Looking for advice on diving Solomon Islands

[chaosparadigm]

Not a tech diver.

400+ dives.

Is there a best time of the year to go? Looking to dive end of June or start of July. Is that a good idea? Is there a time of a year for better chance of whaleshark or whales?

Hoping to do liveaboard but open to being convinced of shore diving. Is one superior to another? Any preferred operators?

Water temp appears to be 28-30 / 80-85 year round. Is that right?

What are normal current conditions?

I definitely want to do a wreck dive or two because of all the WWII history but I don’t want this trip to become a wreck diving excursion only if that makes sense. Is this viable or fantasy?

Will 18 dives be enough to “experience “ the area or will this feel inadequate ?

Anything else I forgot to ask about?

 

[blatter]

If you want a liveaboard Bilikiki is amazing. Have done 6 trips with them. Have not dived with whale sharks or whales in the Solomons. There are currents but many dives without or without anything significant. Some divers use reef hooks on a couple of the dives but I never have. There are exceptions,. but most dives, if the curent is too strong you can just go the other way. Have only done the longer trips and the normal trip has a few WW2 wrecks (which are great even though I am not that much into wrecks - the Hirakawa Maru/Bonegi 1 wreck near Honiara is about the best wreck dive I have done because of the marine life - although it may also be possible to do as a shore dive from Honiara). Most of the Bilikiki trips I have done have been in late December although have also been in November and one in July. Diving/weather conditions were good on all trips althought the visability was perhaps a bit better in December/November and the water was a little bit warmer as well. Visability may have just been a quirk of the trip, but 30 m + viz was still the norm, and Bilikiki changes its trip according to weather and local conditions.

Is 18 dives enough? A liveaboard is good for doing lots of dives in a short period of time with reduced effort and a variety of dive sites. The last 2 Bilikiki trips I did 63 dives in 13 days (from Guardacanal to the Florida Islands and across to Morovo Lagoon) and would have liked to stay for longer. The walls and reefs are fantastic. Have booked another trip on Bilikiki for later this year.

 

[Macfod]

Have not done Bikini liveaboard as you have to book well in advance…its a top drawer livaboard thou.
Been to Uepi Island twice and that was good.
The area is not known thou for whale sharks

 

[MB NZ]

SIDE were a good operation and a reasonably priced liveaboard. I wrote some posts about my trip a while back.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Never heard of whale sharks in Solomons (I have been there four times). Winter is a good time to go, not so hot. Lots of places to go to, WWII wrecks all over the place, Japanese, US, NZ (planes as well). Liveaboards are horrendously expensive, certainly for Aussies as priced in US dollars for some reason. See my website for details of some of the places I have visited and the wrecks and dives there. Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

 

[lermontov]

You will struggle to find a land based operator now since the riots so LOB is the only realistic option there are lots of dives in the 40-50 m range theres 3 dives close to the mainland area B1 B2 and a submarine up the coast a bit
Theres a few planes to see, landing craft and a good muck dive over tulagi side and diving is pretty straight forward with good vis and little current temperature suitable for 3MM wet or 5mm if your doing lots

Not a whole lot of reef dives in the immediate area but the B1 is exceptional and theres a nice dive called the twin tunnels- good reef diving further out

theres a few very good warships to check out Aaron ward, Kanawha, Moa and a transport ship John Penn and others but these are tech dives

18 dives will be adequate if your wanting to see warships as they are the deeper dives -i recommend you do deco procedures or even extended range if you can -cant say Im familiar with the other areas as I tend to just do the wreck dives

if you have a passport and cash ready and can easily get time off work you can get pretty good discounts on the LOB if you take a chance

 

[lermontov]

. Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

nice write ups thats some work !

 

[CJS]

I stayed at Uepi many years ago and would love to do so again. It was an nice place to stay and the diving was awesome. They do a wreck trip as a day trip I think and there is the WW2 Airplane in shallow water off Seghi airstrip too.
There are a number of land based operators, operating.