October 13-23, 2018
For this trip we had the pleasure to welcome Mark and Darlene Meyers along with all their amazing friends back onboard the Bilikiki. Not only was it a great trip but we also celebrated Mark & Darlene's wedding anniversary and Mark's 70th!
We started our trip in the Russell Islands and everyone enjoyed the island of Mane with its beautiful coral reefs and its afternoon canoe markets. We continued to Mary Island, where we dove with big schools of barracudas and jacks, amazing tropical fish and lots of reef sharks. Additionally to all of this, we could check on Megatron, our favourite mutant anemone fish! He is doing great, playing with all the other neighbouring anemone fish!
Up in Marovo Lagoon we were very lucky with the weather and could enjoy diving at all our favourite spots. We saw: big schools of barracudas, spadefish, big eye jacks, midnight snappers, cuttlefish, turtles and sharks, which were very curious and stayed around us even in the shallow areas. The light was perfect for Mbulo Caves and we were delighted with the coral gardens at Mbulo Canyons. The resident cuttlefish were laying eggs and we also saw turtles, blacktip reef sharks, longnose filefish, orang-utan crabs and, in the night, flashlight fish.
It is not just about the diving with Bilikiki and while up in Marovo Lagoon we got to visit some villages to see carvings and meet some of the locals! And back in the Russells, we visited the village of Karumolun for some traditional dancing and singing. Fun was had by all!
The great diving continued in the Russell and Florida Islands where we had great encounters with a few eagle rays, bumphead parrotfish, mobula rays and more sharks. The critters on the trip were great too and we spotted a host of things including mantis shrimps, octopus, juvenile spadefish, several pygmy seahorses, ornate and robust ghost pipefish, electric disco clams, ribbon eels, flounders, demon stingers, signal gobies, flatworms, porcelain crabs, razor fish, hairy squat lobsters and even a couple of sea horses!
We could not have ended our trip in a better way than with more than 7 manta rays feeding at Devil's Highway and then watching whales and dolphins under a beautiful afternoon rainbow on our way back to Guadalcanal.
Thank you very much to all of our guests for making this trip an unforgettable one. It was amazing to share these diving days with you and help celebrate your anniversary and Birthday!! We hope we will see you again soon but until then, happy bubbles!
As always, we would like to thank our incredible crew for all their hard work! You guys rock!
Pato and Fernando
Underwater photos thanks to Ann Donahue
