Solomon Islands Liveaboard
The Solomon Islands is a sovereign country which consists of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands. It is located to the east of Papua New Guinea and to the northwest of Vanuatu. The country’s capital city is Honiara, and this is also the International Airport where you would fly into if you will be travelling to the Solomon Islands. The islands have been inhabited for thousands of years by the native people. It was first visited by Europeans in 1568. The Solomon Islands saw a lot of fighting between the United States and the Japanese between the years of 1942 and 1945. The Solomon Islands because of this are home to some great wrecks including both planes as well as ships. The official language of the Solomon Islands is English.
Why Dive The Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands are certainly not a heavily visited area for scuba divers and are far enough off of the beaten track that for the most part only serious divers make the trip here. The lower traffic that the reefs and the dive sites see in the Solomon Islands have the reefs and dive sites in much better condition than you might experience in other dive locations around the world.
There are excellent walls, reefs, pinnacles, and coral gardens in the Solomon Islands which support an incredible amount of marine life. There are a large number of sea creatures which are very unique in the Solomon Islands which makes it a photographers dream destination. You can see anenmoe fish, angel fish, butterfly fish, humphead parrot fish as well as huge variety of other reef fish on the same dive as you can see schools of barracuda, big eyed trevally and other pelagics traveling in the blue!
The Solomon Islands really are an impressive place for divers. The nutrient rich waters support entire food chains from microscopic creatures to huge predators. You’ll have an opportunity to see a variety of sharks, mantas, dolphins, turtles, and massive schools of barracuda. Oh shallow dives you’ll see almost every tropical fish imaginable, and some that will stretch your imagination. There are cuttlefish, octopus, schooling lionfish, a wide variety of anemone fish, not to mention the countless colors and varieties of both anemone and hard and soft corals. The underwater landscape will vary from walls to reefs, to passages to “bommies”. You’ll visit caverns with shafts of sunlight illuminating the interior. You’ll swim 200 feet into a split in an island, and when you surface you’ll be under a jungle canopy listening to the parrots and cockatoos. You’ll enter a tunnel on a pinnacle and exit minutes later in the deep blue ocean. In the shallows around almost every island you’ll find channels, cracks and fissures stocked with an unbelievable variety of shells, fish, plants and corals that you could explore for hours.
“Muck diving” is also very popular in the Solomon Islands for keen underwater photographers who have an eye for manta shrimp, ghost pipefish, as well as pygmy seahorses are some of the critters you could see while diving in the Solomon Islands.
When To Visit The Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands are located just a few degrees from the equator and are very tropical year round. There is no distinct rainy or dry season in the Solomon Islands, with between 8 and 12 inches of rain occurring each month around the year. The rain usually comes and goes fairly quickly. Humidity in the Solomon Islands can be very high inland, with it much lower on the coasts and of course on the ship. The Solomon The Bilikiki Liveaboard operates from mid-March until early January each year, using the period from early January to early March as a time for boat maintenance as well as crews vacations.
Diving Conditions In The Solomon Islands
Water and air temperatures in the Solomon Islands are quite constant year round. They vary by only 2-3 degrees. The water temperatures will be between 82 and 85 degrees. Most divers will be happy in a 2mm full suit or in a 3mm shorty. The average visibility in the Solomon Islands is around 50 feet. Sometimes the visibility can stretch to around 90 feet making for excellent diving. Most dives are done between 20 and 80 feet in the Solomon Islands, with most guests using Nitrox for their dives to allow for up to 5 dives per day.
Price Of Diving In Solomon Islands
This trip is generally done in either 7 or 10 day itineraries on the Bilikiki you can expect to pay around $5500 for a 10 day excursion once all of the taxes are factored in.
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