Archive for month: July, 2014

great dives today under sunny blue skies.  Baby barge was our first stop, and despite a strong current, we had a great time, spotting several huge (and i mean huge) turtles, sharks, octopus, and several varieties of eels.  one of which i had to chase away from the octopus!  no shark cave today because of the current, but lots to see around the barge, including a spotted eagle ray!  2nd dive was a drift of Spitting Cave, always a crowd pleaser.  and today was no exception, despite it being a bit greener than usual, not the vibrant light blue we love!  we were able to get another hook out of the fin of a sea turtle, so that was a huge success right there!  for gravy we also saw frogfish, more sharks and turtles, scorpion fish, and lot of reef fish schooling. thanks to all for safe diving, larry, manolo, joe, maxine, and the great Ashley!

Here we go again! There are so many things to uncover under the surface of the ocean.  When people ask me what scuba diving is like, I tell them, “It’s like leaving planet earth and going to some fantastical world that you can’t even imagine until you go there yourself.  Try as I might to convince others it’s worth the scary first plunge alas some people are land lubbers true and true.  But everyone likes some good footage of the unattainable. Perhaps that is why people watch movies in the first place. To leave their place in this world for an hour or so, experience a world beyond their grasps and return safe and sound sometimes a little happier than before. So here’s some photos and video to appease.

Safe Diving,

Davy

Weather Conditions: Not sunny enough to keep warm between dives
Dive Sites: Exploration site  & LCU
Dive condition: mild current & 50 Ft VIZ
Dive Staff: Captain Kendal, Lead Davy, Crew Brent

3 turtle July 24

goat fish

Crown of Thorns

Captain Kendal’s Briefing

Explore

turtles everywhere today!  of course that is not unusual for diving in Hawaii, but they are always a treat to see, whether swimming around, having a snack, breathing at the surface, or taking a snooze. they have such a friendly and imperturbable energy. Koko craters, our first dive site, is a great turtle motel, as they love the underhanging spaces in the long crater-shaped ledges there for  napping!  we also saw a big hawaiin day octopus, plus several eels, including a snowflake moray, an exceptionally beautifully colored eel!  2nd jump was Turtle Canyons, with, of course, more turtles!  also viper morays, the meanest looking eel around.  of course they are actually pretty docile.  big treat – a fully grown eagle ray swam right by twice during the dive!  thanks to all for great and safe diving.  larry, joe, max, rachaell

koko craters 38 feet – 40 minutes

turtles canyons 35 feet 44 minutes

For the Afternoon dive a group of six divers venture into Maunalua Bay to escape from the clouds above and dive into the beauty of the Ocean. We had a light breeze cooling us down during the short ride out to the Koko crater, Captain Kendal puts right on the spot and we descended to find the Turtle cleaning station working full on! There we went around the Buddhas and spotted a nice size yellow margin moray, schools of sergeant majors, rainbow wrasses and surgeonfish.

After a required surface interval to eat cookies and drink hot cocoa 🙂 we dived into Pa’awa reef a nice ridge formation home of some majestic fish! Cruising around we came across a juvenile octopus, brown puffer fish, snowflake moray eel and two very well camouflaged leaf scorpionfish and if that was not enough, a couple of Harlequin shrimp! That sight made the day, seeing the most beautiful shrimp walking around the bottom is why I love SCUBA Diving!

Especial thanks to William, Giovanni, Alex and Katrina and congratulations to Don and Willow on their first Open water dive!

Sea Conditions: Moderate with small swells

Visibility: 45 ft to 65 ft

Current: Light West current

Dive Crew: David Pinilla (me)

Boat Crew: Captain Kendall, deckhand Brent

We head out to the LCU for our first dive of the day, planning a wreck dive we choose this specific site to comply with our future Junior Advanced  Open water diver Trinity!!! Whom can only go to 70feet. The conditions were nice underwater with a mild current heading West, down there were big schools of Goat fish and lots of Surgeon fish and the amazing Yellow face Butterfly fish!

For our second dive we head out to the Spitting caves to do our “Drift dive”. Always spitting caves is an amazing dive with lost of fish such as Blur fish, two big big frog fish, few turtles with a nice juvenile one! After about 45 minutes underwater we had to head back to the surface to end up two amazing dives.

Congratulations to Trinity on completing the Wreck dive and the Drift dive as part of the Junior Advanced Open Water course!

Special thanks to Mark, Andrew, Nick, Jonathan, Erick, Isaura, Rosa, Tomicko, Wesley and Ron

Sea Conditions: Moderate with small swells

Visibility: 45 ft to 65 ft

Current: Light West current

Dive Crew: David Pinilla (me), Divemaster Carlos

Boat Crew: Capt Joe and Maxine