Uepi Island Resort - Uepi News

Welcome to Uepi Island Resort
Natural Beauty Harmony Excitement Indulgence

Uepi News

Ghosts, Mandarins & Much More - Uepi Island Resort in the Magical Marovo Lagoon
September 2008

September has been awesome. Some of the viz has been as good as it gets, brilliant sunshine lighting up huge underwater vistas, enough at times to see clear across the Uepi channel. Sitting on the sand hill on the BOTCH dive looking out into the channel onto a field of Garden Eels has had people asking for more. And this is right in front of the Diveshop. The schools of Scad, Perch, Diamond-fish & Snapper that always hang around the jetties are as big as ever, some schools numbering thousands, so at the end of a BOTCH dive you cruise through these masses of fish along with maybe 20 reefsharks. And with good viz the deep dropoffs look like the Grand Canyon & everyone has been taking memorable photos. True in the early part of the month we had some rain & wind that restricted access to some outside sites at times, but the weather is so dynamic & our sites so diverse that every day we had good - better - best diving.

And for most of September the afternoon tides have been streaming in which means that the fish have been building up into impressive schools on the outer Uepi Point & Charapoana Point. The diversity of fish has been huge. One of our personal favourite dives is to swim out away from the wall into the deep at the front of Uepi Point, where there is a mass of smaller fish feeding on the plankton. These fish are feeding voraciously but keeping a sharp eye out for predators. And predators there are, with giant trevally, spanish mackerel, dogtooth tuna, bonito, wahoo, blue trevally & even large coral trouts & jobfish charging into the schools. The matrix of feeding fish converts into speeding streams of colour as they get into top gear to avoid being eaten. Some are unlucky. If this happens close to the wall there is a waterfall of flashing missiles rushing upwards seeking the safety of the coral garden. If that waterfall passes around you the full energy of the situation, movement, light & sound is immense. Often it ends with you staring into the face of a predator who just missed his lunch as the fleeing fish may use you as a screen.

Most divers are happy to look at small & large creatures, dive deep & shallow, stay in one place or fly along in a current. Very few can match the intense concentration of one of our regulars, Tony Gan from Surfers. Tony loves to very slowly look at small areas of coral, algae, sand & rubble, looking for the hard to find or never seen before creatures. And he is amazingly successful at finding the rare animals, even some that we have only seen once when Tony found it. In September Tony quickly found some very nice Robust Pipefish amongst the yellow, green & white halimeda at The Elbow. These fish mirrored perfectly the colours & shape of the halimeda. Coincidence or not we then found a pair right at the diveshop in 2 metres on the reef edge where our diveboats back out from the dive jetty many times a day. It is strange how Ghost Pipefish will appear for a week or two then disappear for 12 months or so. As they are not strong swimmers it’s hard to imagine them being pelagic! Whilst at DekuDekuru Tony also took some great over/under shots one of which is below. As this was taken with a Canon point & shoot its shows the calmness of both the water & the photographer.


Robust Pipefish - Carol Buchanan	Halimeda Ghost Pipefish

DekuDekuru - Tony Gan

Some time back I had spotted a Mandarin Fish in the shallows, in just over a metre of water, adjacent to the 'Jurassic Park' mangrove copse at the back of the Mainhouse. I tried a few times to refind it but failed. Hearing this Tony prompted me to show him the location but there was not a Mandarin in sight. Days later we decided to try again & arranged a time to snorkel the area. But because a brown seahorse & a golden seahorse, which I had never seen before, had been found that day in the weed in front of "Vanua 2", I went there first to get seahorse photos. Whilst I was searching for the seahorses using dubious location descriptions given to me by Jill, Tony finned over & with a grin (smirk?) showed me the first photo taken of an Uepi Mandarin fish. When we finned back to the Mandarin site I subsequently found many Mandarins & even managed a couple of reasonable photos. Keeping on the pressure Tony then pointed out a large & extremely well camouflaged Stone Fish sitting a few metres from where I was resting to shoot. Since then others have seen the Mandarins, although, I must say, they are not that easy to get good images of.


Mandarin fish	Brown Seahorse

Carol & Neil Buchanan are other Uepi regulars. Carol is well noted for her photography (www.ozimages.com.au ) & her marine biology knowledge especially nudibranchs is outstanding. Carol even had a nudibranch (Chromodoris Buchanae) named after her! With some great viz, calm seas & bright sunshine Carol has been filling up her computer with images faster than a goby down a hole. DekuDekuru is awesome for wide-angle creative photography so Carol has had Gayle Revill modelling for her, as having a model with great control certainly helps get special images.

