Kitcha
Just like Texas, everything in Kitcha is big!
As we descend, we meet up with a substantial school of bump head parrotfish. These beasts are pushing 2meters in length and look to weigh up to 75kg. They are bigger than many of the divers in our group! They swim slowly by and seem completely unfazed by our meeting.
We descend down the sheer wall and land on one of the many small shelves that jut out. It makes for a perfect vantage point to watch the sharks cruise by below and above us. We see black tip and white tip sharks along with gray whalers.
Suddenly there is a boom followed by a deep rumbling that can be felt reverberating right through our bones. Even the fusiliers which normally swim smoothly along the wall seem to jump. It’s a rock concert of sound being provided by the underwater volcano Kavachi which is only 25km away.
We continue along the wall and swim into fields of giant gorgonian fans which are easily 10meters across. Pink, maroon and purple, they wave lazily in the current feeding on the nutrients that flows over them. A few of the more patient in our group set out to look for tiny Pygmy seahorses among these giant fans. You know they have been successful when you see the popping flash from their underwater strobes.
Finally we finish the dive on a rocky plateau where we find three juvenile rock mover wrasse swimming among the rubble. These tiny entertainers flop around while the full grown adults pick up the rubble on the bottom moving it around to look for small crustaceans and other tidbits to munch on.
📌 Kitcha Island, Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands
📷 Adam Beard
