Solomon Islands: A Milestone-Birthday Dive Charter

Far from any dive-tourism circuit, the reefs here are alive in the way reefs used to be everywhere, vivid, dense with fish, and undisturbed, a glimpse of what the ocean looks like when it is left alone.

The journey south breaks in Brisbane for a few days of meeting Australia's wonderfully strange wildlife, cuddling koalas and shaking off jet lag in a riverside city before pressing on to the islands.

The Solomons are not easy to reach, and that is exactly the point. A private liveaboard charter puts the whole group together in one of the last truly remote dive destinations on Earth, celebrating in style far from anywhere.