Mary Christensen

Shark, Rays, Eels, Oh My Monday! AM 1/30

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Yan and Si came out for an amazing dive today.  They braved the winds we had this morning and went to LCU and Fantasy Reef today.

With the over 100 feet of visibility we were all happy just coming down the lines in the slight current.  The schooling barracuda were there and boy were they there!  Hundreds and hundreds of them in fact.  Under the wreck the long nose butterfly fish were swimming upside down, because they can.  Swimming out the far side of the wreck we were greeted by the barracudas again!  Then while gazing up to them the eagle rays came into view.  Just two of them to begin with but they were big.  We looked around at all the hiding places in the Z Blocks and got to see and array of many reef fish.  At the top of the wreck we looked for the Tinker’s butterfly fish that lives around that area but could not find it.  When we came to the far side of the wreck we found the Eagle Rays again….and right under them a Shark!  This was the thing Yan and Si had requested to see today so they were pretty stoked.  The white tip reef shark swam around us for the rest of the dive!

Fantasy Reef was totally clear and amazing also.  The turtles put on quite a show for us and seemed very interested in what we were doing.  The eels out on the reef as they always are keeping a watch over there coral reef home.  The swim thru’s were bustling with activity today also.  We had the regular reef fish, loads of turtles, eels, great barracudas, octopus, sea hare,  even got to see one of the solitary Guinefowl Puffer fish.  This is a pretty uncommon sighting for us so it made all pretty happy.  This was an awesome dive and we really just took our time soaking it all in.

Yan and Si were so happy with diving the are coming back tomorrow to do it again!!

Dive Sites:  LCU, 100+ viz, wreck dive.   Fantasy Reef, 100+ viz, drift dive

Awesome divers:  Yan and Si!

Amazing Dive Staff:  Capt. Joe, Dive Instructor Mary, and Crew Tim!

 

Mary Christensen

Magical Monday!!

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The winds had died down from the weekend and we pulled out of the marina heading to LCU.  The water was clear and the viability was amazing.  There was a slight current but it was no challenge for our set of fantastic divers.  As we dropped on the wreck we were met but a huge school of barracuda!  This is always an incredible site to see so many of them together.  After checking out the underside of the boat we made our way out into the Z Blocks.  We were not let down with the sea life out there.  One of our favorite small white tip reef sharks was sleeping in his usual lair.  We were also greeted by 11…yes ELEVEN Eagle Rays.  This was a beautiful dive today.

 

The winds were right, the tide was right, the divers were happy…..Spitting Caves was our next dive.  We had an window and we took it.  We got to see a monk seal the the surface but he didn’t join us under the waves.  Our drift was filled with sites to see….Sharks, Octopus, Eels, Turtles,  Frog Fish and about a million reef fish!  The drift was a nice lazy drift and everyone had a great time exploring all the caves, nooks and crannies!!

Dive Sites:  LCU, max depth 95 feet, viz 100+, Wreck Dive

Spitting Caves, max depth 50 feet, viz 100+, Drift Dive

Awesome Divers:  Dan, Jamel, John, Michael, Phil, and Yin

Amazing Dive Staff:  Capt Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Dave, Crew Tim

This was a super day!  Thank you one and all for coming out!!

Sarah Moore

Friday the 13th Dives

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Today was another gorgeous day out on the boat in Maunalua Bay. We had an excited group of divers on the boat ready to blow some bubbles on the fine aloha friday. The current was kicking pretty strong so we decided to do a double drift today. First drift we did was a really cool dive called the Barge Drift. We have quite a few wreck dives out here in Maunalua Bay and few of them are close enough that if you navigate correctly you can hit multiple of them on one dive! So that’s what we did. We started out at the shark cave just west of baby barge where we were greeted by a pretty large, 5 foot maybe (everything looks bigger underwater..), white tip reef shark. We then cruised along the ledge until we hit baby barge. There were tons a fish around the wreck today and a massive barracuda lurking in the middle of the water column. We then kept cruising along the ledge and found a devil scorpion fish, a master of disguise. After finding a couple moray eels we hit the rock piles. Large cement blocks all dropped for the purpose of artificial reefs. There are great big schools of fish that hang around these rock piles. Then we hit our second wreck, New Barge. At this point we started making our accent and completed our safety stop. Just as we were hitting the surface after our safety stop we ended up right over top of the LCU. An awesome dive with lots of cool stuff to see. The second drift we did today was Keanu Reef. A 70 foot reef with great big coral heads. There were quite a few moray eels around the reef today, both small and big. We found a blue dragon nudibranch, love those little guys. And as we were doing our safety stop a spotted eagle ray swam underneath us! Overall a great day of diving with some great dive buddies. Hope to see everyone out on the boat again soon. Aloha!