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Diving, what’s it really like?
March 2006

The wet season lived up to its name over New Year & the rain gauge overflowed at times. It should not have, but our new expensive weather station proved frustratingly unreliable. Initially the nutrient flush from the rivers fuelled an algae bloom in the lagoon, unfortunate for the snorkellors at times, but not a worry for the divers below the top few metres. By mid January the viz was really improving & continued to improve until the water was as they say 'crystal clear', conditions that are just perfect for video & photos.

Mongo Passage has been a top dive for so many years. In the 70s & 80s it used to have an incoming current like a runaway machine at full speed. A Mongo dive was a dive to remember, even to be a bit apprehensive about. Gather at the starting line on the white sand, speed around the point with streaming fish, hide in the shelter of a white soft coral cathedral, more racing to the seawhips along a golden wall, then fight your way back along the lip to the outside coral gardens. Then inexplicably it all slowed down, still a great dive but no rush. Now all of a sudden the rush has returned. Maybe it is because the tides have been as high as ever lately, even higher. The website for pacific sea-levels records a very real positive tidal anomaly. Anecdotal info from around the Pacific suggest this anomaly is not just the Solomons but widespread. The sea-surface temperatures over new year also showed an unusual narrow lens of warmer water, fairly stationary, stretching from the Solomons far eastwards, maybe a factor in the extra high tides? It hovered just under the temperature that causes coral bleaching for some time. A few coral species, not normally the bleaching type, were a little stressed but recovered well & we are happy to say we still have brilliant corals equal to anywhere in the world.

When non-divers find out you scuba dive they often ask - "What’s it really like?".

Well basically it’s fun & enjoyable & like doing a lot of adventurous activities all at the same time! But it’s hard to decide what is the most enjoyable. The swirling bubbles clearing & the impact of colour & swarming life as you 'drop in' like a surfer on a wave. Becoming a sky diver as you hovering effortlessly against an accelerated current flowing up & over a reef face. Down-hill skiing in a raging 'drift' as fantastic psychodelic scenery races by. Dancing like a gymnast around colourful coral formations. Time travelling and actually feeling the fear as you peer at a bomb hole in a WWII wreck, wondering how anyone escaped that, as all hell broke loose. Like a Special Forces scout never imagining that you could feel so alive & alert as a big shark instinctively turns your way. Knowing you will never be a loser using drugs to enjoy life, as you have scuba-diving. Realising the creative movie makers are just beginners when it comes to imagination as you marvel at a couple of thousand animal species on a single dive. Like a medical researcher discovering a whole new world as you peer through a magnifying glass at thousands of tiny exotic invertebrates. Almost meditating by lying gently on a reef edge in a maze of sea-life, feeling that you are indeed part of it. Hot air ballooning at depth, looking at the mountain peaks towering above you. Space-walking immersed in an endless blue ocean with no 'earth' in sight, hoping that the choir of cetaceans you can hear will pass close by. Not wanting to come out of the aqua when knowledge & commonsense say you must. Watching people empower themselves as they overcome imagined fears ingrained by over-the-top movies & people & become scuba divers. Hearing everyone say 'wow' when your first ever really good underwater photo comes up on the screen. Sharing a fun time with someone decades older, or decade younger. That’s what it’s really like!

With the disappointing cancellation of the proposed Dive Show in Melbourne, maybe its time we scuba divers got out there & made an effort to tells others 'what it’s really like'. Maybe we have been too concerned about promoting diving as technical & a chance to own cool equipment & we have forgotten the main reason we dive. Fun.

Leana, Grant, Jill & the Uepi Dive 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.