Your Guide to Diving Solomon Islands
Including Uepi and Gizo

Diving Solomon Islands Overview

Solomon Islands Seasonal Dive Planner

The Solomons are hot and humid year-round, with the most rain falling between December and March. Annual rainfalls are well above 100 inches (2.5m), but mountainous islands do produce rain shadows resulting in much less rainfall on some coasts. Between December and April winds blow periodically out of the west (calm spells are broken by storms). The southeast trades blow from the end of April to November. The better months to travel are probably July through September when the rainfall (and therefore malarial mosquitoes), heat, and humidity are lowest, or in November when there's a good chance the seas are flatter.

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Diving Solomon Islands Reader Reports and Feature Articles

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Latest Reader Reports from Solomon Islands from the serious divers who read Undercurrent All Reader Reports from Solomon Islands	All 10,000+ Reports
MV Solomon Master/Coral Sea Resort Report in Solomon Islands/Guadalcanal, Florida Islands, "Solomon Master Redux" filed Oct 3, 2024 by Jeffery Lynn Reeb (Experience: 501-1000 dives, 3 reports, Reviewer )
I recently spent a week diving the Solomon Islands on the live-aboard Solomon Master and my experience was so positive I felt compelled... ... Read more
Bilikiki Cruises/n/a Report in Solomon Islands "Great trip on the Bilikiki" filed Aug 15, 2024 by Chris Watt (Experience: 501-1000 dives, 17 reports, Contributor )
This was our first trip on the Bilikiki and first time in the Solomon Islands. This was an 11-day trip = April 14-25, 2024. We flew... ... Read more
Bilikiki Cruises Report in Solomon Islands "Spectacular Reefs, but Bad Viz." filed Nov 29, 2023 by David Marchese (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 22 reports, Sr. Contributor )
This was our second 14-day trip on the Bilikiki. Our first time was in 2006, and we were the only two guests onboard for that trip! How... ... Read more
Uepi Island Resort Report in Solomon Islands/Uepi Island "Quiet tropical retreat, Abundant fish and corals" filed Nov 19, 2023 by Christian Andersen (Experience: 251-500 dives, 2 reports)
Travel to Uepi Island is not especially easy from the US, but our travel was seamless both ways. We flew from Los Angeles through Fiji... ... Read more
Solomon Master Report in Solomon Islands "Great Diving in the Solomon Islands" filed Nov 11, 2023 by Judi Radtke (Experience: Over 1000 dives, 9 reports, Sr. Reviewer )
10 days aboard the Solomon Master Liveaboard is the perfect fix for fish lovers and adventure/wreck divers. This was a one way trip f... ... Read more

Complete Articles Available to Undercurrent Online Members; Some Publicly Available as Indicated

Diving Solomon Islands Articles - Liveaboards Discovered - The World's Largest Coral, 1/25 MY. Bilikiki Solomon Islands, Southern Pacific , a dive destination that has it all, 10/23 Available to the Public Island Scuba Destinations That Will be Gone in Less than a Century, 9/19 MV Taka, Solomon Islands, and a word about the Bilikiki, 5/18 Our Bilikiki Confusion, 1/17 Snafu in the Solomons, 9/14 M/V Bilikiki, Solomon Islands, fishy reefs and WWII wrecks, 5/12 Solomon Sea, 7/95 Spirit of Solomons, 10/94 M.V.Kirio, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, the Best Of Wrecks And Reefs, 3/92 Bilikiki, 3/92

Diving Solomon Islands Articles - Land Based Uepi Resort, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, a near-perfect, remote dive resort; and a word about the Bilikiki, 11/24 Decaying WWII Wrecks Threaten Coral Reefs, 1/23 Available to the Public The Loss of a Diving Icon, 9/21 Kiribati, Yeah; Kri, Nay, important updates for dive travelers, 5/06 Reports From Readers: Part I, Cozumel’s adult dive operators, Bonaire bummers, 8/04 Uepi and Gizo, 8/94 Uepi, Anuha, Guadalcanal; Solomon Islands, 1942, 1962, And 1987 In The South Pasific, 9/87

Editor's Book Picks for Scuba Diving Solomon Islands
Including Uepi and Gizo

The books below are my favorites about diving in this part of the world All books are available at a significant discount from Amazon.com; just follow the links. -- BD

Reef Creature Identification: Tropical Pacific
by Paul Humann and Ned Deloach

Paul Humann and Ned Deloach have done it again, releasing a definitive identification guide to 1600 extraordinary reef creatures of the Tropical Pacific. with this 500+ page softbound guide, you get upwards of 2000 exceptional photos of shrimp and crabs and stars and worms and lobsters and nudibranchs and slugs and squid and bivalves . . . well, all those invertebrates that move along the reefs of this region without fining, so it seems. There are several photos of some creatures to help you identify them during different life stages, and about ten percent of the book is descriptive copy so you can tie down your identification. Even if you have no plans to go to the tropical Pacific, just to thumb through the pages, gawk at the complexity and uniqueness of these animals, and read a thumbnail sketch will give any serious diver vicarious thrills for endless hours.

Click here to buy it at Amazon.

Reef Fish Identification: Tropical Pacific
by Gerald Allen, Rodger Steene, Paul Humann, & Ned Deloach

At last, here's a comprehensive fish ID guide covering the reefs of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The generous 500-page text, displaying 2,500 underwater photographs of 2,000 species, identifies the myriad fishes that inhabit the warm tropical seas between Thailand and Tahiti. The concise text accompanying each species portrait includes the fish's common, scientific and family names, size, description, visually distinctive features, preferred habitat, typical behavior, depth range, and geographical distribution. This is an essential book for every diver traveling westward. 6x9 inches.

Click here to buy it at Amazon.

Dive Sites of the Great Barrier Reef
by Neville Coleman.

With 2900 reefs in 220,000 square miles, the enormous Great Barrier Reef has incredible dives -- and some very ordinary ones. If you're contemplating a trip, Neville Coleman's Dive Sites of the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea will help you ensure you pick the best. This 176 page book, with good maps and scores of colorful photos, describes the significant sites, the topography and the critters, then rates and ranks them so you can pick the best. Don't even consider a trip to Australia without consulting this. $24.95

Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide
by Gerald R. Allen, Roger Steene.

I was trying to pack light for a change. Surely the Solomon Sea would have good identification books aboard. Not so; the only book on the boat belonged to a fellow passenger. It was one that I had not seen before, the Indo-Pacific Coral Reef Field Guide, by two of the best fish guys around, Gerry Allen and Roger Steene. The problem was this fellow passenger kept it in a plastic baggie most of the trip and I had to beg to see it. Great book, good traveling size, and it covers everything from fish, shells, marine plants, mammals, corals, and invertebrates to sea birds and more. Now I've got my own, and it won't do you any good to beg me to borrow it. This is one of two books that I will not travel to the Pacific without. Good for travel to the Red Sea, East Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius, Maldives, Andaman Sea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Hawaii, it has 1,800 color illustrations in a 6x8 1/2 paperback format with 378 pages. $39.95.

There's a Cockroach in My Regulator
by Undercurrent

The Best of Undercurrent: Bizarre and Brilliant True Diving Tales from Thirty Years of Undercurrent.

Shipping now is our brand new, 240-page book filled with the best of the unusual, the entertaining, and the jaw dropping stories Undercurrent has published. They’re true, often unbelievable, and always fascinating. We’re offering it to you now for the special price of just $14.95.

Click here to order.

You might find some other books of interest in our Editor's Book Picks section.