Uepi Island Resort Reviews & Specials - Bluewater Dive Travel

Uepi Island Resort

4.5
(1 REVIEW)

Destination: Solomon Islands

Marovo Lagoon, Uepi, Solomon Islands | Full-board + 2 dives from $236ppn

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Uepi Island Resort Quick Pitch 

Uepi is a relaxed and intimate resort perched on the edge of the longest lagoon in the world. It's situated in a tropical rainforest interspersed with walking paths and is a special place for the few who get to visit.

 

Quick Information 

  • No of Rooms: 10
  • Dive Center: On-site
  • Amenities: AC, mini-fridge, guided excursions and cultural activities (fee)
  • WiFi: Free
  • Nearest International Airport: Honiara International Airport
  • Airport shuttle: Yes
 

 

How to Get There

It is located on a private island on the edge of the Marovo Lagoon. Travel from Honiara requires a 60-minute flight via light seaplane, then a 12km boat ride through the lagoon on an outboard engine-powered canoe.  

 

Dive Overview

Amazing diversity from corals to reef fish to pelagics!

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Accommodations

Types of Rooms, Amenities and Photos

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Uepi Island Resort Room Overview

There are 10 total accommodations comprised of: six spacious, well-appointed bungalows for families or couples, two units, and two guest rooms. There are 26 beds, but 20 guests are typically considered a full house. There are three new Premium Beachfront Bungalows currently under construction. Stay tuned for more details!

 

Beachfront Bungalows 

  • Uepi Island Resort
  • Vanua 3 & Vanua 6 are perfect for a couple (with a king-size bed) or as a twin share. They have a large sitting area plus a desk area, perfect for computers, photographers, etc. As with all other accommodation, these bungalows have a fridge & tea and coffee making facilities. Easy access to a private deck area - quicker access to the hammock! Bathrooms have been completely refurbished - island style! Two of the beachfront bungalows offer family accommodation.

 

Garden Bungalows 

  • Uepi Island Resort
  • There are 2 timber bungalows set a little way back (approx 40metres) from the water’s edge in their own garden setting, but with easy access to the beach. Each vanua has a king-size bed (or twin share as required), tea and coffee making facilities, fridge, separate shower and toilet, luggage rack, and clothing storage space. There are easy chairs and a coffee table inside the bungalows. A large shaded deck area has its own outdoor furniture and hammock.

 

 Dual Units 

  • Uepi Island Resort
  • The 2 units share a common wall but are completely private in all other respects. Each unit has one open space room, a bathroom, and a separate toilet. In the large room is a sleeping area with either a king-size bed or two singles as required.
  • Along one wall is a wet area including a sink, tea & coffee making facilities, and a bench. There is also a luggage rack and a clothing storage space. Cane chairs and a small table complete these self-contained, airy units. An overhead fan is positioned to allow continuous airflow. 

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Resort Facilities

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Uepi Island Resort Uepi Island Resort

 

Uepi Island Resort Features 

  • Beachfront
  • Restaurant
  • Bar
  • Non-Smoking Rooms
  • Family Rooms
  • Free Internet
  • Airport Transportation
  • Laundry Service
  • Babysitting

 

Uepi Island Resort Food & Drinks 

All meals are based on fresh locally grown organic produce sourced from nearby villages and the freshest premium seafood. Uepi has a kitchen garden on-site, growing most of the resort's salad vegetables, and fruit. Excellent chickens and eggs are also produced locally for the resort. Meals are prepared by our talented local chefs and are a highlight of your stay. Special dietary requirements can be catered for with adequate notice, consultation, and cooperation.

Our comfortable 'leaf haus' bar adjoins the dining area and offers selected imported wines, the well-regarded local "Solbrew' beer plus limited imported beer, a variety of spirits and mixers. Green drinking coconuts are available. Cool breezes and cold drinks make this a most popular meeting place.

 

Uepi Island Resort Activities 

  • Diving
  • Snorkeling
  • Kayaking
  • Fishing
  • Jungle trails
  • Library
  • Photography
  • Coconut crab walk
 

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Schedule & Rates

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RATES & AVAILABILITY

For information regarding rates, availability, and packages drop us an email at bookings@bluewaterdivetravel.com or call us at +1-310-915-6677 and we will gladly help you plan your dream dive vacation!

