Trip Report (preliminary) - Solomon Islands

Hi all,

Just back from my 10 day trip to the Solomons. I'll report
on the basics for now, and post again with a link to photos
when I've had a chance to build them into a web page.

I flew out of Brisbane Queensland to Honiara on Solomon Airlines
(Well, Solomon Airlines more or less - the plane was from a
different island airline and I've heard rumours that Solomon
Airlines is having financial troubles.) There had been some
difficulties created by changes in the SA timetables and I
spent a day in Brisbane that was not originally part of the
plan.

I arrived in Honiara at about Midnight on 28 August. Neil
Yates, from Tulagi Dive, met me at the airport and took me to
my hotel. He also organised a couple of dives on wrecks close
to Honiara since he wasn't planning on returning to Tulagi
until Saturday morning.

I dived the Hirokawa Maru and the Kinugawa Maru with people
from a dive shop that was in Honiara. (Sorry, no name) They
were interesting "warm-up" dives. I could have gone as deep as
55 meters on the Hirokawa, but between limited sleep and it
being the first dive in a month, I thought that around 30
meters was a good maximum depth. The combination of tropical
fish and coral and a wreck was interesting. On the Kinugawa
I was less than impressed with the nouse of the locals. There
was a strong swell comming across the wreck, but the initial
proposal was to just do their standard dive. This would have
put us on the windward side, being stirred around by the
surge, while doing a safety stop. I can be fairly persuasive,
so we reversed the plan and finished the dive on the leeward
side and did the stop in sheltered water. The second dive was
shallower, but there were some good photo opportunities. Two
dives with transport (a van) to and from my hotel, supplied
air cylinders, a driver, one-to-one attention from a dive
guide, and equipment washed and returned to the hotel at a
cost of less than $170AUD seemed fairly reasonable.

On Saturday morning I got on the boat to Tulagi with Neil,
two guys from the Australian part of the security force in the
Solomons, and Jeff Giddons, a dive operator from near Melbourne
who I dive with once in a while at home. There was about a
1-1.5 meter swell running in Iron Bottom Sound and the 1.5 hour
run across in a 7.5 meter boat left me soaked. On arriving at
Tulagi, we quickly got organised and went out to dive the USS
Kanawha, a fleet oiler that was sunk in the battles. It's about
a 50-55 meter dive, depending on what part of the wreck is being
dived. With a single cylinder it was a relatively short dive,
but a good warmup for the week. (I did three more dives on the
Kanawha as the week progressed.)

The second dive Saturday was the bow section of the USS Minneapolis.
It was torpedoed and nearly had the bow shot off. They managed to
get it into Tulagi Harbour and finish cutting the dammage clear.
Then they fitted a temporary bamboo bow to get it back to Pearl
Harbor. The ship was repaired and eventually got back into the war.
There is a large debris field present and it's basicly a "muck"
dive. But the large numbers of shell casings, and piles of cordite
it the water add some interest.

Sunday, we dived the Kanawha again, and the HMNZS Moa, a Kiwi
minesweeper/destroyer/mine laying ship/etc. The depth charge
racks are clearly visible at the stern and there were big
glass bottles around that had held acid for charging batteries
on mines before laying them. The ascent from this wreck was
interesting since there was a school of batfish that seemed to
hang around the mooring. It made the deco stop more interesting.

The shores of the island generally drop off fairly rapidly.
As an example, at about 10 meters out from the end of the
pier at the dive shop, the depth was around 25-30 meters. So
wrecks can be both close to shore and deep.

The guys from the RAMSI group left on Sunday and were replaced
by a husband and wife from Denmark on Monday morning. Yet another
dive on the Kanawha was followed by a dive on the wreck of a
Japanese 4 engine "Mavis" seaplane. The seaplane is fairly
shallow which was good -- nice to not be diving as deep all the
time.

Finally, on Tuesday, we went to the USS Aaron Ward as our first
dive of the day. This was the first of three dives I did on the
Ward. What can I say about it? It's big and it's deep -- 70 meters
to the sand, but I never went past 66. Diving on air I was fairly
narked on these dives. But I will say that diving in tropical
waters is definitely different than diving deep in temperate
waters. One story stands out, though. I was with Jeff on the third
dive and we swam back to the stern and over the side. Jeff pointed
at something. I looked and my initial response was, "Oh, yeah,
what's that?" After about two or three additional looks, it
suddenly "snapped" into focus as a propeller with a diameter of
5-6 meters. It was HUGE! (The size was part of the reason that
it didn't immediately register as a propeller, the other part was
narcosis.) Unfortunately the bridge and superstructure has collapsed
and, given the instability, penetration is not recommended.

