Solomon Islands

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Lots of ordinance undersea and in the jungle. I found live 45 rounds just walking around Tulagi and Guadalcanal and underwater everything imaginable. The battlefield is pretty crazy. Walk as much of it as you can.
 
I just read a great book titled Guadalcanal by Richard Frank...that region became the focus of the War in the Pacific and had epic battles on land and sea. Coast watchers, Banzai charges, battleships, US Marines....Cactus Airforce...PT boats.....The history is incredible.

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Better book was Neptune's Inferno by James Hornfischer, about the epic Guadalcanal Naval Battles (for every Marine or Soldier who died in battle, three Sailors were killed-in-action at sea). Robert Ballard's Ghost Ships of Guadalcanal is good read too. Best movie of the WWII battlefield is Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, with a fantastic musical score by Hans Zimmer and soundtrack featuring several Melanesian Choir chants & hymns (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j924qaMb0d8)

Solomons is on the bucket list for the incredible bio-diverse marine life (see Coral Triangle), Melanesian culture, and the WWII history of the battlefield & of very deep & famnous wrecks like the Destroyer USS Aaron Ward (70m) and Light Cruiser USS Atlanta (120m).
 
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I read Neptune's Inferno too...one of my all time favorites. Very elegantly written and moving.


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Be careful taking ordnance up from underwater. Some may be tracer rounds which contain chemicals that can ignite after submersion in saltwater and then brought into atmosphere. There were several accidents like that in Guam which resulted in pretty bad injuries. That being said, have fun and enjoy your trip. The history there is amazing. Sadly most of the major warships sank in water to deep to dive but there are a few still within reach.
 
The diving is fantastic and the war remnants are there in abundance. Bilikiki isn't a luxury boat but everything works, the crew is very good and I loved the fact that locals would bring canoes out with fresh veggies for the boat to buy to replenish supplies. It is an experience of a different way of life as well as a diving trip.
 
Does anybody have an opinion on the Solomon Star? It's supposed to be a new live-a-board. I have seen some advertising with attractive prices.
Thanks
 
I've seen them advertised too. I already had a Bilikiki booking but was curious. The Bilikiki has been cruising the waters for a over 25 years and even had to shelve a 2nd boat when the recession hit. I wish the Star good luck but considering the cost of just getting to the Solomon's I would not risk a new LOB for my dive trip.

As for our trip we leave for Uepi around 8am, no hanging around Honiara after our cruise. We do have some time while we wait to get back to Brisbane.


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Does anybody have an opinion on the Solomon Star? It's supposed to be a new live-a-board. I have seen some advertising with attractive prices.
Thanks
I'll be on the Solomon Star later this year. If you can wait that long I'll post a bit of a trip report.
 
The Bilikiki was very basic. There are slats on the cabin doors so no privacy at all. Request one of the cabins at the very end by the engine room, they're much bigger although a strange pointed shape with a tilted floor. The diving was fantastic and they let you go off by yourself and for as long as you like -- no babysitting! The food was amazing, they even made us a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving (they had to order it months in advance), and we had mud crab on the last night.
One bad thing: no camera room. Everyone used the tables in the salon. There were coffee cups, cookie crumbs and lots of dust with big fans blowing it all around. Think about greasing your orings in that environment. My camera flooded for the first time in my life (luckily on the last day, but still). They told me it happens ALL the time. Use your cabin to do anything.
I would go on again in a second but getting there cost nearly as much as the cruise between airfare, overnights in Australia and Honiara (which is insanely expensive for pretty crap hotels).
 
Will do some onland WWII sight-seeing while offgassing in Honiara until our 3pm flight to Uepi.

Supposedly there is still ordnance on the seabed that you can see on dives. My son is going to go nuts!

This is going back a bit, like 20 years but I did some great dives around Gizo, there's a Japanese merchant ship that went down there you can dive on, plenty of ordinance lying around but pls dont souvenir it! A lot of the wrecks there are actually war graves, something to bear in mind. Worth having a look at Munda as well, some great dives there. See if you can track down Fred Douglas in Honiaria he has a fast boat he may take you out on - he's a local and has done a lot of dives around the Floridas. All the best
 

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