Uepi Island Beach

Uepi is a long thin island on the barrier reef of Marovo Lagoon, in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. The lagoon it encloses is the largest saltwater lagoon in the world, some seven hundred square kilometres of protected water between a double barrier reef and the islands of New Georgia and Vangunu.

The island's geography is the record: a strip of coral sand a few hundred metres wide with the calm lagoon on one side and, on the other, a wall that drops two thousand metres into the Slot — the channel American and Japanese fleets fought through in 1942 and 1943. You can stand on the beach and be at the edge of that within a swim.

The reef is in exceptional condition. The Solomons sit at the centre of the Coral Triangle and hold among the highest coral and fish diversity recorded; the wall off Uepi is regularly named among the best shore-accessible dives anywhere. Sharks are common and are not a problem here. The lagoon's islands are carved-wood country: Marovo carvers work kerosene wood and nguzunguzu figures, and the trade predates any tourism here.

Land throughout the Solomons is held under customary title, so a beach belongs to a clan rather than to a state, and access is arranged rather than assumed. Marovo has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 1988 and its inscription has been repeatedly delayed by the difficulty of getting agreement across the many landowning groups — which is a fact about how the country works rather than a failure. Tetepare, south of the lagoon, is the largest uninhabited island in the South Pacific, held by a descendants' association that runs it as a reserve.

Stand on a strip of coral sand with the largest saltwater lagoon in the world behind you and a two-thousand-metre wall in front. Uepi is a diving proposition and makes no other claim. The land is customary, the country receives a few thousand visitors a year, and the prices reflect the absence of scale rather than any luxury.