March 2016 - Island Divers Hawaii

Fun in the Sun, and Underwater

March 31, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Sarah Moore

Today was a gorgeous day out on the water in Mauna Loa Bay. The sky was clear, the winds were calm, and the water was flat! We couldn’t have asked for better conditions as we headed out to our first dive site this morning. The first dive today was at the LCU. With a max depth of 90 feet and a 30 minute dive time we had an awesome dive. we found a white tip reef shark hanging out underneath the wreck. Three spotted eagle rays were cruising around the wreck, and a few moray eels were hiding in the cement pylons surrounding the wreck. Lots of cool stuff to see down there. The second dive we did today was sea cave! Always an awesome dive site when we are able to do it! Lots of different kinds of nudibranches living inside the cave. We swam with huge schools of butterfly fish and sargent majors the whole time we drifted along the wall. Visibility was amazing, 100+ feet, and the fish were all around. After a 40 minute dive to 50 feet we headed back up to the boat to catch some final rays before hitting the dock. Overall an awesome day on the water with an awesome group of divers!

Crew: Captain Matt, Instructor Sarah, Crew Brady

Flat Seas, Clear Water, Awesome Divers!! 3/30 AM

March 31, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

Could not have dreamed of a better day to dive than today! All the divers arrived early, with huge smiles on their faces! Today was going to be amazing right from the start. Everyone agreed that Baby Barge was the wreck we were going to do. We made our way there and the boat was a buzz with excitement about the upcoming dive. There was a slight current there so we made the choice to drift the site. It was fantastic, so many turtles. We had the cutest little octopus that was so very interested in us and also an ornamental crab that gave us a once over. We lazily made our way around the wreck then headed to the shark cave. Our Nitrox divers had a little more time so we showed them were to look for the shark teeth. They SCORED!

The water was so calm that we just took our time on the surface and enjoyed the sun and many good laughs with the divers and crew. Captain Bradley and Ashley cut up fresh pineapple for all to enjoy and we served up hot tea.

Fantasy Reef was our drift dive and again it seemed like at least 20 turtles!! They were everywhere. We took our time and explored the whole reef. So much fun to look in all the nooks and hiding holes along the way. We were not disappointed! Even got a nice swim by of a Zebra Eel, one of my favorites. A Huge Congratulations to Jessie on Completing her PADI Advanced Open Water Class!

Dive Sites: Baby Barge 80 feet max, 150+ viz, drift dive. Fantasy Reef, max depth 55 feet, 100′ viz, drift dive.

Divers: Jen, Ron, Jessie, Alex, Karl, and Matt!

amazing divers

Crew: Captain Bradley, Dive Instructor Mary and Boat Crew Ashley!

Clear Skies and Great Vis! March 30

March 30, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Chelsea McLaughlin

This afternoon, we had light winds and clear skies. Our first stop was Angler’s Reef. There was a mild current, and the visibility was great. We saw a massive eel and so many schools of butterflyfish. Koko Craters was our last stop. We saw too many turtles to count, a few eels, and several pufferfish that we got pretty close to. It was an amazing day for Deron and James to finish up their OW certification!

Angler’s Reef: max depth 46ft

Koko Craters: max depth 38ft

Awesome divers: Deron, James, Karen, Jack, Guo and Courtnie

Amazing staff: Capt. Brad and Instructor Chelsea

The Howling Southern Winds

March 29, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Kevin Cloud

Great diving on March 28th considering how choppy it was out there. But everyone was in high morale and the diving was exceptionally beautiful from the clear visibility, our dive sites were Anglers Reef and the always popular Koko Craters. I want to give a big shout out to Haley for overcoming her nervousness and to continue to her certification to Open Water, another shout out to David and Isabel for completing their Open Water course and welcoming them to a new and exciting adventures into the underwater realm. Adam is another fellow diver that I would want to thank him for choosing us for his first time diving as a Discover Scuba Diver, and hope he had a good time with us.

Sunday Fun Day Easter!!

March 28, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Mary Christensen

Awesome Easter Sunday three tanker today. We all hopped on the boat and got to head out a little early today. We made a dive plan but the dive sites were busy. Wanting to go to the Corsair first, but there was a line up of boats. Not a problem for us….the conditions were lake like, so clear you could see the bottom at 100 feet. So as divers do we made a new plan. Skimmen’s Reef!!! It was fantastic, clear with a little current to carry us on our amazing dive. Starting at the swim thru and making our way around the deeper side of the reef. Had a little octopus that couldn’t wait to come out and say hi to us.

Friendly Octopus on Skimmen’s

The whales were out near the boat, so we got a really nice mid day whale watch in. Couple of playful whales gave us a pretty good show. Captain Joe put on the whale songs and pretty sure that made them want to stick around. This was a nice distraction during our wait to go to Corsair! Boy was it worth it. A little bit of a current but it was great down there. Even an appearance by Bertha, well that’s what we call the big eel that lives there. She was out and pretty active today. Lots of history down there and all the divers were pleased we got to go there.

Divers on Corsair

Scorpion Leaf Fish

Bertha the Eel

By request of all on board our last dive was Sea Cave, always a favorite of our divers. The cave was super calm today and we all got to spend lots of time checking the place out. Upon entering there was a baby Green Sea Turtle, big eels inside, slipper lobster, crabs, just so much to see. We drifted west outside the cave and it was still super clear. The current pulled us along and it was like swimming in an aquarium. The fish knew what a great day it was, turtles swimming about and everything to explore. This was such an amazing day for diving. A big Congratulations to Andrew for completing his PADI Enriched Air Specialty and also to Andrew and Tara for completing their PADI Drift Diving Specialties! You both did and awesome job. Cant Joe had a great lunch for us after the second dive and on the way back in Maddy made us all hot minty towels to clean up with. Not to mention the amazing “Hot Pours” we get from the captain after the dives. One diver said it tickled her all the way to her toes today! We do love making our divers happy!!

