Dive 2000 Dive Club - Sydney :: Dive 2000 holiday to Uepi Island Resort, Solomon Islands.

The words Tropical Island Paradise are an overused cliché, but that is exactly what we found as the boats pulled up at the Welcome Jetty at Uepi Island. After a long day of travel from Brisbane via Honiara, then a flight over the many islands to Seghe and finally the ride over Marovo Lagoon, we gladly accepted a cool drink and then a dunk in the warm ocean off the resort beach.

We quickly realised we did not need our 5mm wetsuits as the water was a beautiful 30deg, making the diving and snorkelling really comfortable.

The next morning started with a snorkel on the home reef with the sharks (more about them later) and after brekky out for a dive. Most of the diving at Uepi is within 5mins of the jetty, with some finishing back at the dive centre after a leisurely swim. There was an amazing amount of variety in the diving including gorgonian fan covered walls dropping into the abyss, colourful reef gardens, ship and WW2 plane wrecks and caves where you could see the forest above.

Over the week of our stay our group got to encounter many creatures both large and small featuring pygmy seahorses, mantas, garden eels, eagle rays, hammerhead shark, cow rays, lionfish, orang-utan crabs and turtles just to name some. It was a feast of diving for both experienced and new divers in the group.

The nice thing about Uepi was that while you were not diving it was great to find a spot in a hammock and just chill out with your drink of choice. The food was also top class, from the local eggs for brekky through to the mud crab, lobster, sashimi and fantastic assortment of other dishes we were served up every day.

A highlight of the trip for many of the group was the shark feed on the home reef. This involved getting under the jetty on your snorkel and watching in awe as about 30 blacktip and grey reef sharks converged on the fish morsels tossed into the water….very exciting!

Other activities on Uepi included volleyball with the locals (very energetic), rainforest walks around the island, night time coconut crab spotting, coconut opening displays (thanks Alex & Antony), and looking around the carvers market for a bargain. We even went out fishing one afternoon and Janie managed to snare a Wahoo…it was excellent as sashimi the next day!

The snorkelling on Uepi was as good as the diving as Craig from our crew found out. Read his account of his time on Uepi at http://www.dive2000.com/blog/_archives/2009/8/17/4355094.html

Our group of 15 divers and friends had a great week in the Solomon Islands with lots of new experiences both below the surface and interacting with the friendly people of the South Pacific.