DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2026

The Solomon Islands The Solomon Islands is another Mecca for wreck divers. There are so many WW2 wrecks of both ships and war planes. It is a real go to destination if you want to build up a great portfolio of war plane wreck photos. Many of the wrecks are in extremely deep water. Listening to Neal Yates talking about the deepest and most alluring of these wrecks is hypnotising. He described details about a 110m dive to the Atlanta that was carried out. It is a dive that takes a year to plan and organise. Getting oxygen, Helium and safety equipment to the Solomon islands is a serious logistical challenge as it has to be ordered and delivered by boat from Australia. You have to allow for missing items and damage en route. Still, there are many wrecks within diveable depths. The deepest one I dived was the Aaron Ward in 60 to 70 metres. We dived it on air with 95 cu ft sling tanks with 50% Nitrox. The photos are. Top Right: Belinda at 63 m on the Aaron Ward. This photo shows the funnel up above and the 50% Nitrox decompression tank. Notice how the model interacts with the photographer, making the shot so much better. Belinda displays perfect buoyancy, total relaxation and streamlined swimming posture. These are all essential ingredients for good modelling. The second photo shows our host, Neil Yates who was the owner of Tulagi dive in Honiara. He is pointing out artefacts discussed during the dive brief. Neil told us that he had done more than one thousand dives on the Aaron Ward. Photo three is the cockpit of the Kawanishi bomber. Notice how Neil is examining the cockpit and his torchlight also helps to draw your attention to the point of interest. This plane wreck is in a sandy bottom and is always very silty with very limitied visibility. Close up wide angle photgraphy is the best way to capture the best of the wreck. Bottom Right: PIcture four is an attempt to capture the Kawanishi bomber. In this photo, I have managed to fit in two engines and propellors as well as the front of the fuselage of the plane. Because the visibility is so poor, the challenge here is to get clear definition in the extremely hazy light. I turned off both flashes and opened up the camera settings as follows. ISO 1100 , f8 aperture and 1/40 sec shutter speed. 16 mm wide angle setting on my Sea Cam housing with the eight inch Superdome and the wonderful 16 to 35 mm Nikon Wide angle zoom lens.

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Dive Log Australasia #416 February ’26

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