MAGGIE-MANDARINS TO KILLER WHALES- BASSLET CAVE-BARB AND DAVE-GIANT GROUPER-SPIRIT VISIT- KREG AND MARGARET- FLASHER DIVE- FLAMES- DEMENTED TRIGGER FISH, HEAD START-MELANESIAN GEO

Hello, Everyone, And a sparkling Sabbath day it is- my welcome quiet and catch up day. What an extraordinary month October has been. Our first full month of running dive charters every day, it has been full of fun, adventure, training, exploring, adjusting, scheduling- and SLEEPING. It has been along time since I've done 3 dives a day- generally spending 4 hours or more underwater. My body quickly figured out it cannot do that every day, even though the spirit is happy as a clam. Nor can my fledgling divemasters.

They are doing such an excellent job, but they get too cold.

Maggie White was our first 2 week guest, and a piece of her has stayed in our hearts. She was a wonderful first guest for my team to break in with.

An avid explorer and excellent diver, her request was to just " put me underwater". And that we did, with tried and true and several brand new.

Male Male Christmas is a new favorite- a giant sand fall decorated with small and big reefs, hard coral beds, and abounding in the unusual gobies, garden eels, wrasses, lions, etc. that populate such habitat. Toana Corners proved a surprisingly excellent big fish dive, with ever fascinating ledges to occupy our shallow time. Maggie found our first documented comet- one of the most stunningly strange fish I have yet to see. We surfaced from Golden Dawn to a much agitated Ronald ( captain) shouting " Whales, whales".

Up we came, and off we went. My first wild sighting ever of 4 Killer Whales fulfilled a 31 year dream. To see those black and white heads slice the water filled us with excitement. I was donning my fins ( to the consternation of my crew, who thought the name "Killer" applied to them), when they came to the boat, dove, and disappeared. SIGH. The afternoon dive in the lagoon ( now renamed Mandarin Bay) turned up 21 new mandarin fish. Basslet Cave- actually a giant overhang at Toana- gave us our first many-lined and redstriped basslets, numerous new gobies, flaming scallops and Broad -banded pipefish.

Barbara Lehman returned with her brother David for almost another 2 weeks.

Barb spent a month here with me last year, and started some of our gang on their SCUBA classes, so she was a welcome sight. My crew were so proud to show off their new skills in diving and divemastering. More exploring produced Hanging Gardens, a riot of color adorning a fascinating ledge sporting every possible color of soft coral, with long nosed hawkfishes, dottybacks, sharp - nosed wrasses making their shy appearances. On their last day, we were just a little disappointed to be blown out of Begho Point, a favorite big animal and " fish-fall" dive until we dropped down at Toana Corners right into the face of a GIANT GROUPER- at least 7 feet long and half again as deep, looking as though he had only to open his mouth to inhale us- tanks and all. The 2 lovely Mobula Rays that came after, and Barbara's Comet, were just a tad anti- climactic. David was intrigued by the mechanics of this place, and took a day off to go into the "bush" with Wayne to observe the marvelous Lucas Mill that produced all the timber for this place. We were sorry to see them leave.

A couple of quick maintenance days and we were greeting Kreg and Margaret Martin, who spent 2 weeks here with me in 2005. Kreg is very much into rare species, and Margaret into perfecting her budding camera skills. In 2 1/2 days we've managed to show Kreg quite a few new things, and had the favor returned. On Thurs. , he asked to do a "Flasher" dive. Flasher wrasses breed at dusk, and spend the late afternoon hours rounding up interested females and chasing competing males away- flashing brilliant colors and shapes in the process. A very plain fish suddenly flashes into an electric pallette of color-.an amazing show to behold. We decided to try the rubbly slope on the outside of our lagoon passage; it proved to be an excellent choice. 4 or 5 species of flashers courted and displayed. And we heard squeaking- and swam off shore to look up to see what I swear were beaked whales. Our glimpse of them was, unfortunately, momentary, as our attention was grabbed by a pack of very aggressive grays following them and making it abundantly clear that we were NOT welcome in their territory. As soon as we backed back into the reef, the erratic behavior subsided. It was a heart thudding dive.

Yesterday we made it to Begho, and were rewarded with just enough current to bring in the food that brings in literally walls of big fish, sharks and rays, but not enough to fight; we were able to spend most of the dive right on the point, where Margaret found a brilliant new flame angel. Heading inshore, we were attacked by a somewhat demented oceanic trigger fish, who went from one to the other of us, banging us as she got near. Thinking a female with eggs, we vacated the area- but she followed. Very strange behavior.

Spirit of Solomons stopped in, and I was invited onboard for dinner as a guest of Ann Fielding, who has run Spirit trips for many years. It was a great reunion with Ann, Bruce Carlson ( former curator of Waikiki Aquarium and now VP of the immense Georgia Aquarium), his wife Marge, and Charles Delbeek ( still with Waikiki) . Bruce gave a fascinating power- point presentation on transporting whale sharks from Taiwan to Georgia and accustoming the animals to their new home. Charles educated us on the different clams we're seeing in this area. Visits and a song with the crew ended a heart-warming evening.

I have only had time to make a couple of stops into Head Start- but the other morning was interrupted from my office work by a lot of giggles- and looked out to see a group of little ones out at the shower practising their tooth-brushing skills. Pretty cute.

And that's been my month- diving, diving, diving- indulging my passion for observing, learning, sharing to my heart's content. I am bursting with pride for my new divemasters- they are doing such a superb job for being so new at this.

An E mail from Patrick Pikacha assures that their WEB site is up- www.

melanesiangeo.org.

Check out latest issue for full color article on Solomon dive Adventures.

And we hope to share our adventures with more of you in person in the near future- have a wonderful month.