Uepi Island Resort - Solomon Islands - News archives

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No surprising news from Uepi - We knew it anyway!
June 2004

Uepi is the original sport-diving operator in the Solomon islands, commencing diving in 1982. Commercial divers such as Reg Thomas were based in Honiara at that time and a BSAC Club operated out of the Pt Cruz Yacht Club. After 20 years or so you we might think we had pretty much seen it all as far as diving the Marovo Lagoon is concerned. But the good news is in an amazing and ever changing world we are continually finding exciting new creatures, making new discoveries and learning new things. The dive community is well educated, experienced and has diverse interests and expertise. At Uepi many guest divers have expertise on marine life, wrecks, technical diving, are widely travelled and enjoy socialising. Recently guests have shed some light on the origins of a wreck, found, recognised and identified a new marine animal, and given us some good tips on video & digital photo techniques. The Marovo Lagoon is a great "office".

In addition to our guests, the international community is now showing a great deal of interest in the Solomons. Some say that "no publicity is bad publicity": It seems that the over-the-top bad publicity that the Solomons received over the past fews years of ethnic strife in Guadalcanal, is paying long over-due dividends. There is a lot of interest in saving the environment and many very well credentialled scientists are visiting the Solomons to contribute. To the many divers who have dived at Uepi over the last decades it comes as absolutely no surprise that the fish & coral diversity has been found to rate in the top few locations in the world. No surprise at all. A rapid dash past by a boat laden with experts and funded by the Nature Conservancy produced the following: Charlie Veron coral specialist from AIMS identified over 370 species of corals in the first 5 days of the research; this rates the Solomons as second in the whole world. Gerry Allen, fish expert, says there are more than 900 species of coral reef fishes putting the Solomons in the top five. Now considering that this trip is a rapid boat-past, then without a doubt if a more thorough look was taken, undoubtedly these counts would be increased significantly. The other consideration is that whilst the Solomons stretches from New Guinea to Vanuatu, it has well defined lagoons and reefs, with minimal impact from man, so the marine life is rich and concentrated. The divers who dive at Uepi realise this and that is why they keep coming back for more. For more info on the Nature Conservancy see their website at www.nature.org and search for Solomons.

The sunrises have been spectacular some mornings. When we are not too lazy we make the effort to kayak or troll for fish at sunrise. Once we are out of bed gliding soundlessly over a calm tropical sea we chastise ourselves for not being there every morning. One such recent morning, the sun barely up, we were quietly trolling inside the lagoon, hoping for a fresh fish for sushimi that evening, when we sighted many ripples, flashes of white and an occasional fin breaking the surface. Our boat driver Kilent, a typical Marovan who has eyesight to rival the Ospreys which ply the lagoon, mumbled "tape gette", Marovo language for "big ray". A school of manta-rays was swimming up and down a cloud of nutrient rich water along a shallow reef. For the rest of the day we all snorkelled, dived, videotaped and photographed these gentle and inquisitive creatures. At times each of us would have the whole twelve circling around us, repeatedly looping the loop as they gathered food in their gaping mouths. A fin would brush us or we could reach out and let their body slide away beneath our hand. The largest was about 3 metres or so from tip to tip, spanning down to 2 metres. One was jet black all over, another almost white with the others having various piebald or skewbald patterns. The mantas were a little wary at first of snorkellers but were very keen to check out a scuba diver kneeling on the bottom. It was one of those days you never forget, motivation to go diving whenever we can for the next 100 years, or more.

With the strong incoming currents now (& in the next few months) we are expecting the present great diving conditions to continue. After a couple of months of limited sunshine we are now having those beautiful sparkly, blue water, warm Marovo days. So we are going to just sit underwater with over 370 species of corals and watch life go by; endless schools of over 900 species of fish plus sharks, rays, turtles, cuttlefish, and who knows what.
How about you? "Uepi -Just Dive It".

"Leanna" from Grant, Jill and 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.