Solomon Islands Scuba Diving

While difficult to get to, the Solomons are classic jungle islands with beautiful reefs and excellent fish life.

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, 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 flat.

Featured Links Interested in having your link here?
SOLOMON DIVE ADVENTURES The only village based dive operation in the country, staffed with Solomon Island divemasters. Located at the gateway of Marovo Lagoon.	Bilikiki Cruises Ltd Bilikiki Cruises Ltd is the only full service Live aboard dive operator in Solomon Islands, operating MV Bilikiki and MV Spirit of Solomons	Reef & Rainforest, Dive & Adventure Travel A full service dive travel agency located in California. We specialize in exotic destinations (South Pacific, Indian Ocean, Africa, South & Central America).	Wakatobi Dive Resort and Pelagian Dive Yacht A multiple award-winning luxury eco resort with three staff for every guest and unlimited diving on world's most pristine reefs.	Undercurrent Online: Instant access to the latest issues and all readers reports. Click here now

Solomon Islands Feature Articles and Reader Reports

Attention! You must be an Undercurrent Online Member to access MOST links in this section. However some articles can be accessed by the public -- these links have a button you can click to see the article.

For Undercurrent Online Members and some available for Public
Dive Articles - Land Based Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Grand Turk, West Papua, 05/06 Reports From Readers: Part I; Cozumel's adult dive operators, Bonaire bummers , 8/04 Available For Public Uepi and Gizo, 8/94	Dive Articles - Liveaboards Available For Public Solomon Sea, 7/95 Spirit of Solomons, 10/94

Editor's Book Picks for 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 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. Order through us, get Amazon.com's best price and a good hunk of the profit will be donated to preserve coral reefs.

If you're headed south out of San Diego, Fishes of the Tropical Eastern Pacific
by Gerald R. Allen, D. Ross Robertson, is the fish guide you need.

With 324 photo-packed pages covering 680 species of sharks and sailfish, wrasses and razorfish, pipefish and pearlfish, this is the ultimate ID book for the Baja, Costa Rica, the Galapagos, and the Sea of Cortez. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute Drs. Gerald Allen and Ross Robertson took years to produce this definitive volume that describes and comments on the remarkable behavior of these critters. Hardbound, $85.

Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific
by Terrence M. Gosliner, David W. Behrens, Gary C. Williams.

At last -- a just-published, complete guide to help you identify the uncountable variety of weird critters you'll see on any Indo-Pacific dive, complete with full-color photo of 1,100 species. About Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific, Chris Newbert says, "This invaluable new book makes identification easy and enjoyable." There are scores of flatworms, nudibranchs galore, bumblebee shrimp, painted crayfish, pompom crabs, side-gilled sea slugs, and endless corals. Marine biologists Terry Gosliner, David Behrens, and Gary Williams cover the reefs from the Solomons to Sipadan, from the Maldives to Maui, from Palau to Papua New Guinea. They provide good notes to help you find and identify each critter. Indispensable for any Indo-Pacific trip. Paperback, 8x110, 314 pages, $45.00.

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.

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