DO YOU LOVE CHASING LITTLE STUFF IN THE SHALLOWS? FINNING THROUGH CURRENT WITH 20 SHARKS AT A TIME? EXPANDING YOUR EXOTIC FISH-ID LIST? EXPLORING HISTORIC WWII WRECKS? CAPTURING AMAZING IMAGES IN PERFECT VIZ? WHAT DESTINATION OFFERS ALL OF THIS, PLUS A WELCOMING CULTURE THAT GOES BACK 5,000 YEARS OR MORE? THIS IS THE SOLOMON ISLANDS CREDIT HERE PHOTO SPORTDIVER.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2017 47 WWII 75TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS “DON’T On August 7, 1942, Allied forces com- posed mainly of U.S. Marines land- ed on Guadalcanal POKE and in the Florida Islands to try to deprive the Japanese of bases that threatened THE Allied supply and communication routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. BOMBS.” The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to Eight divers titter as we settle into our liveaboard’s support a cam- spacious interior salon, where briefings are aug- paign to destroy an important mented by maps and critter lists displayed on a Japanese base big-screen TV. In capital letters topping the map of at Rabaul on New Britain. The a Tulagi harbor site called Garbage Patch is written Japanese made this admonition. A joke, right? multiple attempts to recover It’s not. “You’re gonna get your rust fix today,” Guadalcanal, lead- says Mossy, one of the Australian divemaster/in- ing to months of structors aboard Solomon Islands Dive Expeditions’ major land and sea battles until Taka. What’s left of an old Japanese fishery wharf the Japanese gave now overlooks a graveyard of wrecks. Its dramat- up the attempt in February 1943. ic centerpiece is the bow of the USS Minneapolis, This year on which, incredibly, approached Tulagi in Novem- Aug. 7 — rec- ber 1942 with that bow dangling, blown open like ognized annu- ally as Solomon’s a tulip in the nearby Battle of Tassafaronga, scat- Veterans Day tering shells and armaments from open magazines — ships from the United States, as it limped into port. With little but palm fronds New Zealand and for air-raid camouflage, its crew and a Seabee unit Australian navies removed the damaged bow — dropping it in the har- are expected in port at Honiara, bor — and improvised repairs sufficient to sail all THE IMPRINT OF WAR lingering effects of battle also are unmistakable A PERFECT DAY the Solomons’ the way back to California, where a new bow was at- Mention the Solomon Islands to most Americans underwater. Ironbottom Sound, between Guadalca- But the imprint of war is only a small and compar- capital, on the The USS big island of tached; the Minneapolis served with distinction for Minneapolis and you’ll get blank looks. Not many could locate nal and the nearby Florida Islands (known locally as atively recent part of the story of the Solomons. Guadalcanal. the rest of the war and beyond. (above); huge this nearly 1,000-island archipelago in the south- the Nggela Islands), contains more than 50 wartime Despite that horrific intrusion and the evidence that Wreath-laying stands of pristine Submerging in the murky harbor feels like de- west Pacific region known as Melanesia. wrecks, a few of them at depths accessible to tec div- remains, the cycle of life here seems undisturbed for ceremonies are hard and soft cor- planned over the scending through time. The site includes a landing als are common- Mention Guadalcanal, and that changes. From ers. Cruising between Guadalcanal, the Floridas and ages. The underwater offerings are comparable — wrecks of war- barge and more recent wrecks of a fishing boat and place across the August 1942 to February 1943, Americans and their Savo Island, the sound seems crazy-small for how and perhaps superior — to Indonesia’s Raja Ampat, ships lying off- Solomons. shore in the infa- a tug, piled on one another. Even in the harbor’s low allies fought a bitter land-and-sea campaign here much traffic was passing through here 75 years ago with the addition of a culture thousands of years in mous Ironbottom viz, torpedoes and shells — many still live — are out- against the Japanese. My grandfather was one of — you and your enemy would have been right on top the making that seems to integrate land and sea, Sound, named for lined below, making what happened here 75 years those Americans. In a way I’ve come here looking of each other, and every islet could conceal a hostile part of the natural environment rather than mas- the plethora of warships, some ago suddenly, vividly real. for him, curious to understand how his wartime ex- plane, ship or sub. ter of it. divable, that lit- A nearby transport, lying on its side on a slope, perience shaped the man I knew, and to learn how Solomon Islanders are proud of the critical