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DUCK, MUCK & RUST
May 2004

"DUCK, MUCK & RUST at Uepi Island Resort and "POINT TO POINT" Some diving destinations have a singularly outstanding attraction, duck down and dive with the same manta day after day, grovel in the muck day after day, or look at a rusty piles of iron day after day. Some dive operations require long boat trips to get to decent dive sites. Some dive operations berate you if you stay in the water more than 40 minutes. Some define two fish as a school. Some limit you to 18m despite you having the proper training and experience to dive deeper. Some put you in large groups where the chances of you seeing that turtle or ray are minimal. Some do not.

At Uepi you can just about have it all. The marine life is extremely prolific, healthy and diverse offering a huge range of indo-pacific corals, fish and invertebrates. You can dive on WWII & recent shipwrecks& planes.The home reef is outstanding, just fall off the diveshop into beautiful reeftop, wall and deep reef. First class dives such as Uepi Point are so close you gear up at the diveshop. As well take longer trips including day trips to action packed points, caves, wrecks, immense walls.

Drift dives are popular. Night dives are as easy as putting your batteries
in your torch. Diving in new and exploratory areas such as Hele Bar can be
arranged.

Our fills are generous and you dive for as long as is practical, dives often
lasting 70 minutes or even a lot longer. Groups are small and we prefer
several small groups on different sites to a single large groups. All dives
are escorted but we allow divers to dive according to their training &
ability. This allows us to concentrate on the divers who are having new
experiences, their deepest dive, strong currents, schools of many sharks,
huge fish schools, swim thrus or caves.

Photographers and cautious divers are welcomed. 'Diving Widows' that is
non-diving partners are just as welcome and there is a lot for you to do and see including first class snorkelling.

The key to seeing lots of different marine life is spending time in the water. Then as well as seeing the usual diversity of fish, corals, turtles, rays, eels, sea-horses you will see much more, such as hammerhead sharks,
dolphins and even more rarely sailfish or Orca.

During March and April diving conditions varied greatly with the wind, rain
and tides. The spawning aggregations of grouper continued with extra large aggregations of Greasy Rock Cod, many large males fighting for territory, and reluctant to move when you settle amongst them. The square-tailed coral trout were much bigger in size this year with numerous very large males. We possibly witnessed a small aggregation of Queensland Giant Grouper as a variety of these fish were seen in the Uepi Point areas over a few days. Visibility varied and was down a little on average but there were significant pockets of cold (26C) clear water providing some excellent vis. The entrance of the channel adjacent to Uepi Point had consistently crystal clear water providing spectacular views down the dropoff into 200m or deeper. As a result of this we have been regularly diving "Point to Point". This dive is only for experienced divers confident of diving to Sports Diving limits.. It begins at Charapoanna Point, a renowned action dive on the channel entrance opposite Uepi Point. A traverse across the channel into cold crystal clear water gives a Grand Canyon panoramic view of what we call "The Amphi-theatre" swarming with sharks, rays and huge sprawling fish schools.

The great view into the channel proper gives way to the Uepi Point channel edge and "Fan City" an extended wall of prolific giant sea fans leading back to the dive shop.

The Bapita Sinkhole, Penguin Reef, Tayio Fishing boat wreck, Dauntless Dive Bomber, Lightening P38 day trip continued to provide top-class conditions.

The Japanese freighters at Wickham were dived regularly. One of the three
wrecks dived is now thought to be a US Liberty ship but this is still
conjecture. What is undisputed is that the fish-life has been rivalling any
that our well travelled divers have ever seen.

A premature start to the SE Trade winds has us guessing what is in store,
but whatever nature provides it will be Duck, Muck, Rust .....and a lot
more.

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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.