Last Dive Log, I mentioned the very pregnant Pygmy Seahorse right near the Welcome Jetty. The very fat male transformed into a slim individual. Carol took some images & was looking at them afterwards when to her amazement she noticed the slim seahorse had an opening at the lower front part of its body. This appears to be a birth canal. More exciting is that in one photo what appears to be a tiny head is projecting out of the area this opening is located. It is all so tiny of course so we are reluctant to claim it is a baby being born until others confirm it, but we a hopeful it is! We then checked Jills very nice HD video taken shortly before Carols shots & the opening can be seen. A group of dives saw a cuttlefish laying eggs in the firecoral at NorthLog. We have noted the date & will try our best to watch the 'births' something to look forward to on the 20th of October. If anyone has watched this before & can tell us where, when & anything that might be useful please let us know on info@uepi.com.

Another lovely small fish found in September is a juvenile Orbicular Batfish, which lives near the new Jetty being constructed at Landoro. This is a very cute fish & full of character as it evades predators & photographers.

Last Dive Log I mentioned the Giant Manta Rays regularly feeding in the lagoon. They have remained with us all through September. The Dive-staff check the area as they bring the boats around in the morning & if any are seen the drivers stop in front of the dining deck when breakfast is just beginning. With great expectation we all wait to see how many fingers are raised in turn by the DiveMaster. If any fingers are raised there is a mad rush to the Diveshop with snorkel, mask & fins for a quick boat ride to the site. Breakfast is forgotten for a while. So practically all of our guests have snorkelled with Mantas & almost all have the photos to prove it. "What a way to start the day - with a Manta" has become a bit of a mantra!

Elbow has also been producing the hammerheads on a fairly regularly basis with a high percentage of guests "finally seeing their first 'hammer' ever". Sometimes its just an individual large hammer paying close attention or at times six or seven smaller hammers together. And the Eagle rays & Pygmy Mantas love this area too.

Many of the short trips to divesites have produced exciting displays by spinner dolphins who have been more than usually interested in showing off. And a pod of Pilot Whales were seen cruising along "The Slot" followed days later by a solitary Humpback Whale.

With such clear water the dives at Bapita have been raved about. I have to say that in those conditions Bapita, being a very visual experience, is just amazing. And on the same trip the coral spectacle at Penguin Reef is stunning.
So a lot has been happening with diving at Uepi in September. We are looking forward to a fabulous October with the great weather continuing.

And on the staffing front Gayle & Ian are heading back to Perth after spending most of the past two years helping out at Uepi (thanks guys for all you have done so well). We have Josh Bullock (ex Townsville) heading up to work with us.

September was also a very busy Sea Kayaking period with six separate sorties paddling around the Marovo. These trips have been typically only for 3 or 4 days, but long enough to stay at Matikuri Lodge, paddle Bapita (sensational paddling area) & Hele, then to Chubikopi Village for a different experience. Most of the paddlers have been divers too so it’s a great combination.

NEWSFLASH: It’s hard to believe but work has finally started on the upgrading of Seghe Airstrip!!! It might take up to 3 months but we are about to get our airstrip back. We will do our best to finish the building adjacent to the Solair 'terminal' so we can offer some comfortable airport hospitality at Seghe. This will be known as "P38" after the plane wreck in Jae Channel about 50m away.

Uepi is very much a part of the local community. We find that many of our guests wish to help the local communities; such help is directed to primary & secondary schools, kindergarten, education scholarships, cultural programs, clinics & hospital, fund raisers, community communications. If you have been a guest at Uepi & wish to find out about these initiatives please see our website.

Just finishing this as Chris & Grant from Invader Charters, who have dropped in with a charter group for a few nights, wander up & tell me about their casual fun dive in the channel in front of the Dive Shop & Welcome Jetty. "In amongst a big school of sharks when along come the dolphins". If Chris had longer arms he could have grabbed a cold Solbrew from the bar, its that close. I was surprised they could see the Dolphins through the fish schools.

We stay WET & WARM at Uepi, how about you? If you feel a need to drop into warm tropical water teeming with fish & corals & diverse marine life, need to relax & getaway from it all, love a 5-star environment & enjoy good food, then check out the website or contact Lee or Rhonda on info@uepi.com.

Grant, Jill & all the Uepi Staff.

News Archives

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.