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“I
have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it
once,” Thomas Wolfe said in You Can’t Go Home
Again. While I haven’t seen the Solomon Islands
a thousand times, I have been there three times in
the past three decades, last in 1999, and what I saw
when I visited a few months ago was indeed special.
In a world where we so often see diminishing marine life
and degradation of our coral reefs, I can honestly say the
Solomons looked better on this trip than I had ever seen
them. The visibility was better, there was more marine life,
and the coral reefs seemed remarkably more pristine and
expansive. It truly felt like we were not on a liveaboard dive
boat for those 10 days but a time machine that whisked us
away to an era when life was simpler, the seas were healthier
and the scuba lifestyle was filled with discovery and wonder.
Each day as new dive opportunities were revealed, I
wondered how that could be. There were no new marine
preserves with watchful rangers to ensure enhanced
protection. And these islands and their surrounding seas
couldn’t be magically insulated from ocean acidification
and other global woes. All I could assume was that in the
quarter-century the Bilikiki has been operating in these
waters they had refined their itinerary to include the best
sites in the range available to them. It probably helps that
most of the divers who make it to such an out-of-the-
way destination are experienced and recognize the need
for proper buoyancy around fragile coral gardens; should
an accidental transgression occur, the waters retain their
restorative powers to replenish the reef.
Because the Solomon Islands are so far-flung and dispersed,
only one liveaboard and a handful of land-based dive operations
exist throughout its 922 islands that stretch across almost 1,100
miles of ocean. That limits the diver pressure. Perhaps most
significantly, these islands are lightly populated (away from
S o l o m o n s
T e x t a n d
P h o t o s b y
S t e p h e n
F r i n k
From top: Local villagers
bring produce to the Bilikiki
throughout the cruise.
Pristine hard corals are a
particular delight. The sabre
squirrelfish is typically
very tolerant of a diver’s
approach. A school of
dolphin playing in the bow
wake makes for a very
scenic surface interval.
Opposite: Crimson seafans
abound throughout the
Solomon Islands.
