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Uepi Point Impressions
By Roger Grace – a recent guest at Uepi.
September 2004

Dropping down through a forest of huge gorgonians, I photographed a silhouette of Ocean through a seafan latticework. Below, the vertical wall continues another 400 metres. This was Ocean’s final dive of her 3-month stay, and it would be a memorable one.

At 30 metres we moved along the wall through a school of sailfin snapper and onto a convenient plateau projecting into the gentle current. Masses of small and occasional larger schoolfish filled the sea, including dogtooth tuna, barracuda, trevally and grey reef sharks.

At the end of the plateau I peered down the precipice and 15 metres below was the plan-view outline of a huge fish hovering against the wall. I squeaked to Grant and pointed, and the enormous fish saw us. Obviously curious, the 1.5m giant Queensland grouper drifted up to inspect Ocean and Grant, its massive bulk impressing and indelible image on my memory.

Reluctantly we had to move back to the shallows, past a cruising turtle, and into a series of sand gutters ideally placed as safety stops, with the added bonus of hundreds of extremely approachable garden eels.

As a natural reef deep dive, this site would have to rate a 10 out of 10. The plateau at 30 metres, walls of seafans, and quiet sand gutters at safety-stop levels, are a perfect combination for a deep dive. And all just a one-minute boat ride from the jetty. In my 3500+ dive career, this would rank in the top 10.

Roger Grace
14th September 2004

Roger Grace is a self-employed marine biologist and photographer. He works mainly on marine conservation issues, especially establishment of marine reserves and monitoring their progress. He has worked a lot with the Department of Conservation in New Zealand. He has also been a contract photographer for Greenpeace since 1990, working mostly on ocean issues. He writes regularly for magazines

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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.