On Sunday we completed 10 days aboard the Solomons Master Liveaboard, doing the "Best of Solomons" circuit which includes Russell Islands, the uninhabited Mborokua Island (sometimes called Mary Island), wrecks off Guadacanal, and the Florida Islands.

The ship is a typical liveaboard vessel, holding 16 passengers and about the same number of crew. The first surprise was the composition of passengers - because the Solomons is a not a famous dive destination, we expected moderately-experienced divers from nearby Australia. But of the 13 on board this trip, only 1 was from Australia! A full 8 were German speakers (6 from Germany, 2 from Switzerland), plus 2 ex-Brits (now living in the US and Canada).  Also, we were the least experienced of the group, with some on their 1200th dive! The wonderful crew was mostly locals, with a head dive guide from the UK and a couple folks from the Philippines. 

Our boat, from a fellow passenger's drone camera. 

Aside from a few minor issues*, it was a beautiful trip. The Solomons is known not for tons of huge creatures, but for healthy hard and soft corals. Very few people dive here, there are only 5 dive operations in the whole country and we never encountered other divers. Sadly we did see some coral bleaching and some reef damage from cyclones. But we also spotted some fun critters - huge schools of barracuda, a few mobula and eagle rays, one sea turtle, sting rays, several types of clown fish, mantis shrimp and an abundance of nudibranchs. 

 as captured by Andrew! His first dive trip with an underwater camera.

Some of our favorite dive sights had interesting topography and currents. The breathtaking Leru Cut is named for a narrow passage carved into the island, with sunlight filtering through thick vegetation. While we only explore the cut (a deadend) for about 10 minutes, the rest of the dive is a fun drift along a seawall in moderate current (depending on tidal conditions). A moderate current is great fun as a "drift dive" where you let it carry you along the wall, but you can still fin against it to stop and admire whatever catches your eye.

Another top site was Barracuda Point on the beautiful Mborokua island. Mborokua doesn't have human inhabitants, but we saw many gorgeous birds from our nearby mooring, including 

. And true to it's name, strong currents at Barracuda Point provided plenty of barracudas - Andrew easily saw 1000 in one school on the first dive, though the current was too strong for photographic evidence.

Devil's Highway is another famous site known for strong currents in the Florida Islands that attract Manta Rays. It was our last dive of the trip and while we did get treacherous currents, we didn't see any rays.

The Solomons are filled with wreckage from WW2.  Our first "wreck dive" was at White Beach in the Russell Islands - an old American base.  When the Americans abandoned the post, they dumped everything they didn't take into the ocean.  We saw trucks, fuel and ammunition cans, remnants of mounted machine guns, and glass coke bottles.

The area between Guadacanal and the Florida Islands is so full of wrecks it's been dubbed the "

".  Only a few of the wrecks are shallow enough to dive without special training and equipment (neither of which we have). 

We dove on two Japanese transport ships, both bombed and sunk by American bombers in the initial air offensive: the Hirokawa Maru and the Kinugawa Maru.  Both were in shallow water because the crews attempted to beach them as they were sinking to make it easier for the surviving crew to escape.  These two (along with all the other wrecks we saw) have been underwater long enough for the ocean to reclaim them.  Every inch is covered in algae or coral and small critters have claimed all of the nooks and crannies as burrows.  Schools of glass fish hide in the enclosed areas to avoid predators.

.  It was sunk by two smaller New Zealand ships detonating depth charges and then ramming it.  During battle it was abandoned in relatively good shape, but the crew didn't have time to destroy the secrets aboard.  This set off a race between Japanese bombers trying to destroy the wreck and Allied forces attempting to recover Japanese secrets.  The Americans won and recovered code books and other secret documents, helping them locate Admiral Yamamoto.

Finally we saw two sea planes, Japanese 

 transport aircraft that the allies called "Mavis".  Between the two wrecks there's almost one intact plane.  The first one we dove had its fuselage and wings severely damaged.  However, the cockpit is in excellent condition.  We saw the pilot and co-pilot seats, flight controls and the flight engineers position aft of the pilots.  The other plane's nose was destroyed by its crash but the fuselage, defensive guns, wings, and 2/4 engines were all in good condition. Unfortunately since they are down near the limits of our diving depth we could only explore them for ~20 minutes, and there was little light for good photos.

Mounted machine gun in the tail of the seaplane.

One of the four radial engines on the seaplane.

Andrew with another engine, after his camera lights ran out of battery. Vera's first underwater photo!

While the boat normally arranges a "village visit" in the Russell Islands, this week the local chief offered another opportunity - attend the local school's community fundraiser. This was a big community event where folks paddled or motorboated from the surrounding islands for food, beer and merriment. The food and drink was gone by the time we arrived in the late afternoon, but several teachers and staff took us on a tour of the facilities and we met dozens of kids.

The school, Fly Harbour, was a combination elementary and middle school serving ~300 children. Many boarded because it would take them 3-4 hours to reach the school by dugout canoe, but some were day students. The school was founded in 1958 by Anglicans, but had become nationalized in 1978 upon Solomon Island's independence. Yet the government only provided funding to feed and house one half of the school, the rest came from local donations and some limited foreign aid for their single well.  Sadly the teachers were not optimistic about their students - even the lucky few who made it to high school elsewhere ended up moving back to their home village with the same subsistence

Later in the week we visited Tulagi Island in the Florida Islands. About 2,000 people live here and you can walk the whole island in 2 hours but this was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate until WW2.  Our guides showed us where islanders were imprisoned by the British colonial authorities, where the Japanese dug roads for machine guns with "Korean laborors", and the beach where American Marines first landed - now the school yard. While we passed several government administrative buildings, a hospital, private homes and a school complex, the only structures with glass windows were the churches. Roadside stands were prevalent, but they only sold one good - betel nut.

*We gave up our doubleroom on the main deck to two ladies with bad knees, and our new room leaked whenever it rained. Vera got a head cold that kept her from diving for 2.5 days. We missed some sleep due to rough waves the first few nights.

Solomons Liveaboard