Archive for month: January, 2016

whales were singing during our dive and breaching around our dive boat today.  man, what a great experience!  these Humpback whales that visit Hawaii yearly are truly magnificent creatures.  it is rare to see a whale while diving, but it happens on occasion.  we do see them often during our surface intervals though!  amazing!  Kahala barge was our first stop, and we cruised through, around, and over this excellent dive site, spotting sea life along the way.  great wreck for penetration.  2nd jump was a reverse drift of Spitting Cave, and Captain Joe called it pretty well.  nice drop in front of the ‘green line,’ a low tide occurrence where the shallow water flows out and around koko head.  lots to see, turtles, sharks, octopus, and tons of reef fish!  thanks to all for safe diving.  larry, kevin, joe, kelsea

kahala   95 ft    100 viz   40 min

spitting  50 ft   120 viz   50 min

 

Blue skies, light trades and calm waters lead us on the dive to the east side of the island.  Skimmer’s Reef is one of our favorite dives sites.  The drift was light and easy and everyone was enjoying their time in the water.  This reef isn’t dove very often so it’s always a pleasure to see how amazing it is.  So many FISH!!!  Everyone was super excited after the dive on how nice it was.

While making our way to LCU, we got a nice whale watching tour.  Always exciting at this time of year on the dive boats.  We get quite a few whales around and get to hear them sing to us underwater.  LCU had a bit of a current but that was nice because the Eagle Rays were out in force.  Some of our people at the end of the dive lead by Jeremy got to see a huge white tip reef shark and what they thought might be an even bigger Tiger Shark.  We are divers though….No picture not sure it’s real.

Another whale watch was underway with one that was so close we thought it might come right under the boat at Sea Cave.   The current was light here and the viz was fantastic.  We were greeted with loads of Hawaiian Hono (green sea turtles).   It was a perfect finish to our day.  We finished up 6 PADI Drift Divers today!  Congratulations Courtney, Chris, Sarah, Joe, Emily, and Brooke!  You guys did awesome.  It was also another milestone on the boat today as Lauren, our PADI Dive Master Candidate completed her training and the paper works was sent in.  We are very proud of our new PADI Dive Master Lauren, you did a great job!

Captain Kendal and Crew Jenowa and Training crew Brandon had a nice lunch for us and hot towels at the end of the dive.  Cut up pineapple after last dive was a nice treat to get the sea water out.   Also took care of switching all our empty tanks to full ones.  Thank you guys!

Dive Sites:  Skimmen’s Reef (Drift), max depth 65 feet, viz 100+.  LCU, (Wreck), max depth 90 feet, viz 100+. Sea Cave (Drift), max depth 50 feet, viz 100 feet.

Dive Crew:  Capt. Kendal, Dive Instructors Mary and Jeremy, Boat Crew, Jenowa and Brandon.

Amazing Divers:  Courtney, Chris, Sarah, Joe, Emily, Brooke, John, Tom, James, Michael, Angelique, Mike, Shannon, Steven and Hayley!!

always an extra shot of adrenaline when you giant stride into the dark water!  of course that is part of diving anywhere, but a night dive is always unique, or so it seems to me.  with only a small lighted area, our dive world shrinks down to that flashlight beam, and reveals the ocean and its inhabitants in a much different way.  we jumped in at Spitting Cave, just before sunset, and it was a spectacular experience.  the fading light exaggerated the dramatic walls and canyons, creating a panorama of dark and light, with giant turtles appearing out of the gloom!  awesome dive!  2nd jump was over at Turtle Canyons, which is packed with the colors of multiple hard corals, and myriads of various colored reef fish!  the highlight was  seeing a spanish dancer swimming gracefully through the dark, lit only by our beams.  thanks to all for safe diving!  larry

spitting cave  50 ft  45 min  80 viz

turtle canyons  35 ft  45 min  pitch black

 

It was a blue skied beautiful January morning with light winds.  What an amazing day to go diving.  Our first stop was Skimmen’s Reef.  What a rare treat for us and now we got to do it two days in a row!!  Great viz, nice drift.  So many fish to see yet again today.  We are very lucky that we got to do this dive again.  One of our favorites.

Next stop was the Corsair.  One of our beloved dive sites out of Hawaii Kai.  It’s a 1948 Corsair plane that is the only natural wreck of it’s type on the island.  We had several people from out of country on the boat today and this was on their bucket list of dives…..CHECK!  So many happy people!

Sea Cave was absent of sharks today but it was still awesome inside.  Nothing is quite like the reverb feeling you get inside the cave.  As the waves crash in over head you can feel it with your full body.  Lots of interesting things to see inside and as we drifted we were joined by so many turtles.  We inspected to small caves and walls on the drift as we floated along.

On the way is was our PLUS One!  We were doing our routine trip in, cleaning gear, breaking down, hot towels for guests, pineapple when we spotted a young man in distress.  Right on que our team jumped into action and were able to rescue him in a pretty dicey situation.  It’s what we do out there.  We take care of everyone.  Within minutes we had him on the boat.  He was a bit shaken up but he was safe.  Could not be prouder to be part of this team.

It was an amazing day at sea!

The skies were clear and the waters calm.  A great day to visit baby barge and spitting caves.  I think the word for the day was TURTLES!  We were greeted with them from the second the boat got tied up until we did our last safety stop of the day.  Everyone had such a great time on the boat today.  Always such a pleasure when we get to see it all!!!

 

Baby barge:  max depth 85 feet.  Viz 100 feet

Spitting caves:  max depth 50 feet, Viz 100 feet.