part In three back-to-back Florida Islands dives that ter its depths. A dawn service is looms from 60 feet almost to the surface, a mas- the presence of those troops affected the Solomon they played alongside Allied forces, mostly as scouts stand out as perhaps the best of my dive career, my planned at the sive metal bulwark decorated incongruously with Islands and its people. and porters. Open-air museums of salvaged arti- logbook notes grow ever more incredulous at the United States War delicate corallimorphs, like doilies on a doomsday Today, military tourism — Japanese and Allied facts are lovingly maintained by families who own beauty and abundance all around us. Memorial on a hill above Honiara. To machine. It’s hard not to think of the fear — inspired — is popular in this emerging destination where the lands that house them. Separate, somber memo- At the first, Mbeasiri Point, northwest of Sandfly learn more about and endured — created by these awesome engines wartime wreckage is hauled out of dense jungle rials to Allied and Japanese forces crown two hills Passage between Olevugha and Nggela Sule islands, planned anniver- sary events, go of war. They retain that aura still, of ferocious crea- practically every day and Quonset huts still dot overlooking Honiara and its harbor. the map at our 6:30 a.m. briefing is strangely blank to visitsolomons. tures not dead but only sleeping. the main road through the capital, Honiara. The CREDIT HERE PHOTO — an outline of a point with a 50-meter wall, a shelf com.sb 48 JULY/AUGUST 2017 | SPORTDIVER.COM SPORTDIVER.COM | JULY/AUGUST 2017 49 at about 10 meters, and an “X” in the blue for our an eagle ray. As the current drops us in a little cove at picture to be made here about every 10 feet. The cur- the wall, startling a villager Schools of big-eye drop zone. An exploratory dive! Everyone perks up. about 60 feet, here comes another ray — “Manta!” I rent gives us a perfect ride past the smorgasbord of snorkeling in the washing- trevally are a treat We do a live drop into a pretty good current and, think, but it’s too small: devil ray! It makes an artful, life that is the Solomons. We hook in here and there machine-like boil at the tip. for divers; oppo- site: a Denise’s right away, everywhere the eye falls is a beauti- swooping pass very close, clearly checking us out, just for fun, to take it all in; so many durgons, fusil- We wave, but it’s not easy pygmy seahorse ful scene: huge elephant ear sponges in soft pastel and then a little blacktip reef shark distracts us, its iers, anthias — everything that schools is busy doing to interact with shy villagers and a baby octo- greens, peach and lavender, and massive, diver- markings sharply contrasting in viz that’s easily so, in so many directions it’s dizzying. We end up on scuba. It’s fun to try to pus; the Russell Islands are known size gorgonians — lacy yet substantial — in brilliant 150-feet plus, illuminated by the morning sun. The high over a gentle slope of acropora in pristine con- follow Taka’s friendly crew for their clefts and greens and gold. There’s every kind of critter and devil ray must have been a scout — a minute later dition, a million little eyes peeking out, colorful speaking to one another in caverns. reef fish, including two or three anthias, an angel comes a squadron of eight or nine more, flying in a small bodies flashing here and there in the protec- the local pidgin dialect, which has many English and a parrot I have never seen before; on the other perfect “V” formation like geese. tive thicket. Suddenly we see an odd paddle-shaped influences. We get the chance to really appreciate The author’s end of the scale, we spy a massive bumphead parrot- The next site is called Switzer for its huge under- fish at the surface — it is a paddle, and the outline local culture with a village visit at Olevugha Island, grandfather, then- Capt. David B. fish the size of our divemaster Mike, who’s 6 feet 4 water mountains and meadows teeming with life. No of a dugout canoe, a common sight in the Solomons, in the western Floridas. As soon as we wade in from Emmons, talks inches tall. A big Maori wrasse cruises by, and then wonder photographers love these islands: There’s a where man is never far from the sea. the panga I feel the Earth tilt — before me are wom- with a group of Solomon Islanders Nearby Tanavula Point is another stunner en adorned with sisal and flowers, nut bells twined on Guadalcanal, — white cliffs above scooped out like ice cream, around their ankles, who have just stepped out of probably porters swirled with shades of gray and tan, little Seussian my grandfather’s photographs, as though no time or scouts, in this 1942 photo.