Gizo

Gizo occupies a small island at the western end of the New Georgia Islands, separated from the larger New Georgia itself by a narrow channel, and the town is small enough to walk across in twenty minutes but large enough to have a market, a hospital, several hotels and a functioning waterfront that is the centre of the local economy, with boats loading and unloading throughout the day and the smell of the sea always present.

The surrounding waters are sheltered by the New Georgia island group and the reef systems that extend between them, creating a diving environment that is less exposed than the open-ocean conditions found further east, with calm clear water and a wide variety of dive sites within a short boat ride of the town, so that two or three dives a day is logistically straightforward rather than ambitious.

Wreck diving is the primary draw, and the waters around the Western Province contain some of the most accessible and biologically diverse WWII wreck sites in the Solomon Islands, including Japanese and Allied vessels that were lost during the 1943 campaigns to retake the New Georgia group, the wrecks now encrusted with coral and home to large schools of fish that have colonised the superstructure.

The reefs around the Vonavona and Naru islands offer coral diving that is considered among the finest in the Solomon Islands, with extensive staghorn and brain coral formations, huge sea fans and the macro life that hides in the reef structure during the day, the reef walls dropping into deep water and creating conditions for both shallow reef dives and deeper wall dives in the same site.

The town waterfront is the social centre of Gizo and the point of arrival for boats from the outer islands, and the markets that line the shore sell fish, fruit and vegetables from the Western Province's agricultural and fishing communities with a cheerful informality that sets the tone for the whole place, and the evening market particularly is worth attending for the range of fresh produce on display.

The New Georgia campaign of 1943 was a series of amphibious landings and intense fighting to retake the New Georgia Islands from Japanese control, and the legacy of that campaign is present in the many wrecks, artefacts and memorials around Gizo that constitute the region's WWII heritage, accessible both to divers and to visitors who prefer to engage with the history from the shore.

The Marovo Lagoon to the east of Gizo is one of the largest lagoon systems in the world, bordered by coral reefs and the Vella Lavella and New Georgia island groups, and its combination of accessible reef diving, village homestays and natural beauty makes it a destination in its own right that rewards visitors who take the time to travel east from Gizo and spend a few nights in the lagoon.

Gizo is the primary diving base for the Western Province's WWII wreck sites and coral reefs, with operator infrastructure, accommodation and dive boats that make independent diving feasible without a live-aboard.

The combination of wreck diving, coral diving and access to the Marovo Lagoon gives Gizo a broader range of underwater experiences than most Pacific dive destinations in a compact area.

The town itself is a functioning provincial capital with a distinct Solomon Islands character that rewards visitors who take the time to walk the waterfront and markets rather than treating it purely as a base.