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

various places in the Caribbean

Dive Conditions

depth limits  

No camera rinse facilities at Gizo. Limited at Uepi. Boat crews helpful
with camera gear.  

Overall Rating

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.)
 

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