Our Weds afternoon gave us an opportunity to explore the dive sites of Anglers Reef and Fantasy Reef. With discover scuba divers and open water students on board we got great first time experience and amazing training completed. The Hawaiian green sea turtle and a variety of eels were the main attraction of both dives with some white tip reef sharks spotted by a couple of divers. A great day for a great couple of dives.
It was an incredible afternoon out on the Seafox today, the wind was blowing and the waves were coming in but we still had an awesome time and did two great dives! The first dive site we headed to this afternoon was Koko craters and the turtles were out and about! They were swimming right beside us for most of the dive! We saw probably six different individual turtles today, score! We also found an octopus walking around at the back crater today! Always cool to see those guys. The second dive site we went to today was Anglers Reef, a little farther out to try and get some better visibility, and better visibility we did get! Anglers reef was beautiful today. We swam right through a group of four or five porcupine puffer fish. We found a couple great big spotted moray eels. And we had tons of little reef fish swimming around. Overall it was an excellent day with some excellent dive buddies. Thanks everyone for coming out and we hope to dive with you again soon!
Crew: Captain Joe, Instructor Sarah, Instructor Tommy
They forecast big swells and rough seas but our stedfast divers came. Today was a great day to dive even with the swell that came through. We had to change up our plan a little but we made it work on the sunny Sunday dive day. Heading out we knew we were going to do a double drift because Rob and Brandon signed up for the PADI Drift Diver Specialty class. Was really a great day to do this. We started at Fish Garden today and drifted west to spitting caves. Was a great dive and we saw so many things. Eagle ray, turtles, eels, sharks and loads of reef fish. Floating gently along on the currents was a great way to start the morning.
We motored over to the YO 257 for our next dive. It was a little surgey and stirred up from the swell but we still got to take in a lot. More eagle rays there, turtles and we got caught up in a storm of moorish idols. We also visited the San Padro while at the YO. Everyone was truly enjoying the abundant amount of fish on this wreck and the divers poked in and out of the wreck really getting a solid wreck dive out of it. This is always one of our favorite wrecks to get to on our Sunday 3 tanker. Our divers on Nitrox really got the full experience of the dives today with the longer bottom time. When we arrived back on the boat our Captain and crew had a really nice lunch for us laid out.
We took a nice long surface interval as we made our way back around Diamond Head. Everyone enjoying the warm sunny day and talking about the dives. Fantasy Reef was our next site because we wanted some turtle sightings!! We were not disappointed. We found them sleeping, and swimming, heading up to and down from the surface. It seems like everywhere we looked there was a turtle doing something. Made our turtle fans very happy today. As usual we had plenty of reef fish to join us on the dive and had TWO different shark encounters. The tides changed a bit while we were under the water so we got a double take of some of the swim throughs and maybe even of the turtles. The ride is was nice and relaxed as we got to discuss our amazing dive day. Congratulations Brandon and Rob on your PADI Drift diving Certs!
Awesome Divers: Brandon, Hilary, James, John, Matt, Meridian, Miyuki, Rob and Rick. Thank you Rick for joining us for an entire week of Diving. You are part of our family now.
Amazing Staff: Captain Kendal, Dive Instructors Mary and Sarah, and Britney as our crew!
Dive sites: Fish Garden/Spitting caves 50 foot, 70 foot viz, well at the start, Drift dive
YO/San Padro 95 feet, 40 foot viz, wreck dive
Fantasy Reef 55 feet, 80 foot viz, drift dive
WOW! What a perfect day. It’s always amazing when the water is calm, light trade winds and unreal visibility. We could see LCU from the surface! This was our first dive site today and it was breathtaking. The eagle rays swam around the wreck the whole dive. We found a huge sponge crab in the wreck. It was fun to explore under the boat, around the boat, get some great shots of the sea life. We had several photographers on the boat today. Chad was doing the dives for his PADI Enriched air course, several others just enjoyed the benefits of already being certified. Even the safety stop was great with eagle rays circling below.
Double Eagle Ray
Sponge Crab, look close at the white part.
