Solomon Islands 2005

Solomon Islands 2005
By PeteS


Well I finally did it. I got onto a plane and disappeared into the South Pacific to do some deep wreck diving, on Trimix, with the breather, with the camera, and in clear water.

After many searches through Google, Magazines, etc, I found a reference on Rebreather World, to a destination in the Solomon’s. A small island adjacent to Iron Bottom Sound called Tulagi, where there was a hotel, and a dive centre that had Helium and could support rebreathers with O2 and a booster. The dive operation is called Tulagi Dive, and is run by Neil Yates.


The trip was booked through Dive, Fish, Snow in Auckland. The contact there is Steve Teixeira.

Prior to going I asked Steve “what is the diving like, what is the dive centre like, and what is the accommodation like? The answer was “Good, They’ll look after you well, and basic.” He wasn’t wrong!


The Journey

As anyone who lives in NZ will tell you, the planes in and out of Auckland Airport are not scheduled for the convenience of the customers. My flight was scheduled to leave at 07:45hrs. I needed to check in at least 3 hours before, so that’s 04:45hrs. I live in Taranaki, 400km’s away. Well, I drove through the night, got my head down for two hours in the front of the van at a motorway service area near to Pukekura, and finally got to the airport car parking in plenty of time.


Check In

“Well, what do you expect sir, you’ve got 71kg of luggage with you and Qantas’s policy on excess baggage is... drone drone drone blah blah blah. However, (smile) you are one of my highest yet on excess baggage...” Well you know how it goes, pay the buggers or don’t go.

So, NZ$30 per kg later I got a boarding card. B******s. Of course, it is all my fault for taking a Rebreather, housed digital SLR, some basic scuba gear, and CLOTHES. That would have been what pushed me over the edge, clothes.

Next time... I’ve ordered one of Phi Lees travel frames for the breather, this should reduce the breather to slightly heavy carry on. Well ok, heavy carry on. F**k ‘em, the fat b*****d in the next seat doesn’t get charged extra, so...


Update

When I got back I complained to Steve at Dive Fish Snow about the luggage charges. He said that he had arranged a “Dispensation” with Solomon Air, and that I should only have been charged $10/kilo from Auckland to Brisbane. As a result of this I am at present in “negotiations” with Qantas “customer service” (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) about a $500 refund. We’ll see. As they say in diving, never ever hold your breath!

Off to Brisbane, change aircraft, and onward to Honiara. Step out of the aircraft door and bang, its humid. I’m sweating so hard the tattoos are sliding down my arms. There’s a long queue for immigration, and there’s one man on. Working slowly. But we got there, no hassles, collected my expensive 71kg, and trollied out of the airport.


Arriving

“You must be Pete” said a man. “Yes” I said, “How did you know?”. “Ah, the 71kg in three big boxes gave it away” This was Neil “The Eyebrow” Yates who runs Dive Tulagi accompanied by Yolandi, his girl friend, and Cameron “The Shaver” Thomas, who was doing a video promo for them.

Within minutes, I was in the car, driving into downtown Honiara. It doesn’t look like the nicest town you’ll see, and it probably isn’t. Still, we soon arrived at Honiara Yatch Club, where we had a very welcome cold beer and got onto the boat for the transfer over to Tulagi. The trip over Iron Bottom Sound went smoothly enough, and all 46km of it took about 1 hour. I’m not sure if I’d like to do it in rough weather. All my bags were unloaded for me and the hotel (Vanitas Motel) was right opposite the jetty. The dive centre was adjoining the hotel. All very convenient.

The hotel appeared to be, err, basic. No other word for it. But the staff were friendly, all calling me Mr Peter, which was kind of nice. Set up the breather, had a discussion with Neil about which Trimix to use, set up the camera, and had “dinner”. I would have had a few beers as well, but the Solomons Brewery in Honiara had run out, and so I crashed.



Diving - The important bit, what I came for!

