Yesterday we met Ali and Aleks, two officials from the Australian High Commission, during our tour of the Guadalcanal battlefields. These wonderful ladies were kind enough to offer to take us diving with them today. Of course we accepted!

We anchored Shooting Star off the beach and tied a stern line to our favorite post at about 8:45 in the morning. Ali and Aleks were already waiting for us. We were supposed to meet at 8:45 and they were there before 8:45. This was very confusing to us, I don't think they have quite settled into the time keeping practices of the location just yet.

We paid 50 sol a tank to rent filled tanks ($8 USD). Aleks gave us a ride to the beach where we had to pay one of the locals a fee to go through his gate to get to the beach parking. We're not sure that it is his land but we are sure that he isn't cleaning up the trash everywhere or ensuring cars aren't broken into. It is sad but you see this in many of the places around Gudalcanal. People want to get paid for nothing. Anything that takes place on someone's land (which includes most things, surprisingly even charity and works of public good) will produce someone claiming to own the land with a demand for compensation. I have heard tales of bridges built for the good of a village (replacing a bridge destroyed by a storm), then torn down by the headman when the aid organization that built the bridge would not pay him "compensation" for building a bridge on his land. Talk about shooting one's self in the big toe.

Never the less the beach, though needing a beach clean up or two, is lovely. The wrecks we were to dive on are Japanese troop transports from WWII. They were being torn to shreds by allied fire and simply tried to crash land on the beach so that as many as possible could swim ashore.

The first wreck is in 30 to 110 feet of water. It is a lovely dive and the water here is amazingly clear and warm. It was the first dive I can recall in sometime where Hideko was actually warm (she was wearing a full 3mm in 88 degree water). We saw some good size eating fish, mmm, lots of schools of little fish and the wreck was heavily encrusted with corals of all sorts. It was also an anemone paradise with lots of clown fish of various types chasing us away from their castles.

For the second dive we moved down the beach a bit. This ship is actually sticking up out of the water a good bit. You could easily enjoy snorkeling this one or scuba down to the 80 foot or so bottom. We did a second dive on the same 80s we used for the first dive. I liked this one a little more than the first dive though Hideko was the opposite. They were both similar with tons of coral, great vis and warm water. This one had a big screw shaped section to the east of the main wreck which apparently was a lion fish hotel. There were tens of them swimming slowly or napping on the wreck. We also saw a wonderful little blue spotted sting ray on the sandy bottom bellow one of the swim throughs at about 50 feet.

The seas were calm and the entry was so easy here, Hideko recons it was the easiest dive she has ever done in her life. It reminded me of Bonaire, diving out of the back of a pickup truck.

After the dives we all went back to Shogun/Casablanca for lunch. This place is a combo general snack type place with Japanese food. For instance, I had pizza and Hideko had sushi. Both acceptable, neither stellar. Not to pricey though and on the way back from the dive site to the west of town. We had a great chat with the entire dive group at lunch. It was intriguing to get the perspective on the political and social situation here from such a connected crew. We had not only Ali and Aleks but also Ray and his wife from the British High Commission and Shawn and his wife from RAMSI.

We retired to the boat after a wonderful day with our new expat friends. You really have to be glad that people like these exist. They come to places like the Solomon Islands to try to help not only their own citizens but the local people and government. They live in places like Honiara at some risk and do their best to make the planet a better place.

We made it back to the boat, and once again were happy to find everything in tact. We shared the sunset with Hank from Aurora and talked boats and fishing as the nightly squall from the Floridas made its way across the channel with the usual fireworks.