Tulagi

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Tulagi, less commonly Tulaghi, is a small island (5.5 km by 1 km) in the Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Florida Island. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1896 to 1942, and is today the capital of the Central Province.

The island was originally chosen by the British as a comparatively isolated and healthier alternative to the disease-ridden larger islands of the Solomons. The Japanese occupied it on May 3, 1942, with the intention of setting up a seaplane base nearby (see Japanese Tulagi landing (1942)). The ships in Tulagi harbor were raided by planes from USS Yorktown the following day in a prelude to the Battle of the Coral Sea. U.S. forces landed on August 7 and captured Tulagi after a day of hard fighting. After its capture by Naval and Marine forces, the island hosted a fleet of PT boats for a year, including John F. Kennedy's PT-109 as well as other ancillary facilities. A small 20-bed dispensary was operated on Tulagi until its closure in 1946. The island also formed part of Purvis Bay, which hosted many U.S. Navy ships during 1942 and 1943.

The present-day Tulagi has a fishing fleet.

[edit] Scuba diving

Tulagi offers some excellent scuba diving. The wrecks of USS Aaron Ward, USS Kanawha, and HMNZS Moa are close by, and the wrecks of Ironbottom Sound are not much further off.

USS Aaron Ward is considered to be one of the world's great wreck dives. The hull lies on a sandy bottom at 70 metres, which is about the deepest one can safely dive on compressed air. (Special mixes are required for depths beyond that.) The Ward lies upright and intact, the deck replete with artifacts.

Tulagi is developing a tourism industry based on scuba; however, due to ongoing civil unrest, the industry in the Solomons is in a parlous state.

Parts of the story of John F. Kennedy's PT-109