Dive Review of Dive Gizo/Uepi Island in
Solomon Islands/Gizo & Uepi

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Dive Gizo/Uepi Island, Aug, 2006, by Dee, AL, US ( 2 reports). Report 2980.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity	N/A
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$	N/A
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	Gizo & Uepi, August 2006 Where to dive when business takes you to Brisbane? The Solomons! Great air connections, DFW/LAX/BNE. We spent a day in Brisbane, then took Solomon Air to Honiera & on to Gizo. The flights offer fantastic views of islands, reefs & sea. The Solomons exist in a different time & we benefited from reading Ples Blong Iumii, local history written by Solomon Islanders. (Guadacanal was in the Honiera area. Kennedy Island, where JFK & PT109 crew survived, is a surface interval near Gizo.) Allen & Rueben, Dive Gizo divemasters, met us at the Gizo airport and carried our bags to the boat for the short trip to town. The Gizo Hotel remains clean and simple, lovely courtyard around the pool, A/C & fridge, no TV. We had a great view across the main street (sand) to the water. The restaurant is good. Take your own coffee press if you don’t want instant. No bugs or mosquitoes, just a few gnats at the bath sink & they were gone with a puff of Off. Danny and Kerrie at Dive Gizo are wonderful hosts! They’ve been there for 18 years and will do all they can to accommodate you. We scheduled 3 dives a day for 5 days. All surface intervals are on out-islands with beautiful beaches. Lunch & snacks provided. Our dives had little current and more fish than one could imagine. We did Grand Central Station twice. Jenny at Reef & Rainforest, who arranged our trip, noted Grand Central is one of the best dives she’s ever done, and she was right on the money. We sat at 90 meters at the edge of the wall & watched schools and schools of fish. The school of barracuda covered 150 degrees of our 360 degree view, at least 8 fish deep throughout. The rest of the panorama was schools of fusiliers, trevally, batfish and others. The Tao Maru is great even if you’re not into wrecks, home to a wide variety of fish, critters & corals with many relics of the boat cargo, including a 2-person Japanese tank. Almost every dive profile started with 30 meters and finished at 10 meters or less, allowing plenty of time to off-gas. We were free to explore the shallows until air at 500 psi, so every dive was over an hour. The dive sites are 10 to 30 minutes away, and the scenery is enchanting. We did several dives near Naru Island & the coral was spectacular. Danny knows when to schedule dives so the current is slack. He’s led efforts to set aside marine preserve areas so sites are pristine. There’s an old liveaboard sunk just off Danny’s jetty that’s well worth the shore dive. Water is murky, but there’s a friendly school of batfish, at least 3 lionfish, many pipefish, anemone & clownfish, plenty to see on an easy dive. We went on to Uepi for another perspective. The resort is on it’s own island, which Grant & Jill Kelly have developed over the past 20 years. It’s off the grid—they generate their own power, all water is rainwater. The grounds are beautiful with lots of orchids and hibiscus. Our private bungalow with covered patio was right on the beach. Lunch was brought to the bungalow, so mid-day surface interval was most relaxing. The island sits with the Coral Sea to the north and the Morova Lagoon on the other sides, a 30 minute boat ride from the airport. The channel just off the jetties is a great wall that’s your house dive or snorkel. The sharks are friendly and provide great photo ops. Billy Ghizo was a particularly pleasant dive—wall off an adjacent island with lots to see at all depths, including a pygmy seahorse, baby batfish, nudi’s, sea slugs, lionfish and the biggest eel I’ve ever seen hiding in the rocks. There are plenty of dive sites, including wrecks, within a 30 minute boat ride. Again sites are pristine. There may be some local fishing, but no one else is diving the area, just the 20 guests at Uepi. We didn’t encounter any other Americans on this trip, and we truly enjoyed meeting Australian divers & hearing about where they dive. We’ve heard the Solomons get only about 1500 tourists a year, so you are well off the beaten path. (As with any remote destination, it’s thoughtful to email ahead & see if there’s anything you can bring for your hosts.)
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	101-250 dives
Where else diving	various places in the Caribbean
Closest Airport		Getting There
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, noCurrents
Water Temp	84-86°F / 29-30°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	50-80 Ft/ 15-24 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	yes
Enforced diving restrictions	depth limits
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	N/A
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	No camera rinse facilities at Gizo. Limited at Uepi. Boat crews helpful with camera gear.

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Dive Review of Dive Gizo/Uepi Island in Solomon Islands/Gizo & Uepi

Dive Gizo/Uepi Island, Aug, 2006,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Dive Gizo/Uepi Island in
Solomon Islands/Gizo & Uepi