Archive for month: June, 2014

Friday – BUT IT WAS SMOKING.  We maybe shouldn’t have even tried it.  But we did and it was actually pretty nice on the bottom.  The Kahala Barge was good as ever lots of swim throughs to be had, and tons of marine life to see.  I managed to balance a conch on my head for a good bit of the dive. I found out later it was trying to suck out my brains through my hood.  From there we got back on the boat and had some snacks. Note to self: don’t let seasick people eat Red Vines. When it comes back up it looks like internal hemorrhaging. Good stuff. Big waves forced us to the inside where we saw tons of eels, some frog fish, a weird toothed fish doing what I don’t know, and I balanced three conches on my head at once. Nice work errbody, and I’ll see you again.

Mayyyyybe

Getting seasick yet?

Pillow Star (Nice pose btw)

Yeah Shaka

So Many Bubbles!

Weather Conditions: Windy and Sunny, large south swell
Dive Sites: Kahala Barge & Angler’s Reef
Dive Conditions: 90 FT 32 min & 40 Ft 52 min Temp 79 F
Staff: Capt Joe, Dive Lead Kellan, Crew Maxine

We set out and the Ocean was rollin…  We had of course, the most qualified captain in Oahu, 25 year vet of the Coast Guard Capt Joe.  We moored up at Baby Barge and had no worries getting in…  What a great group of divers!  Baby Barge was murky but the animal life was still plentiful!  Loads of Morays and Turtles, and no current so it made the dive super chill!!

We headed over to Fantasy Reef  and during this time a pod of spinner dolphins were showing their skills all around us!  When we enter the water we headed down and what a plethora of Morays!!!  We drifted along the reef and saw loads of Acropora coral beds… Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!

Sea Conditions: Choppy

Visibility: 50+feet

Current: slight current on Baby Barge, Slight Westerly Current at Fantasy Reef

Crew: David Pinilla (me), Larry Hogan, Capt Joe, Dennie

Such a beautiful morning to be out on the southeast side of Oahu today. We had a larger group of divers today mostly with a group of divers from another company sharing the boat with us but plenty of room and a wonderful couple of dives. We headed to the LCU for the first dive and with little current and good visibility we all got down the line. There were a couple of white tip reef sharks under the wreck right as divers were getting down to the bottom. But as more divers got down the sharks decided to get out from under the wreck and swim about the area to find a more relaxing spot. We kept herding the sharks from one area of the site to another as the divers spread about the area. Soon the found themselves back under the wreck as most of the divers were heading back to the surface.  We also had a large, red frogfish on the wreck and large schools of goatfish and Heller barracuda swimming around the site. Right at the end of the dive we saw a spotted eagle ray cruise by as we made our way to the safety stop.

For the second dive we drifted Spitting Caves. It was a little choppy on the surface but we had excellent viz and a nice current to pull us along. There were turtles all over the reef from large ones resting in caves to little ones swimming about. There were also a few eels hiding in the reef as well and a few more frogfish and even a couple octopus.  It was a great relaxing dive among all the colorful reef fish.

Not only perfect weather, but some great diving today!  Kahala barge was our destination, as Mo was doing his wreck dive for his advanced cert, and Kahala is a great wreck to swim through, with big openings cut int0 the deck and lots of space and interesting lighting inside.  we got out of the strong current by dropping through the deck and checking out the interior.  no sharks or turtles inside today, but lots of reef fish around.  lots of fun!!  next was a drift of spitting caves, and it was really perfect in every way.  great viz and a perfect current for drifting.  great turtles close ups today, as they were all over the wall.  But the highlight was a big monk seal, dozing in one of the caves.  when we swam in, he looked up at us, and i swear he smiled!  what a great experience!!  thanks to all for safe diving.  Larry and Joe

3 great dives today, with beautiful, albeit windy, skies and deep blue water.  Captain Joe got us out to the mooring at Baby Barge in no time, and before we knew it we were cruising with turtles in warm Hawaiin waters.  Baby Barge is imploded, but is a great habitat for sea life.  after 35 minutes at 80 feet we got on the boat and headed past Diamond Head, and off to one of the dive world’s top wreck, the YO 257.  so much to see with large turtles, huge schools of fish, various sharks and rays, and the Atlantis Submarine!  awesome dive today! i did take dennis and danica down to the sand, hitting 101 feet, for the Deep dive, as they finished up their Advanced Open certs today!  great job of addition at that depth! the deck is 75 feet, so we hung there checking out tons of sea life, then back on the Fox and off to another spectacular dive at Fantasy Reef.  today we found more turtles, octopus, lots of eels and fish amidst the beautiful volcanic topography!  Fantasy is 53 feet max depth, so we had a nice drift of 45 minutes before reluctantly surfacing.  thanks to all for good diving today.  larry, max, captain joe, and lauren