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Dive Information

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Uepi Dive Sites 

  • Uepi Point - The passage meets The Slot at Uepi Point, where a near-vertical reef corner is coated profusely with corals - especially gorgonian fans and colorful spiky soft corals. At 30m a coral peninsula juts out into the deep blue, and the walls plunge into the abyss. This provides the stage for a spectacular procession of pelagics including schooling barracuda, jacks, runner, rays, and sharks. At various times and tides, the point area becomes a hunting/feeding ground. As a result, the underwater action can be very exciting. Many varied & large schools of feeding fish swarm across the reef-face of the deep point and into the shallows. The predators, giant trevally, mackerel, wahoo, rainbow runner, big-eye jacks, dogtooth & smaller tuna, sharks, barracuda, and others cruise relentlessly back & forth waiting for pre-occupied inattentive fish to become their next meal. The explosive sounds and sights of a large number of fish all taking evasive action at the same time fill the water. Families of garden eels, arrays of colorful gobies, and a diverse collection of invertebrate life inhabit the sand patches of the shallows. The coral garden stretching from Uepi Point back to Uepi pier is festooned with anemones, mantis shrimps, coral shrimps, hard and soft corals, and of course a myriad of associated reef-fish of all colors and sizes.
  • Uepi Point Drift - From Uepi Point back to the Dive Shop pier, allow yourself the courtesy ride of the incoming tide. The passage wall meets the floor at about 50m. Large gorgonians, huge amphora basket sponge, soft coral trees, and small hard corals cram the slope. You'll encounter schools of trevally, rainbow runner, barracuda, and other pelagics like mackerel, tuna, and sharks, along with an abundance of reef fish including butterfly-fish, basslets, angelfish, unicornfish, surgeons, fusiliers, wrasses, the resident scorpion ‘firefish’ and clown-trigger fish.
  • Inside Point - A sloping walled point at the Marovo Lagoon end of the passage, just in front of the resort's dining-room deck. The resident gang of whaler sharks parade past and circle this point when the incoming or outgoing current is running. The adjacent richly coral-covered walls have an endless supply of small overhangs and picture caverns to peer into. A small cove in the wall attracts very high concentrations of barracuda. Finish the dive on the reef top to spot large grouper, octopus, mollusks, tubeworms, nudibranchs, and holothurians and watch the colorful reef fish.
  • Uepi Welcome Jetty - From flashing 'scallops' in a cave directly below the pier to the base of 'Shark Bombie' in just over 30m. If time allows hunt for a pygmy seahorse, spotlight a colorful cave as you ascend to a 15m wall clustered with fans. Rated as one of the best shore dives yet, you'll see a variety of fish such as mangrove jack, greasy rock cods, and stingrays resting on the sand, whilst under continual surveillance by the resident grey whalers, white-tips & black-tip sharks. The jetty always has dense schools of smaller fish & is home to a garden of tridacna ‘giant’ clams. The wall is great for an easy entry night dive with common sightings of sponge decorator crabs, hinge-back shrimp, spindle cowries, basket stars, hawkfish, slipper lobsters ...the list goes on!
  • B O T C H (Bottom of the Channel) - This is a sensational dive directly off the Uepi dive jetty. The dive starts by entering the water at the dive jetty and descending to around 30m on the wall. Then head out into the passage and imagine being confronted with an underwater sand dune that rises about 2m off the bottom! The sand dune runs along the channel, following the current line, to the Deep Bombies at a maximum depth of around 40 m. Visibility at the bottom is often in excess of 40 m. There are many interesting creatures to be found on the sandy bottom including thousands of garden eels waving in the current, sea pens and other sand-dwelling species. The 360-degree panorama is spectacular! Often blue-spotted reef-rays and bull rays can be seen gliding over the sand and white-tips sharks ‘sleeping’ as eagle rays & sharks glide overhead. Continue on to 'Shark Bombie’ Then back to the wall and continue 
  • drifting, either to Inside Point or Uepi Jetty, direction depending on the current.
  • The Elbow - An outside corner of Uepi Island where the wall is covered with luxuriant gorgonian fans. "Hanging out" at Elbow Point gives the diver a chance to see the pelagics of the area. Grey whaler sharks, schools of trevally, and barracuda are common. Often sighted are spotted eagle rays, turtles, tuna, kingfish, and white tip reef sharks. Seasonally common are the scalloped hammerhead sharks or maybe a great hammerhead. They come with cold water, usually from June to November, but can appear anytime. Less common are manta rays & dolphins. Uncommon are sailfish, marlin, and even Orcas. After spending some time at the point the rest of the dive is spent exploring the numerous overhangs, cracks, crevices, and swim-throughs of the area. "Flashing scallops" or file shells can be seen and easily photographed and it is not unusual to find a cuttlefish along the wall. For those who want to stop and look the walls have many nudibranchs, sponges, cleaner stations manned by shrimp, diverse fish-life, and a huge array of other invertebrates.
  • Elbow Caves - Deep gutters through the reef wall, almost totally enclosed in some sections, make this dive memorable. Columns of sunlight radiate through cathedral-like caverns. A large school of diamond-fish disguises the entrance to one cavern, often with barracuda flying through for a meal. Between the gutters, the upper wall overhang forms ledges with abundant fans and dripping webs of sponges. Again, keep one eye seaward for those traveling pelagics, but be sure you don't miss the resting turtle commonly found here.
  • North Log and South Log - At times the walls are so steep they overhang the island. North Log is a series of overhang areas with sandy bottoms. The invertebrate life is prolific and the dive is most suited to people who want to spend time looking for small critters. Many goby shrimp combos, twin spot goby, coral shrimps, nudibranch, and invertebrates are common. Ghost pipefish, sea moths and exotic nudis have been found. For divers who like to just look at the wall and not go deep, this dive is very beautiful because of the topography, sea fans, hard coral, and fish life. Cuttlefish are often found and have been recorded laying eggs in this area. Pygmy seahorses colonize specific sea fans.
  • Divers Bay - Take a tour of the upper reef wall and swim through the various gutters to a lagoonal garden of hard corals. A variety of anemones and associated clownfish, damsels, and cleaning shrimps to delight the photographer. Giant tridacna clams and bullnose rays, along with small reef sharks, cod, trout, flutemouths, down to the smaller coral inhabitants like damsels and pullers, nudibranchs, flatworms, and other invertebrates. Explore the deeper lagoonal basin, a site for small manta rays. The inner reef has interesting topography with many overhangs, tunnels, and caverns to explore. 
  • The outer reef area has hard corals, snapper, surgeon and unicorn fish, huge bumphead parrotfish, and wrasses. Look for the cleaning stations. The ocean side of the outer reef drops off into endless depths and the possibility of sighting large pelagics, dolphins, and turtles exist as for all the wall areas at Uepi.
  • Point to Point - This is an advanced dive. It commences on the opposite side of the channel to Uepi Point at Charapoanna Point (see below). Divers descend quickly then navigate across the passage towards Uepi Point. During this dive schools of fish numbering in the thousands may be seen, mingling with sharks & rays. The deep bottom edge of the channel where it enters The Slot is called the “Amphitheatre”. Outstanding visibility often offers panoramic views in all directions. Divers must be experienced in currents, deep diving, maintaining a planned depth in mid-water & the use of computers. Once across the divers' safety stop at Uepi Point or drift back to the dive shop.

