Gizo Diving

 While at Gizo, I dove 3 days with divegizo.com for a total of 6 dives.  These include Grand Central Station, the Toa Maru #2 Wreck, Secret Spot, Hellcat, Gap, Manta and One Tree.

Thanks to John Penfold who took these great pictures.  John is also a sailmaker in Sydney, so if you are ever in the market for a new sail or repairs, check him out at JP Sails.  

Here I am-

Grand Central Station is where oceanic currents merge with Gizo Islands, so there are lots of fish because there is big current. The coral was  beautiful and there were thousands of fish.  This site has the second highest fish count in the world.  There are over 270 different species that you can see in just one dive!

The Gap is a drift dive.  We went into Gizo lagoon and saw barracuda, reef sharks and tons of schools of fish.  There were huge sea fans

and gorgonians.  I saw a barracuda, a green pipe fish about a meter long, an ugly, ugly crocodile fish,

a Spanish dancer, and a black tipped shark.  At One Tree Island I saw hard and soft corals, huge sea fans, a school of baraccuda about a meter long each!, 2 one meter long grey reef sharks, and a huge parrot fish!

At Secret Spot, I saw a small Manta Ray, an Eagle ray, about a 10 inch pipe fish, and an open green anemone with clown fish enjoying its interior.  This is also where my regulator, stage 1 hose broke at about 10 meters! All of a sudden I heard a loud bubbling noise and could see bubbles behind me. I took a normal breath, then could only get a half breath, then nothing. Luckily I was right beside the dive master and he gave me his secondary mouth piece! We were at the end of our dive, so just waited until I calmed down a bit!!! then we ascended to do our 3 minute stop at 5 meters! The couple I was diving with have over 200 dives each and nothing like that has ever happened to them! It was just a freak thing! I was pretty nervous afterwards, but went in again to see the Hellcat.

It is off the Island of Quomu and very cool because it is in only 10 meters of water and completely intact! It was only discovered in 1986. Unfortunately pilot Richard Moore passed away before that in 1978.

Apparently, the Hellcat left Munda Airfield as an escorting fighter. A Corsair F4U ( also an American plane) shot Moore's plane in the engine, high on the port side. It started smoking and leaking oil so Moore decided to return to Munda. Soon, the engine cut out and landed safely in shallow water, about 100 feet from a reef. Right away, two native canoes showed up and took Moore and his wingman to safety.
The ammunition magazine covers are open. Because the engine cover is missing, you can see the oil tank. There are 2 bullet holes - one behind the cockpit and the other in the tail. (Thanks to the divegizo.com for this information).

The Toa Maru #2 Wreck is one of the most popular diveable WWII shipwrecks in the South Pacific.  It is 450 feet long and lying on its starboard side.

The Americans attacked it so it ran aground.  You can see saki bottles,

a telephone and medical supplies.

and diinner plates-

There are a lot of corals growing on the top and you can see the hole that caused the demise of the ship!

At Manta, I saw a turtle and numerous blue starfish, an Eagle Manta, hard dark green coral and I found a writing slate.    The current was pretty strong here and I flew into the wall a couple of times.  I hate doing that because you cause damage to the coral.

Lunch all three days was on deserted islands.  Today we had barbecued snapper, grouper and Trevally-

Our dive master and boat driver built a fire out of wood and coconut shells-

Then they wrapped the fish up, put it in the fire and covered it with leaves-

It was delicious!

There are lots of islands along the way.  Some seem deserted and others have wood and grass huts-

These hermit crabs are pretty cool.  Here are 4 dragging shells-

What a great time this has been!

Diving, Gizo, Solomon Islands

A typical dive boat in Gizo-

When bread fruit is really ripe, it's soft and turns yellow. You peel off the skin and eat it. If I were to eat this one now, I would peel it, slice it and bake it or fry it in a pan because it's not quite ripe.  It tastes and looks like dough-

Dives 1 and 2 were sort of disappointing! In 2007, a tsunami went through wiping out most of the coral. It's slowly making a comeback. We did see a very large school of 3 to 4 foot barracuda and a huge parrot fish - you know them because they have a hump that looks like a parrot's beak on their head. We also saw numerous schools of fish, a turtle, an eagle ray, a couple sting rays and a new coral for me - it looks dark green but that means its red (the light changes the colour). It was very nice. I think I've been spoiled with Sail Rock, Thailand and Bali! I hate to complain - I'm diving, not shovelling snow!

