Uepi Island Resort - Solomon Islands - News archives

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Diving dreams at Uepi
June 06

Late June the University of Queensland, after an intense two year research project, held a Marovo Environment Day at Mbatuna in the Marovo Lagoon. A large & enthusiastic cross section of the Marovo community attended as well as some Solomon researchers from various NGOs. UQ presented the results of their environmental research, shared lessons from other areas of the Solomons and the region, & explored the possibility of forming a local resource management association. The group discussions, whereby the audience divided into groups according to locality & discussed their environment, produced some remarkable insights & reaffirmed the strong relationship of man & nature & the considerable knowledge that exists within the Marovo community. Confirming the findings of the UNESCO World Heritage Meeting held at Uepi in March 2006, the unique & complex environment of Marovo Lagoon was highlighted. The desire of a large section of the community to sustainably protect this heritage was most evident & some progress was made towards forming a representative resource management organisation.

Not so wonderful was the Solomon Islands support for Japan at the recent International Whaling Commission Meeting. Once again using aid money as the 'carrot' Japan has pushed around some of the smaller Pacific Island nations, including the Solomons. Until countries such as the Solomons are economically independent & strong, they will always be vulnerable to such manipulation. May I urge you, if you have some genuine anger over this, please direct it at the Japanese & Norwegians not the Pacific Islanders. Give up your Toyotas, Sonys & sushi bars & boycott whatever, if anything, Norway does apart from kill whales.

June was wet! As the midyear tide cycle began with the familiar pattern of very low tides at midday with exposed reefs, the risk of coral death by sunburn was high. But the clearer mornings skies gave way to overcast afternoons as the incoming currents filled the lagoon with clear ocean water. Because of this, coral loss has been minimal & we can expect some rich coral growth on the shallow reef tops in the coming seasons. As well the water temperature has dropped to a freezing 28 degrees, and despite the heavy rain, visibility has been generally excellent at the end of June into early July.

The incoming currents always produce plenty of schools of fish at the points and this season has been no exception. When the fish density gets to extremes, a diver feels that they are part of the school, no-one seems to notice or care you are sitting amongst them. Then a lunge by a team of Giant Trevally or a rush by a Dogtooth Tuna and you are instantly the epicentre of a tardis like spin-dryer of swirling fish, all trying to avoid becoming a take-away-meal. Then the whalers looking for scraps rush up the reef-face and get in your face, as surprised as you are at the close encounter.

Point to Point excels in these conditions & as you push the sport diving limits, cruising over the Amphitheatre sculptured in the deep channel mouth, you just wish you could stay down there forever. Too much narcosis & you just might! General Store has also been excelling with many requests to return as the drop-off wall, the 'point' densely covered in colourful invertebrates & sandstorms of fish, the never ending highways of coral garden cruises, has it all.

Following on from the prevalent pods of pilot whales in April-May, we have had a rare visitor, a large whale shark. Our dive-guides, not used to such a creature explained 'mi no save dispela kiso emi gotem teeth foa kaikai mifela or nomoa' and were not that keen to get that close. This whale-shark has been hanging around the Deku-dekuru dive site for a while so we hope to meet up with him some more & get some nice HD video footage & stills.

As the SE trades wrinkle the lagoon waters the sunny blue sky is intensely reflected in the sparkling lagoon water. Standing on the Uepi Welcome Jetty about 15 whalers & blacktips cruise their airspace, a large mottled rockcod sits in his barrel sponge lounge-chair 10 metres below, the colourful mantles of the giant clams are reflected in the water surface, a dense school of scad in a security scrum huddle by, ever watchful as a six-pack of blue trevally calculate their chances of a quick scad snack. Halina an 76 year old Polish Doctor snorkels past with two girls about 6 years old in her wake. Think I will join them.

With a couple more months of Trades before the change to calmer, hotter, doldrum weather, there’s a lot to look forward to.

We have been getting some very good compliments on our website so please have a look (www.uepi.com) & if you have a prized 'Uepi' image (the one you should have sent to Barry & Belinda for a cover of Sportdiving or Dive Log) how about adding it to our photo-gallery? You can also add a comment on to our guest comments page.

Leana Via, Grant & Jill & 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.