Back to one of my favorite sites for the drift. Fantasy Reef! Visibility again was perfect and the current was just enough to keep us moving but not so bad we didn’t have time to explore. First thing we saw was one of the small white tip reef sharks taking a snooze in a cave. So many turtles all around, was pretty exciting for our divers, they are always a crowd pleaser and even a visit from one of the baby turtles we have here. The eels were pretty active on this dive and we even saw a curious octopus poke his head out and watch us. We were surrounded by schools of reef fish most of the time. Coming through one of the swim throughs even got to see a school of pacific barracuda’s, there were about 15 of them. When we came up and all were loaded back on the boat a pod of dolphins came right by the boat just to give us a send off. Also had the amazing Hot Towels to freshen up with after the dive thanks to Gracie. Congratulations Chad on your PADI Enriched Air Certification! What a perfect day!!
small shark
Smiling Turtle
Double Trouble Moray Eels
Fantastic Divers: James, Samantha, Chad, Stan, and Juan.
Amazing Dive Staff: Captain Joe, Dive Instructor Mary and Boat Crew Gracie. Special Appearance Dive Instructor and boat captain Matt.
Dive Sites: LCU, Max Depth 90 feet, Viz 150+, Wreck dive
Fantasy Reef, Max Depth 55 feet, Viz 150+, Drift dive
Tako or taco, we love them both!! but I’ll take seeing a tako (octopus) underwater anytime over eating a taco after the dive! our 2nd dive today was a drift of spectacular Fantasy Reef, where we found the aforementioned octopus, as well as 2 sharks, a plethora of huge green sea turtles, free-swimming moray eels, countless reef fish, amidst amazing volcanic topography! the current was perfect for a slow drift, so we meandered our way across one of our favorite dive sites! the first dive was Landing Craft, or LCU, and we were lucky enough to spot a flock of eagle rays flying in slow motion by the wreck! beautiful. also a shark and huge school of barracuda. despite the brisk current, there were lots of smiling divers as we motored in! thanks to all for safe diving, larry, kendal
LCU 90 ft 35 min 150 viz
fantasy 50 ft 49 min 150 viz
The winds were back today, but the weather was beautiful as we headed out on the Sea Fox for our afternoon dives. We had quite a few beginner divers, one open water student, and a few certified divers. Our first stop was Turtle Canyon. The current was stronger than usual, but everybody did a great job handling it. One group saw a few turtles and an octopus!
Our next dive site was Koko Craters. This site is normally crawling with turtles, but they took today off. Instead, we found several small eels, so many damselfish, and even a few wrasses and triggerfish. We spotted a large scorpionfish hiding amongst the rubble and marveled at its brightly colored pectoral fins. A few minutes later, we found a juvenile scorpionfish perfectly camouflaged in the coral. It was no bigger than about four inches! Even though we didn’t see any turtles, we still had an amazing day under the sea!
Turtle Canyon: max depth 40ft
Koko Craters: max depth 38ft
Awesome divers: Holly, Jaime, Patrick, Maria, James, Samantha, Zach, Jake, and Dino
Amazing staff: Capt. Joe; Instructors Chelsea, Jeremy, and Ashley 🙂
Sunny Monday morning dive day to Baby barge and Fantasy reef! What a great day we had. The seas were fairly calm but the current was ripping so we did Baby Barge as a drift. The octopus were out of their holes, the turtles were lazily hanging around and the eels were keeping a watchful eye on the reef. One of our divers, Jaylee (JJ) was doing here 150th dive and wanted to share this with us. Greg, Drew and Brian were working on the first dive of their PADI Drift specialty. This was a pretty exciting dive for all. The viz was about 150+ feet and we really got to take in the sights. We are lucky that we get so many opportunities to drift of this side of the island.
look close for the Peacock Flounder
We drifted Fantasy Reef for our second dive. It was a little stirred up but viz was still about 70 feet. We saw turtles all around, a shark with a huge moray taking a nap in a cave, and loads of other eels around. The reef fish engulfed us as we glided along the reef. Greg, Drew and Brian completed their last dive for PADI Drift diving specialty!! Returning divers Jayleen and Chris could hardly be talked out of the water at the end of the dive. Always so much fun to have familiar faces back with us over and over. We also got to see a huge amount of Helmet’s on this dive. After the dive we were all greeted on the boat with hot towels to freshen up with, thanks Jeff!!
Fantastic Divers: Greg, Drew, Brian, Jeff, Caitlin, Chris and of course Jayleen!!
Amazing Staff: Capt Joe, Dive Instructor Mary, DM Alex, Boat Crew Marisa and Vincent!