Lunch was on a secluded island-

 prepared for us by the dive masters while we enjoyed the beach and bathtub temperature water-

We had a bbq of dolphin fish -mahi mahi, that they cooked on this grate, squash wedges (but they call it pumpkin), rice and fruit- watermelon, cucumber and pineapple, all served on a kerosene leaf-

Tonight is New Year's Eve. Lots of people are heading to Kennedy Island for drinking, a bbq and a bonfire. I'm spending the evening updating my blog and listening to a local band-

who are playing a lot of songs I don't know!  Happy New Year everyone!  I hope 2015 is a healthy and fun year!

Gizo, Solomon Islands

This morning was a big fly day from Cairns, to Brisbane, to Honiara, to Gizo.

From the capital, Honiara, I came on this plane-

The Nusatupe Airport is pretty laid back!

I'm glad the pilot knew what he was doing because the plane did not have pontoons!

Upon arriving in Gizo-

I was greeted with a lei and a coconut filled with coconut water. It was very refreshing considering it felt like 1000 degrees with 100% humidity. I was dripping!

I came here to dive, so now have that sorted using the services of Dive Gizo-

Gizo is a pretty laid back, poor appearing place. This is main street-

and a typical shop-

The P.T. 109 restaurant is supposed to be the best in town! It's not much to look at!

I had a delicious salad with vegetables and grilled fish for $7.60 Canadian at The Waterfront. This was the view from my table-

The market is a typical market, however, the prices are displayed. I like that because usually prices are instantly inflated when they know you're a tourist-

These hand woven baskets are pretty cool and cheap!

They are still using betel! I thought I'd gotten away from that! The lime like fruit contains the betel nut and the bean like plant is cut into chunks and also chewed. Red spit is everywhere!

Looking forward to 4 days of diving!

Cairns, Australia

I am in Cairns to do a 4 day, 3 night live-aboard with Deep Sea Divers. We boarded Sea Quest, a transfer boat, in the Cairns harbour-

and after 90 minutes we were diving at Plato.

My second and third dives were in the Norman Reef at Turtle Bay and Sandra's.

I also did a night dive at Sandra's. I had a high powered torch and saw lots of eyes, sharks and Giant Trevally. The G.Ts are fun because you can watch them eat other fish If you shine your light on smaller fish, they can see them and 'chomp'!

I didn't really enjoy the night dive so I'm not doing anymore for the time being.

Today I did 5 dives! Diving was a pretty cool way to spend Christmas!

Instead of turkey for supper, we had fish and prawns!

Day 2 on the Great Barrier Reef found us still at Sandra's in the Norman Reef.

The dive schedule started early with a 6:00 orientation, then a 6:30-7:30 dive. Breakfast was from 8:00-9:00, then Dive 2 from 9:00-10:00, Dive 3 from 11:00-12:00, lunch at 12:30 and then we finally get a break! You would think we were at work or something! Sea Quest arrives with transfers so Dive 4 isn't until 2:30-3:30. Dive 5, the night dive, is after supper from 7:30 - 8:30.

After the first dive, the rest of the day was at Saxon's Reef diving Coral Gardens.

Lots of divers have GoPros so it is thanks to them for these pictures. They really don't do justice to what we see. It's a million times more beautiful! Today I did 4 dives!

Day 3 started out back at Norman's Reef, but this time diving Nora. Dive 2 and 3 were also at Norman's but this time at Caves. I felt very dizzy this afternoon so that's all the diviing I did today. I think it was because after Dive 1, when we surfaced, we were a long, long way from the boat, so the swim took a lot out of me.

Day 4 we moved again, still at Norman's Reef but diving Playground and Troppos. For my second dive, I went in a dinghy, hoping to find a strong current for a drift dive, but unfortunately once we descended, there was little to no current so it was just a 'normal' dive!

This is a typical dive site map.  We always had a briefing before a dive and for $15 we could go with a guide.  I just tagged along with an experienced diver who had a way better sense of direction under water than me!

The equipment  was well organized and maintained-

Thanks to Shelley Canham for the following pictures.  I actually saw ALL of this!  Too cool!

Sharks-

A purple anemone, where Nemo hangs out-

Turtles!

These sea sponges lay everywhere-

A stingray-

When you wave your hand over this, these things disappear into the coral-

A clam that also closes when agitated-

Soft coral-

An eel-

I enjoyed my experience on the live-aboard. It's a really good chance to do lots of diving and the crew was excellent. One thing I might do if I came back was to be a 'hostie'. They work on the boat and get 2 dives/day for free! That might be something to do for a few days!