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Uepi Dive Musings as November rolls around.
October 2004

As the end of the year approaches the weather gets calmer, warmer & the cooling tropical breezes are intermingled with becalmed periods of glassy seas. The wind swings around and around the compass; localised tropical storms appear from nowhere & disappear just as mysteriously. Blue skies & surreal sunsets abound.

This is when we really know why we love the Marovo. The passing year has been a bit different to normal with repeated cold winds from Australia blowing over us, a lot of cloud, and cool water temperatures (26-28C) that have flushed out our often neglected 3mm wetsuits. The forecast is for another El Nino heading our way. Hopefully we will again benefit from a seemingly unique location where the tepid El Nino waters pass around us, leaving us relatively unscathed, as in the past.

During the Australian federal elections, renowned author Tim Flannery was summing up the current consensus on global warming, wondering how it was not an election issue, how nobody seemed to care, or even notice. The effects of a confirmed 0.6C rise in ocean temperatures over the past decades are already apparent. The predicted likely rise of 3C (6C max) over the next 100 years will have overwhelming drastic effects, including the extermination of coral reefs world wide. As I snorkel & dive over our Uepi reefs, teeming with fish, movement, colour, invertebrates and it seems life itself, I can only be aghast at such a disaster ever happening, but happen it will if the scientists are even half right. Those of us whose joys in life are dominated by large digital TV screens, the latest must have sexy car designs, excessively orgiastic meals & booze rituals, corporate boxes at big events, en-suites the size of some peoples houses and designer drugs, will probably not be affected: But those current and future generations who would love the boundless beauty and intrigue of a healthy coral reef, forest, or wilderness are going to miss out badly, although there might be a lot of new wilderness.

So today I am taking special notice of and appreciating the magical Marovo reefs more than ever. Over the past month we have travelled about the lagoon and dived new sites or revisited previous sites. Never were we disappointed & at times we wished our air would last forever, and we consider ourselves very spoilt divers living at Uepi. One extended wall of soft corals left us babbling for words.

Closer to home the diving has been as good as ever, full of surprises. Just yesterday I took two divers who had not dived for six years on a refresher dive at Landoro Gardens. The hard corals were as nice as ever; several turtles swam by with a shark or two. Then emerging from a colourful overhang we spotted the largest yet tawny nurse shark sitting on the sand, cleaner wrasses at work, six juvenile golden trevally who act as "pilot fish" nestling together on its head. We approached to 1.5 metres for a close look.

A little later I recc'ed a small swim-thu tunnel and as I stuck my head out a pod of dolphins passed slowly by a few metres away. I scrambled back to alert the others at the entrance but my excited hand signals drew blank looks as I saw the dolphins swim away. With one diver low on air in the boat
(its always the male) I continued with the female diver. Three very large bumphead parrotfish, crunching coral with their indestructible beaks, headed our way and gouged out huge mouthfuls of coral a couple of metres away, the noise so loud. We turned away and there were the dolphins again, checking us out. I imitated their kick & somersaulted and back they came to look at my clumsiness. As they swam away I mimicked their call & they all came back past us again, closer than ever, no doubt wondering at my poor dolphin talk. Of course it is great back at the dive shop to say:"Guess what we saw?" and wait for the reluctant inquiry of those who know they have missed out on
something. Today it was my turn. "Guess what we saw?" Four whales it turns out, not underwater (they passed within 50m) but observed closely from the canoe, looking in awe at the huge bodies & tails. There have been a number of dolphin sightings underwater recently and with the whale season upon us we hope for some underwater encounters.

As you might have read elsewhere there is now a decompression chamber in the Solomon Islands, installed in Honiara, with trained operators. This is very welcome & whilst we hope it gets very little diving business it is comforting to know it is there.

Leana from Grant, Jill & the dive team at Uepi Island Resort

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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.