November 23, 2025
The Days in Uepi begin with amazing Manta experience. Uepi has been blessed with a Manta cleaning station, a few short minutes ride off their entry reef. Each morning, around 7 am, the Mantas hang in this shallow area and have cleaning fish latch on and remove particles from their skin and we get a front row viewing of these majestic creatures! This video was filmed by the Kelly's showing 5 Mantas.
We have been planning this getaway for several months and so worth the wait! AMAZING PLACE! Best Resort I have been to so far, on this journey. Uepi is a private island in the Solomon's that is owned and operated by the Kelly Family. It is a first class dive and snorkel destination. The finest the Solomon's has to offer. Uepi contributes the largest tourist dollars, by far in all of the Solomon's and they have been doing it for over 30 years! Three generations of Kelly's live on the Island.
Another great day exploring the South Pacific ! Today as soon as our ship docked in Honiara , and we were cleared by customs, I was off with 9 other residents, to get in 2 small speed boats and head out to Simon's Nature Reserve in the Solomon Islands . It was about an hour long ride across the Iron Bottom Sound but so worth it to experience this special place!
Fun fact - Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the World! It is estimated that there are at least 826 Papuan languages. Some are spoken by just a handful of people, while others by 100,000. (Thanks - Basia & Wikipedia for sharing this information).