Overall Neil is well set up to support rebreathers with Helium, Oxygen, and Sofnolime and Spherasorb available. To ensure consistent fills he uses a gas booster, and has some 3 litre cylinders available for Inspirations. He also has many sets of twins, stage bottles, and bailout bottles available. During deep dives the boat deploys a trapeze that has levels at 3, 6, 9, and 12 metres. O2 is available surface supplied and air tanks are at the 12m bar.

With regard to how much lime did I use, and how much gas I used, Neil just ran an honesty system. I / They/ We just wrote down start and end fill pressures for the various Trimix and O2 fills I had, and the number of empty Sofnolime tubs got counted at the end of the trip. No grief whatsoever.

The next twelve days were good. We did a real mixture of wrecks. Japanese and American, Transports, Oilers, Destroyers, Minesweepers, Seaplanes, Fishing boats, oh yes, and a couple of reefs.
The most memorable of the wrecks were the US Navy destroyer, the Aaron Ward, and a Japanese Minesweeper, the Tama Aru (I bet I spelt that wrong!)


Aaron Ward

This is a United States destroyer sunk by Japanese action. It sits upright, virtually intact, on a sandy seabed at 55m. There is ammunition scattered across the decks, the guns all point skywards, and there are live torpedoes in the tubes. It looks great.



Tama Aru

This ship was originally a whaler for the Japanese, but at the start of WWII it was converted to a minesweeper. It was sunk by an American aircraft which was also destroyed in the attack. It sits at about 30 degrees from upright on a light coloured sandy seabed at about 75m. The superstructure looks as though it has been destroyed either by wire sweeping or depth charges. The hull is virtually intact. This wreck is VERY photogenic, and this dive site normally has very clear water.



Seaplane

It would have been good if we’d had clearer water. Lots of “photo opportunities” as they say. This is a Japanese aircraft (Seaplane) upright on the bottom. A bit silty. A pleasant 30m bimble though.


There are lots and lots and lots of other wrecks, the above are just a taster of what is there. Iron Bottom Sound got its name for a good reason.


The Hotel

Neil probably won’t thank me for this, but, the hotel is as Dive Fish Snow described it. Basic. The rooms are short of a few items like a bedside light, a carpet.... the small things that make the difference when you are alone, and a long way from home. The rooms seem to be reasonably mozzie proof, but the toilet / shower rooms seem to have their own special mozzie squadrons! And that’s not Mosquito as in De Haviland, it’s mozzie as in “Ouch, you little shit, where did I put the repellant, I must have missed a bit”. The food is not adventurous but edible, and never had me running for the toilet. However, the rooms are cleaned every day, the staff are friendly, and there are no real hassles.

Neil did tell me that there are plans afoot to move the hotel and dive shop up the road a short way by building some new accommodation etc. Time scale was said to be 6 to 9 months. But with the way Solomon systems run, and “Island time” it could be a bit longer. But I don’t doubt that genuine intent is there.


Return to Civilisation

Neil runs the hotel to mainland and Yatch club to airport transfers, so I was happy it would happen on schedule. It did. Including several beers at the Yatch Club, Dinner at a very nice Chinese, some more beers and some (several) Tequilas. We then returned to Neils place where he crashed out completely. I had a shower, put some clean clothes on, and went to the airport. Shame about the eyebrow. Still, I didn’t do it and Neil says he has a long memory for things like that. Oh dear!

Overall?

Some bloody good diving, run from a good dive centre. You do need to remember you are on an island far away from anywhere. So, there are things you need to take with you. Mozzie repellant. Sun block. Toilet roll. Spares for the breather (if you break it out there, it’ll stay broken). And $40 Solomon to pay at the airport as departure tax. Why can’t airlines just put it on the price of the ticket? And ouch $ on excess baggage.

And I’d do it all again.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, you’ll need to look at the pictures, so click here, or go back up to the top of the page and click on the link.

Cheers

PeteS


More pictures from this trip are available at Pete's website HERE

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