Archive for month: October, 2016

Great day out on the boat this morning for some holiday fun. We had a nice small group this halloween morning and some awesome underwater conditions. It may have been windy up top but underwater it was gorgeous! We did a double drift today. First drift we did was drifting the barges. We started at Baby barge with all the turtles and let the Koko head current take us to New Barge. Along the way we saw an octopus, a giant yellow margin moray and giant schools of reef fish around the cement blocks. So relaxing to just have the current take you along. After finding a blue dragon nudibranch on top of new barge we drifted on to the LCU which we saw from our safety stop. There were three spotted eagle rays circling the LCU today. Awesome dive filled with lots of different sea life.

Second dive site we went to was Fantasy Reef. Another great drift dive. A little shallower we got a bit of a longer bottom time. Tons of turtles at fantasy reef today as well. We also found a white tip reef shark hanging out in one of the small caves. A couple more nudibranches, the imperial nudibranch and the varicose phyllidia. We found another octopus at fantasy reef as well! Near the end of the dive we were also able to find a flounder! Two great dives and some great dive buddies. Thanks for coming back and diving with us Jason and thanks for joining us for the first time Denise and David! Hope to see you all out on the boat again soon!

Crew: Captain Todd, Instructor Sarah, Crew Marisa

Conditions: Visibility 70+ feet, water temperature 79 degrees Fahrenheit

Barge Drift: Max depth 88 ft dive time 43 mins

Fantasy Reef: Max depth 55 ft dive time 59 mins

Today was a great day out on the boat. Sundays with Island Divers are as good as it gets. We had an awesome group of great divers on the boat today eager to do some great diving. Based on the tides and chasing good visibility we decided to go to Spitting Caves on the first dive. We had an incredible drift along the wall this morning. We saw so much. There were quite a few turtles swimming along the wall. We found a devil scorpionfish, a leaf scorpionfish and a frogfish! All magnificent masters of disguise, but they can’t hide from me! We also saw the tiniest baby octopus! He was adorable. In one of the caves we found a white tip reef shark. Congratulations to Mandy for swimming with her first shark! The visibility was incredible at the wall today, 100+ feet. After a great 50 minute drift we headed back up to the boat and over to the wreck. The second dive we did was LCU. A nice deep dive to 90 feet. There were two white tip reef sharks underneath the LCU today. We took a tour around the outside of the wreck, found a couple moray eels. I saw the tiniest kahuna nudibranch I have ever found today as well. Finally as we were headed back to the line to make our ascent to spotted eagle rays showed up. At first there were three, just cruising around the wreck and then their friend, a fourth, showed up as we were completing our safety stop. Another beautiful dive with great visibility, 100+ feet again. The final dive site we went to was Keanu Reef, another drift. A nice reef at 70 feet Keanu is home to some of the biggest octopus I have seen in Maunalua Bay. We found a few moray eels and tons and tons of reef fish. Being our third dive of the day it was a little short on bottom time but we enjoyed every minute of it! Amazing underwater conditions today and a great group of dive buddies. Thank you so much everyone for coming out and I hope to see you on the boat again soon! Happy Diving!