A trail of shimmering bubbles in our wake, the hull of the Hirokawa Maru slowly takes form as we descend first as a faint shadow against deep blue Pacific waters, and then, as we draw closer, as a towering darkness that threatens to suck up all the light. As my eyes adjust, the vessel’s sheer size begins to reveal itself; at 156 meters long, the Hirokawa Mari isn’t the largest of the wrecks which litter Ironbottom Sound, a strip of water between the islands of Guadalcanal

You’ve got to have a real sense of adventure here in the Solomon Islands,” our lovely guide, Stella, tells us when we meet her at Honiara International Airport. She’s certainly not wrong. From the islands’ spectacular diving and surfng to their almost mythical history, you could say the Solomon Islands is the stuff of romance-adventure novels. And we can’t wait to dive in and experience it all for ourselves. Legend has it that a 16th-century explorer believed this to be where King Solomon sourced the gold to build his illusive temple (hence the name). While he didn’t fnd much of the treasured stuff, he wasn’t totally off the mark – the Solomon Islands is pure holiday gold.

I’ve had some great opportunities to see and study birds in different parts of the South Pacific, but until recently the Solomon Islands had remained out of reach to me. In 2017, I had the opportunity to visit and leapt at the chance. The main focus of the visit would be the islands of Gizo, Ranongga, Vella Lavella and Kolombangara in the New Georgia Group.