That afternoon we dived the "Twin Tunnels" site. It's a volcanic
bommie that reaches from the surrounding water depth of around
70 meters up to within about 10 meters of the surface. I'd have to
say that it's one of the best coral reef dives I've ever done.
My head felt like it was on a swivel -- I kept seeing new species
of fish the whole way through the dive. In addition, there were
a few types of coral that I did not see on the Great Barrier reef.
The top is small, only about the size that would be enclosed by an
Olympic running track, but there is so much to see. The tunnels
go down through the rock to about 35-40 meters. There is a
chamber near the bottom of the tunnels that has walls covered in
crayfish (lobsters). It's also possible to pick a spot near the
edge on top and watch the sharks swimming around in the deeper
water. On the second dive at this site we watched about 6-8 sharks
swimming around (1 grey reef shark, black tip reef sharks, and white
tip reef sharks) And big schools of baitfish. For the naturalist
types this is a magic site.

The final location that I dived was off the pier at the shop. On
Friday we did a dive on the Ward and then Neil needed to get the
Danish divers back to Honiara and to pick up the next group. So,
I was left to my own devices if I wanted a dive. One of Neil's
dive guides joined me and we went in off the pier. The locals have
followed the WWII tradition and treated the water as a trash dump.
(unfortunately) In addition, due to logging and other activities,
the water has a fair amount of silt in it. So the bottom is muddy
and mucky for the most part. But, here and there, there are bits
of coral reef that manage to poke through. I got photos of a nice
little nudibranch, some clownfish, a lionfish, a barracuda, and
a fair few other bits and pieces on a 50 minute dive in what
initially seemed like a really poor dive location. Based on this
observation, I'd guess that nearly any place along the shore
of the island would likely have reef and fish. etc worth seeing.

Neil is a cautious and very competent dive leader, IMHO. He's
generally fairly easy to get along with but he does have some
firm opinions on kit and style of diving. As most of you would
know, I lean towards the DIR kit setup, without being fanatical
about it. It's not Neil's preferred setup, and I received a
couple of gentle (and occasionally not so gentle) "digs" about
my kit setup, but there was no real problem with diving in my
preferred style. I suspect that a hard core DIR fanatic might
find Neil hard going, though, based on some of his comments.

He has permanent moorings on all of the sites so it's diving
from a fixed boat. There's a set of deco bars that are set at
3, 6, 9, and 12 meters with a weight that hangs near 21 meters
where the line across to the mooring is anchored. It's a good
setup, but, if I had the option, I'd just as soon ascend the
mooring line since there were strong(ish) currents on several
days. When the current was up, the deco bar didn't actually hit
the right depths.

The accommodations in Tulagi were basic and cheap. The local
power generator was having some sort of fight with the fuel
supplier and fuel was rationed. As a result the mains power
was only available between 1900 and 2400. This made daytime
fills impossible. The Vanita Lodge where I stayed has a solar
power system that partially meets its needs. There were lights
in the rooms and the ceiling fans worked, but there was some
problem that meant that battery chargers and notebook PCs
did not work.

The rooms aren't air conditioned and it doesn't get much cooler
at night. I had trouble sleeping on some nights. The humidity
seemed to be between 90-100% most days.

The food was good - it seemed to be healthy - no upset tummy
during my stay. I eventually even started eating the absolutely
beautiful fresh pineapple. Water was from a rainwater tank or
bottled in Australia. (I had Iodine tablets that I put in the
rainwater.) Maliaria is a potential problem. I managed to find
an Aussie 80% DEET repellent that worked fairly well. (Actually
it worked really well when I wore it - I put on a bit more that
the salesperson recommended and typically had 6-8 hours of
protection.)

The toilet was at the end of the corridor. There was one room
with ensuite toilet and air conditioning that cost quite a bit
extra. The shower was not heated and only worked when the mains
power was available. Neil had a "more or less" shower in front
of the shop, but since it was in public, the showers were in
swimsuits.

All up the trip cost about $3000AUD ex-Brisbane for 10 nights
and 10 days with a total of 17 dives. Most dives were deep
decompression dives and I also used 3 x 10 litre cylinders
of EAN50 for decompression on the deeper dives.

If creature comforts are not a big consideration and top
grade diving is what you're after, I would heartily recommend
contacting Neil to find out when he's available. If creature
comforts are an important consideration (non-diving spouse)
then you might want to give this one a miss. There is a
group that claims to dive these sites from a base in air
conditioned hotels in Honiara, but I did not see their boat
in the time that I was in Tulagi. (Doesn't mean that they
weren't there. But I suspect that getting a group big enough
to do a 3 hour round trip to a technical dive site economically
may be difficult.)

All in all it was a relaxing way to spend 10 days -- the best
part was that phone and Internet contact with the outside was
nearly impossible. So I wasn't even tempted to check e-mail
or do any other work while I was there.


-Don