How quickly time can fly! 11 days ago (March 22 - April 2, 2024) we were joined by an enthusiastic crowd of 19 divers and one snorkeler from Y-kiki Divers, out of St. Louis, USA. What followed was a series of spectacular dives with flat calm seas and stunning visibility. Some of the group had just returned from Antarctica, where they were able to even dive the Drake Passage due to great weather - an incredibly rare experience! So thank you for bringing this lucky streak of beautiful weather with you to the Solomons! Sunny days in amazing locations yielded incredible dives, and the underwater inhabitants played along.
Highlights included multiple shark sightings, including a silvertip, mobula rays, eagle rays, and a beautiful feather tail ray lazily snoozing on the reef. For some their highlight was the enormous school of grazing bumphead parrotfish, easily numbering 25 to 30 individuals. We all loved the big schools of jacks, fusiliers and rainbow runners almost "raining" down on us on multiple occasions.
The smaller critters were abundant and amazed our guests too. We saw mushroom coral shrimp, peacock mantis shrimp and also Lysmata shrimp, which gave us a thorough manicure while diving on the wrecks. Some even saw a shy black ribbon eel (well spotted by Crysty!), as well as stunning nudibranchs, spearing mantis shrimp, cuttlefish, squid, flashlight fish and plenty of other critters. What sights to see!
Our guests equally enjoyed getting in touch with some of the local islanders during our visits to the wood carvers in Marovo Lagoon, where many purchases were made as reminders of an exceptional trip. Back in the Russells, we were entertained by the cultural performance of singing and dancing in Karumolun village - always a pleasure to watch! We finished our trip with a day in history, diving the Japanese wrecks off Guadalcanal.
A huge thank you goes out to Valerie Elliot and her group of Y-KiKi divers for all being so much fun and appreciative of everything we saw beneath the waves, even while snorkeling! We hope to see you all again soon for another adventure!
And last, but not least, our heartfelt thanks go out to our hard working Bilikiki crew - you are simply amazing!!!
Happy Bubbles
Tina & Oli