 

 

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Dive Center Information

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Uepi Dive Center Overview 

  • Uepi was the original Sports Diving facility in the Solomon Islands. Uepi offers the unique opportunity to dive first-class sites that are only minutes away from the dive shop; conveniently located either off the edge of the island or just a short boat trip away. Diving is based on multi-level planning, beginning at 30 meters or less and ascending slowly throughout the dive, so Dive Computers are required.
  • We teach the internationally recognized Scuba Schools International ("SSI") courses up to Dive Controller (Dive Master) level. You can now study your academic lessons before you come to Uepi Island Resort using the SSI Home Study Program or even more conveniently online. This means you can get all your dive knowledge at home in your own time before you come to Uepi Island Resort. Once at Uepi, the Instructors will teach you the practical skills and then you will be diving amongst the corals and fish.
  • Uepi Island Resort

 

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Other Information

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Practical Information 

  • Electricity: 240 volts
  • Time zone: UTC+11
  • Languages: English 

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Got Questions? Ready to Book?

Call us today at +1-310-915-6677 or email us bookings@bluewaterdivetravel.com

And let us book your dream vacation!

 

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Underwater Gallery

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Coming Soon!   

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Reviews (1)

Santa Monica, CA
United States
5
5
5
3

I didn't stay at this resort but spent some time visiting it when I was in the Solomon Islands in 2012/2013. I would very much recommend the resort and the Solomon Islands if you are wiling to go off of the beaten path. The Solomon Islands offer the best diving in the world if you are willing to rough it a little. Great Waters, fantastic sea life and wrecks everywhere you look.

Visited on 12/2012 - Submitted on 02/24/2014

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