Amazing Divers: James, Katherine, John, Tara, Andrew, Tara, Donna, Jason, DMC Matt, DMC Steven and Kurtis!

Eel Face time

Dive Sites: Skimmen’s Reef, Drift dive, Max depth 70 feet, 100+ Viz, Corsair, Wreck Dive, Max depth 107 feet, 100+ Viz, Sea Cave, Max depth 50 feet, 100+ viz, Drift dive.

Boat Captain Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Kevin, Boat Crew Maddy.

Calm Day, Great Dives!!

March 26, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Mary Christensen

Beautiful morning dives off the Sea Fox today. Water was calm and clear, we took complete advantage of this. First stop was Baby Barge, max depth 85 feet with over 100 Ft of Viz. Plenty of turtles to see and everyone had fun looking for shark teeth. The barge is always such a fun place to explore and dive. Tara and Jason even got to have their first dive with Nitrox.

Sea Cave was next on our list. We did a nice tour through the cave and saw turtles and sharks!!! Always so exciting when we get a two-fer. We had a pretty good east current outside of Sea Cave. Max viz was 100 feet here too and our max depth was about 50 ft. We had such a nice dive just taking in the sights. Lots of baby turtles on this dive, which always brings a smile to my face.

A big congratulations to Tara and Jason on completing there PADI Enriched Air Course!! Great job today.

Crew: Captain Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Chelsea, Boat Crew Kelsey!!

WHAT THE HECK DOES DPV STAND FOR?? 24 March

March 25, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Larry Hogan

haha, that’s an easy one for serious divers. Diver Propulsion Vehicle, and we’re not talking about fins here! fun day, as always, on the boat today, as instructor David was teaching a DPV course. these little underwater scooters are awesome, fun, and great in a current! and always fun to watch them zoom around, like a kid on a bike. all divers should try it sometime! baby barge was great viz and medium current, so it took some work to get down to the shark cave, but it was worth it! huge turtle in the cave, eels along the way. cruising back to the wreck we saw schools of reef fish, beautiful hard corals, and more turtles! whew! 2nd jump was a drift of Fantasy reef, home of infinite possibilities. meaning there is some much to see, and such a variety. you’ll know what you will see for day to day. great barracuda, eagle rays, huge turtles, myriad eels, octopus. you get the picture! thanks to all for safe diving! larry, kendal, joe, alex, david

baby barge 80 ft 40 min

fantasy 52 ft 50 min

Today’s Afternoon Dive March 23

March 23, 2016/in Uncategorized/by Kevin Cloud

Today couldn’t have gone any better or smoother than with the students and certs I was with today, first dive site was the always enticing Koko Crater’s filled with many Honu ( Hawaiian Green Sea turtle) and the beautiful White Mouth Eel. I just want to give congrats to Scott, Samantha, and Dimitry for finishing their FIRST Open Water dives in the Pacific, also a thanks to Yoenia and Matthieu for diving with us today and sharing the same experience with me.

Koko Crater’s depth: 38 feet

Turtle Canyon: 41 feet

Afternoon at Fantasy! Mar 22

March 22, 2016/in Uncategorized/by Chelsea McLaughlin

This weather this afternoon was perfect! The winds were light, the sea was flat, and the current was minimal so we got to do something a little different and headed off to Fantasy Reef for our first dive. We had an amazing dive and saw so many turtles and eels, ventured through swim-throughs, and even played with an octopus! Our second dive site was Turtle Canyon, where Jeffrey and Lily finished up their Open Water course. There were so many eels and some really bright sea stars for our final dive of the day.

Fantasy Reef: max depth 53ft
Turtle Canyon: max depth 38 ft

Amazing divers: Jeffrey, Lily, Sydney, Jerry, Cherie, Paige, Greg, Nathan, Juan and Ryan

Awesome staff: Capt Kendal, Instructors Chelsea and Larry 🙂

THE SILENT WORLD 20 march

March 21, 2016/in Dive Reports/by Larry Hogan

that is the title of one of the great books in scuba diving. it was written by Jacques Cousteau, one of the real pioneers of scuba diving, and should be on your reading list if your are a dive buff! it is always amazing to think of how these people developed the equipment the has evolved into todays dive gear. speaking of evolution, and silent diving, today we had 7 rebreathers on board, and they had a great time diving deep, long, and quiet! as we regular divers bubbled around the deck of YO 257 on our multi-level dive, these guys cruised belly down on the sand at 100 feet for the whole dive. The rebreather is changing diving, allowing deeper and longer dives without nitrogen issues. the gear is still heavy on land, and changes your buoyancy in the water, but it looks like the future, particular as they continue to streamline the units! our first dive was LCU, and we saw 7 eagle ray in formation, circumnavigating the wreck! sweet! YO257 was next, and we saw huge shoals of fish, turtles, eels, and the Atlantis submarine! last and best, was Spitting Cave! huge turtles, sharks, octopus, eels, frogfish, loads of reef fish! awesome day!

Landing Craft Unit 90 ft 35 m 150 viz

YO 257 100 ft 30 m 150 viz

Spitting Cave 50 ft 50 m 200 viz