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UEPI DIVE REPORT – On the Edge of Marovo
October 2007

Not long back from a long 6 week stint in Australia, where the tail end of a cold Aussie winter chilled our bones across the breadth of the southern coast, west to east. Great people, great wines & food& a thick carpet of affluence everywhere. At last some genuine warmth in sunny Brisbane, but even the fabulous steaks & wooden keg beer of the Breakfast Creek Hotel were not enough to stop me day-dreaming of the magical Marovo.

A few days in Honiara sorting out some business & finally the Otter touched down on the welcoming bumpy grass of Seghe airstrip. Wide smiles & into “PT108” with 150HP of Honda outboard hanging on the rear.
There is something really special gliding home under a cyan sky patched with white anvil clouds, on a flat calm lagoon, surrounded by green jungle clad islands with patches of coral reef flashing intermittently underneath within the deeper blue lagoon water.

Never has the “Uepi Island Resort” sign on the Welcome Jetty looked so welcoming. I gaze down, the ten or so Giant Clams smile up at me; the resident school of scad & several cruising sharks also. Three Lionfish hover over the shallow divers entry step waiting in expectation of an easy feed meandering their way. The water erupts & boils loudly as a squad of Blue Trevally charge in at a school of wary baitfish, driving them into the shallows. Willy-wagtails flit around the jetty. On the short walk to the Mainhouse deck a large yellow spotted monitor lizard casually scrolls his trademark sinusoidal wave-pattern on the sandy path with his tail. An Osprey dives from a coconut palm & easily catches his lunch. Land crabs scurry back & forth amongst their minefield of holes as they perform their territorial manoeuvring: They must have some complex algorithm intuitively built into them so they can occupy the best strategic position. Loud squawking from a tall coconut as white cockatoos defend their eggs or young from a climbing monitor. Back to normality, but I re-appreciate why new arrivals are a bit overwhelmed. How could I assume so much?
So what’s been happening guys? “Unbelievable viz at times, a bit patchy at others. Stacka fish. Not much rain at all, baitfish schools all around, the yellowfin tuna are around, fishing has been fantastic at times, a ghostpipefish last week .. it’s the time for them …” & so it goes.

A restless couple of days waiting before the stitches from a little minor skin surgery can be pulled out and then its get wet time. I finally have had to succumb to an integrated weight BCD as the backpack of my old Mares BCD finally split in two after eight years of constant use & abuse. A new Mad-Dog full stretch shortie wetsuit fits like a second skin, not that flattering but very comfortable. I am into the descent before the boat stops & it is as good as I remember, even better.

Naturally its Uepi Point first up & the incoming current has the fish life piled up; some Snapper schooling up from the deeper water; Big eye Trevally streaming up & down & around, one minute 80 metres below, next covering the reef-top: Several Spanish Macs glide by (And Ronald thinks he can claim the term BIG MAC, no way!); sinister black GTs look up at the smaller fish feeding in the upper levels. Jill is white balancing the video when a monster Dog-Tooth Tuna approaches directly like a steely torpedo with a row of sharp teeth protruding at the front. Nuclear powerhead that one for sure!

At the 20m level the front face is a mass of colourful coral; fans, soft corals & whips. This continues upward as far as I can see. I switch on the Subalised Cannon 20D & get stuck into the small fish resident amongst the invertebrates. I feel the wash of a Grey Reef Shark as it glides past. The activity level is frantic with every fish flitting around, feeding, chasing, evading, getting friendly or defending. I fin into an enclosed coral garden & spot a pair of beaked leatherjackets that I have rarely seen in two other sites, not here. Then an especially colourful goby on a pink sea-whip catches the attention of my shutter finger. I remake acquaintance with the most aggressive anemone fish I have ever known & spot some delicate decorator crabs, never seen before on this anemone.

A wheatfield of wavering Garden Eels sway in the white sand patch. I cross the raised reef line marking the channel edge arriving as a Barracuda school parades past. The Whitetips must sense some food around as they anxiously circle a small area of reef slope. A large Green turtle surprises me & me him so he heads for the surface for a gulp of air. Time I headed up too.

September to December can be very still, then windy, then dry, then wet. All in the same day! Several times even. But some days it hardly changes, just blue skies & light breeze. The tides mainly run in during daylight hours & there is plenty of sun, especially in the mornings. Moderate breezes keep us cool. A few nights ago the rain belted down, not that heavy for Marovo but causing one of our American guests to say “ That is the heaviest rain I have ever been in“. With the water tanks full we can relax again.

My second dive is straight off the Diveshop. The walls are moving with small baitfish & the foodchain is in full swing. A gathering of sixteen Maori wrasse suggest a bit of spawning is about to happen on the outgoing evening tide. The Whalers & Blacktips buzz me as I pass below the Welcome Jetty. At 20m a male Ribbon Eel carries on his eccentric movements. The Jawfish I have never successfully photographed remains just that. Back at the Concrete Jetty a Banded Pipefish chooses a great background & poses perfectly, best shot ever I guess & am not disappointed later. I move my hand to rest it on a rock & a tasselled Scorpion Fish chooses flight over fight. I thank him by taking a few flattering photos. The large school of a thousand or so One Spot Snapper that hang around this jetty surround me & almost black out the sun. I cannot focus without the HID. Don’t know why they want to be so cosy but they do.

Chatting over breakfast enjoying the best poached eggs & Hash Browns in the Universe, I hear comments like “Gotta dive Bapita sinkhole again next trip”; “Penguin Reef must be the best coral in the world”; The caves at Deku are unbelievable”; “Uepi Pt must have more life than anywhere …. anywhere”; “Mongo Passage .. strong currents but worth the effort lets do it again”; “How did you ever spot those pigmy sea-horses it took me 5 minutes before I could see them”; “All those great dives right here within 2 minutes boat travel”; “I had over 30 sharks with me at the Welcome Jetty just 30m from this very breakfast table!!!”; “I will start my diet tomorrow, two more pancakes please”; “We love the renovated houses, and the river stones in the bathroom are fantastic” ; “The waterfall was great & the village people so friendly”; “Your staff are so good can I take them home” ……..

Marovo Magic at Uepi. What more is there to say except that in the Marovo tradition you are always welcome.

Leana via, Grant & the Uepi Island Resort Team.

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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.