May 1-10, 2007
The boat: Bilikiki, out of Honiara, Solomon Islands.
This was our 2nd attempt to dive in Solomon Islands.
1st attempt was in 2000 when the coup stopped the International airline
to fly in. This time we almost missed a connection in Los Angeles. I
had originally 3 hours lay over, but the delay of the flight and
inefficiency of luggage handler diminished our connection time. Without
Air Pacific's personel's help we would have never made the
connection. Now my reccommending connection time in LA is 5 hours! We
flew to Solomons through Nadi, Fiji.
Bilikiki is probably the best kept and run dive boat
we have ever been. Their photo room had enough stations with both
110&240V for charging batteries. No restriction on diving, Nitrox
available, their dive boats were there to pick you up every single
time, and they even wash and dry our dive gear at the end of trip. We
felt that we are in good hands and very safe.
The only complaint I had was food. I do not need
groumet foods, but I like to have lots of protein, which they were in
short. Popcorns are not my idea of snacks between dives on the
liveaboard, and I like to have meat for breakfast. Fruits were plenty
and lunch and dinner were mostly good, and appetizer included ahi
sashimi.
Focus of the trip: Diving in Solomon
Dive Sites: Florida (Velvia Reef), Russell (White Beach), Mary
(Barracuda Point) and Guadalcanal (Boneghi #1) Islands.
Water Temperature: 85 F
(29 C)
Diving in Solomon is diverse. They have
lots of nudibranch, anemone fish, lionfish, barracudas, crianoids,
shrimps, crabs, and soft corals. We dove muck, wreck, cave, and reefs.
Night dives at Velvia was as good as night dive could be. My dive was
60 min and my video was 25 min. Creatures showed up one after another.
My favorite dive site was Barracuda Point. Healthy reef with whitetip
shark, schools of barracuda, jacks, and pyramid butterflyfish, small
stuff, Napoleon wrass, titan and clown trigger fish, giant clams,
and octopus. We stayed and dove there whole day and never got bored. My
average dive time was 70 min, and the longest was 100 min at White
Beach. As the Manager Michelle said "It is far and expensive to dive in
Solomons, but it's really worth the effort."
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Back from left Norm
Descoteaux, Jan Shaw, Ben, Kyoko and Richard Moore, and Managers,
Michelle and Monty in front. |