This is located outside Port Vila Harbour on the southern side of Mele Bay. It is to the west of Ifira Island.
Honeybone is located a bit further towards the open seas so dives are normally done on an incoming tide from Honeybone to Twin Bommies. There are moorings
at both locations.
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A featherstar at Honeybone | Black-rayed phyllidia - Phyllidia picta |
Once in the water, you descend and the depth is about eight metres. For the first 20 minutes you head north-east. There is a slight slope of a reef on your left and as you go the depth gradually drops to 14 metres. When you get to this depth the reef turns to the east and to your left the depth drops away. I did not go deeper but from previous dives at Twin Bommies I expect that it gets to 27 metres or so.
This first section is not all that interesting but we saw some very nice nudibranchs as well as some titan triggerfish. From here the reef gets much better.
As I said, the reef slopes away to the north and on the top after about five minutes it comes up to 10 metres and stays this way all the way to Twin Bommies. Along this section of reef we see a lot more gorgonias and the coral is better. We saw a couple more titan triggerfish, luckily it was not the breeding season, as these are the most aggressive fish I have ever seen.
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Think this is an elegant phyllidia - Phyllidia elegans | Not sure of these species but they were colourful |
Along here we come across a very large crocodilefish. This is one of the most interesting looking fish you will ever see. They normally sit quite still on the bottom and are easy to approach very close. If you see one, have a look at their eyes, they are the most amazing eyes you will ever see, similar to firefish but more strange.
As you might have guessed, Twin Bommies has two bommies that come up from 10 metres to about five metres. These bommies are very large and have many overhangs. Around here there are lots of fish. We also see some clownfish, a small crayfish, lots of bannerfish and many different species of nudibranchs.
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A couple of photos of the crocodilefish we saw between Honeybone and Twin Bommies |
Towards the end of the dive we explore around the bommies and then spend our safety stop on the top of one of the bommies at five metres.
This is not a bad dive, but a better dive would be to do the whole dive at Twin Bommies.
Visibility was about 20 metres on each of the dive I have done here. Water temperature ranges between 26°C and 28°C.
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