of a coral reef flat when returning from snorkelling with the Mantas. So it was named ..... wait for it.......”The Hole”. The speculation regarding what mighty & mystical creatures could inhabit this deep foreboding place made Avatar seem trite and dull. Others were not so enthusiastic. Ranges of the size & depth of “The Hole” made it difficult to imagine what it was really like, galactic or not. Unfortunately before it could be dived Deliva’s shift ended & he issued strong warnings such as “Don’t dive The Hole until I come back or else”. Traditional bad Spirits like “Pela” were mentioned. These warnings were immediately ignored as quickly as possible & the very next morning like astronauts launching for a moon landing Tony, Josh & a not at all convinced Jill headed out to “The Hole”. It was a perfect part of the day, sunny, calm & the water was sparkling. I casually observed the infill by binocular from the Main-house deck. The dive was long & I did not see them return.
They wandered up for lunch, “How was The Hole?” I asked.
Jill: “That was the most boring dive I have ever done”.
Josh: “I saw a two dead jellyfish on the bottom at 30m. And I found a piece of metal protruding out of the wall which I flexed & it snapped and I realised it was dead coral”.
Tony: “The walls & bottom were completely barren, the bottom was silt. I want to dive it again?”
Further questioning revealed that it was an inverted cone shaped depression that leads nowhere except in ever decreasing circles. The sides had no features & there was nothing of note on the bottom, well nothing really. There was a sense of losing orientation as it all looked the same but maybe with a sense of astral travel. There was an awareness of sensory deprivation or maybe a heightening of remaining senses. There was practically no sign of life but life lurked hidden.
For some reason “The Hole” has an unfathomable aura of interest as discussion during the next 24 hours was dominated by it. Josh left the dinner table to get away from it & came back to the same discussion over an hour later. How was “The Hole” formed? Meteorite, plate tectonics, WWII small nuclear bomb test, geological chemistry, Martians? Even some stupid ideas. What might be sheltering there during storms or with super strong tidal currents passing overhead? Would a mighty whirlpool strong enough to screw your head off be formed”? This was prompted by Tony complaining of a sore neck, cause unknown, but maybe the remnants of such a whirlpool from a storm the night before remained.
So “The Hole” lives on & reasons for diving it have been imagineered: Meditation whilst diving is an obvious use, For solo divers with no navigation skills except a sense of up & down, Divers who are totally sick of looking at vibrant reefs & masses of fish, Those who enjoy the simple things in life. Unfortunately we cannot allow suicidal types to dive “The Hole” as it might be the last straw, which might rule out a small portion of our diving guests.
We look forward to telling Deliver how great “The Hole” is & delaying him diving it until we have to reluctantly give in.
The spell of “The Hole” is amongst us! Long Live “The Hole”!

Over the past decades Landoro Gardens has been an outstanding patch of reef. It has survived well all the attacks that coral reefs have to endure such as bleaching, crown of thorns & algae blooms. On a dive a few days ago it was flourishing, new coral growth abounds, algae competition was greatly diminished. I wandered about & rediscovered areas I had overlooked for a long time, enjoying the very rich & healthy reef. Now I need to get back there more often.

We are spotting one or two dugong regularly in the lagoon. There is a large adult who now regularly feeds out from the cabins & along to the far end of Uepi. It is hard to get a good look as he has an amazing turn of speed if he decides to go away. There may be more than one adult it is hard to say. And yesterday some guests hiking around Uepi hitched a canoe ride back from the far end & spend some minutes closely watching a small dugong in the shallows on the way back.

Thanks to all who have supported our scholarship scheme. We have helped an increased number of students this year thanks to you.
And our efforts to improve Seghe Hospital are producing results. At last we have the genset running as a backup to the solar system or if needed for major temporary electrical demands in the future.
The Airport Lounge Terminal at Seghe will be open for business shortly also. Wow thats taken years! Do not expect anything to match the lush new terminals in Australia, but we hope you find it an improvement.
Nat & Adrian are currently introducing some representatives from a College in Sydney to the local community & showing them over the local Patakae High School with a view to perhaps developing a sister school program. Such a program would assist our support for education in Marovo & the contributions of many of our guests.

Keep wet,
Grant, Jill , Josh & all of Team Uepi

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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.