Dive Sites: Baby Barge, Viz 150+, Max Depth 85, Drift
Fantasy Reef, Viz 70 feet, Max Depth 55 feet, Drift
Flat Seas and No wind! Perfect day to head east to Pelea Point for our first dive. The group decided early that we wanted to explore the dive sights we don’t get to often and forego the wreck dive today. Pelea Point is off the east side of Hanauma Bay before Sandy’s Beach. It was a quite good choice. Getting off the dock early we headed that way. There was a strange current but we made it work, the 100+ foot viz was great too. We spent a good amount of our time at about 75 feet, saw plenty of eels, schools of reef fish were abundant and octopus also. David and George did the Try Nitrox program we run at Island Divers, so got to experience mixed gas for the first time ever!
We picked Sea Cave as our second site today, max depth was 50 feet. It was so calm there that when we looked up there were paddle boarders inside the cave!! On the dive we got to see plenty of amazing things, green sea turtles, tons of reef fish and a crocodile eel!! First time I have ever seen that on a wall drift dive. We had such a great time and really got to take our time on the drift. It was such a fun time on the Sea Fox also, when we came up from the second dive we were greeted with fresh cut pineapple and hot pours for the divers that wanted a quick warm up after the dive. It was a super day out on the water today. As we came back in we all talked about the dives and what we saw. The crocodile eel was all the chatter on the boat….they are so rare to find and it was really big.
Fantastic Divers: Apichaya, Adam, Stephanie, David, Don, George, Drew, Keith, Trish, Emma, Ryan, Kyle, and Samia!
Amazing Staff: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Jeremy, and boat crew Jeff.
Dive Sites: Pelea Point, Max depth 75 feet, viz 100+, Drift dive
Sea Cave, Max Depth 50 feet, viz 100+, Drift Dive
Thanks for the great Dive Day and Welcome to all our new Dive Friends!
Today was a gorgeous day out on the water. The water was calm both on the surface and underneath! We had amazing visibility on both dives this afternoon at our shallow reef sites. We had a little bit of everything on the boat this afternoon as well, a couple advanced open water students, a couple open water students, a few certified divers and a group of Discover Scuba Divers trying it out for the first time (surprise, surprise they loved it!). The first dive site we went to was Koko Craters, the lovely turtle cleaning station. The turtles were underneath their ledges taking their naps this afternoon, a few got out and swam around with us. We also spotted a few moray eels inside the reef. And of course the large schools of sargent majors were out swimming around by the big buddha statue. It was an incredibly relaxing dive in crystal clear water. The second dive site we went to today was turtle canyons. We found a few more moray eels here, a giant helmet conch, a couple porcupine fish, and tons of other reef fish. There was a big school of trigger fish right underneath the boat. And as we were making our way back up to the boat at the end of the dive a turtle swam by to say goodbye to us! It was an awesome day of diving with some awesome new dive buddies. Congratulations Kevin for finishing your open water course!
Crew: Captain Joe, Instructor Sarah, Instructor Larry, Instructor Jim, Crew Nicole
It was a blustery day out with a bit of rain but our seasoned divers came out to splash in the Pacific. Ended up doing a double drift, sometimes Mother Nature has her own idea of what we can do. We all jumped in at LCU and explored the boat a little then on our way. Trying to make the next barge but the current pulled us a bit to the south. This was fun for us to explore areas we seldom get to see. It’s always fun to see places we never get to see. Vienna even got to try out Nitrox for the very first time on her dives today with our Dive Nitrox Special.
Our next drift was shallower on one of our favorites, Fantasy reef. Pretty sure we found out were “All” the turtles hang out on current filled days. Pretty sure we saw at least 20 of them. Sterling, did her very first drift dive and was amazing on it. We all had a super time and again got to see stuff we don’t get to see often. The current pulled us about three quarters of a mile which made the end of the dive pretty amazing. Lots of eels, turtles and uncountable number of reef fish. Even found loads of Helmet’s. This was a pretty special dive and we had a great time doing it. Brooke had our famous hot towels on the way in to freshen up with, always our divers favorite! It was great having Arman, Mike, Chris, Vienna and Sterling back on the boat with us. They are all repeat friends of Island Divers! We always love having familiar faces with us.
Amazing Divers: Arman, Ashley, Ben, Britney, Chelsea, Chris, Sterling, Alexandra, Mike, Courtnie, and Vienna.
Fantastic Staff: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructor Mary and Boat Crew Brooke!