Page 473 - Melanesia

FLORIDA ISLANDS DIVE SITES

The Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, are a small island by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine Santiago, commanded by
group in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, a state in the southwest Maestre de Campo Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as
Pacific Ocean. The chain is composed of the two main islands, Nggela pilot. They were who charted it as Pascua Florida from where its present-
Sule to the north and Nggela Pile’ to the south and a number of smaller day name Florida derives. Tulagi in Nggela Sule was the seat of the admin-
islands, including Tulagi, Gavutu and Tanambogo. The name Florida Island istration and the colonial capital of the British Solomon Islands prior to the
is sometimes also used to refer to Nggela Sule. The first recorded sighting 1942 Japanese invasion in World War II. After the War ended, the capital
by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on moved to the site of the United States base, Honiara, on the other side of
16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done Iron Bottom Sound.