Diving Courses Archives - Page 2 of 6 - Island Divers Hawaii

Three Tanker Bliss! 8/28

August 28, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses, Images/by Mary Christensen

The last three tanker of August was hands down fantastic. We had nice weather, slight wind and sunny skies. The LCU wreck had amazing visibility of 150+ feet and no current. Everyone had quite the shark adventure down there. We saw big white tips and baby white tips, several hundred barracuda and to many kinds of reef fish to count. Some of the divers were doing their PADI Enriched Air class, so they got to extend their bottom time. We also have a “Try Nitrox” program so several of our other divers just got to sample what it’s like. This made for some epic dives.

Schooling Barracuda

Diamond Head is always so majestic to see from the ocean vantage point. With a back drop of blue sky and white billowy clouds it was breath taking. The YO 257/ San Pedro wreck was super today for sea life. As we came down the line there were four turtles right at the mooring. Everyone was pretty excited about this. It was a bit cloudy down there but we made our way around with zero current. The turtles and morays were everywhere this morning. We also got to make some of the Atlantis Submarine riders happy, waving to them as they went by. Always see the flashes going off as they are very interested in our diving. As we were exploring the bottom of the sea Capt Joe and Mikaela were busy preparing our lunch and getting all our fresh tanks out.

Spitting caves is one of the favorite dive sites of customers and staff alike. We did a very nice long drift dive here. Our favorite frog fish have returned to the sight and this was fantastic because many of our divers had never seen one before. We were also graced with quite a few other fun things including sharks, turtles, eels everywhere and a scorpion devil fish. Weaving in and out of the rock formations and small caves on the nice Diamond Head current. This was a great dive for all. Again Capt Joe and Mikaela worked their magic topside with fresh pineapple and chocolates which everyone really enjoyed! It was a great day out on the sea. Congratulatios to Ken on completing his PADI Advanced Open Water class, he did excellent. Also Congratulations to Chris and Ken on their PADI Enriched Air Specialties! You both really did awesome today.

Frog Fish

devil fish right in middle…look close

white mouth moray

White mouth Moray…Look close you can see teeth.

LCU: Max Depth 95 feet, Viz 150+, Wreck dive. YO-257/San Pedro: Max Depth 90 feet, Viz 50 feet, Wreck

Spitting Caves: Max Depth 50 feet, Viz 100 Feet, Drift

Awesome Divers: Celine, Chris, Eric, Emma, Greg, Kate, James, Janet, Ken, Matt, Renee, Bruce, Tessa, and Craig!

Amazing Dive Crew: Capt Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Sarah, Crew Mikaela!

Super Saturday! 8/13 AM

August 13, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

Basking in the sun as we made our way to the historic Corsair plane wreck, all the divers were ready to go. Making the decent to the wreck at 107 feet was fairly quick, everyone was excited to see the wreck. We had visitors from other countries and made a few bucket lists a bit shorter today. The wreck is still in amazing conditions in over 60 years on the sea floor. She went down in 1948 and sat there ever since, Corsair is the only natural wreck on our island. Today, Kristen was doing her PADI Enriched air class and there was really no better place to try it out. We also had Thomas working on his PADI AOW certification. My favorite little purple leaf scorpion fish was there and posed a bit for pictures.

Prop on Corsair

Fantasy reef always delivers for us on dives. It was an awesome turtle-fest down there today and our divers really got to see them up close and personal. Drifting west, we moved up and down over the reef. Went through the swim thru. Got to see more turtles and eels than you could count. This reef is always so great because we take super good care of it. Our divers today were no exception to that rule. The practiced great buoyancy and had fun doing it. All in all today was a perfect start to the weekend! Congratulations to Kristen on completing her Nitrox and Drift Specialties.

Been seeing this turtle with odd tail a lot.

Curious turtle extending his neck

Lazy Hono just hanging at his rock.

Dive Sites: Corsair, 107 max depth, 100+ viz, Wreck

Fantasy Reef, max depth 55 feet, 75 ft viz, drift.

Awesome Divers: James, Nicole, Hope, Jessica, Kristen, Matt, Michael, Mike, Thomas, Vanessa and Shawn.

Amazing Dive Staff: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructor Mary and Fantastic Kelsey as boat crew!

Monday’s are made for Diving! 8/8 AM

August 9, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

We had just a small group of divers today but it was perfect! Justin was doing his PADI Enriched Air class so we got to do an extra long dive on the LCU. With a slight bit of surface current we got to the upside down LCU and it was perfect. Schooling barracuda, octopus and such a huge array of reef fish. We took our time looking around exploring out in the Z blocks and then back on the wreck. The wreck was so peaceful, it was a dream dive.

Hiding Octopus….we see you!!

growth on the wreck

We made our next drop on Hawaii Loa. This is a hidden little reef and when I say little I mean nice sized shallower reef! Since our group was small we opted to go to a lesser visited site and take our time. It was down right amazing. We spotted three different baby turtles!! They were the size of basketballs and if you know anything about our Hawaiian Green sea turtles you know how big they get. These little guys were pretty interested in us and swam around the group quite a bit. We also found another octopus that did some great free swimming right around us. Also we got to see a pari of elusive Saddled Butterfly fish which was super exciting. We got to do just a couple minutes short of an hour dive which made everyone very happy. This was a super day for diving.

Baby turtle swimming with James

Baby Turtle

baby Hawaiian Green sea Turtle

Saddled Butterfly fish

free swimming octopus

Dive Sites: LCU, max depth 95 feet, viz 80 feet, Wreck

Hawaii Loa, max depth 35 feet, viz 80 feet, reef dive.

Amazing Divers: Tracy, James and New PADI Enriched Air Diver Justin!

Dive Crew: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructor Mary, Dive Dog Saffron!

Perfect Last Day of July, 3 Tanker! 7/31

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

Sunday mornings are always the start of our favorite dive of the week, 3 Tanker!!! A great group of divers and students came out today to enjoy the day. LCU was a great first choice, max depth 90 feet and 100+ foot of visibility. Defending down we saw a huge school of barracuda and four schooling eagle rays. The rays stayed on the the site the entire time we were there. Our photographers had great opportunities to shoot amazing pictures.

PADI AOW Students making their way down.

Eagle Rays!

With a view of the very green Diamond Head we made our way to the YO-257/San Padro wreck sites. Most of our divers have never got the chance to dive this site before so it was very exciting to get to do 2 wrecks on one dive site. Sometimes this dive seems like you have jumped into a full aquarium and today was no different. On the decent schools of moorish idols and sergeant majors engulf you. Today the site was teaming with sea life, everything from sharks, eels, eagle rays to small nudibranch’s and turtles. This wreck is in amazingly great condition, even some of the smaller delicate pieces.

Green Sea Turtle

Yellow Margin Moray Eel

Bluespine Unicorn Fish

YO 257

Great Coral growth on wreck

Yellow Tang and more of the Wreck.

Coming back around Diamond Head all the divers enjoyed lunch and talk about the last dive. We picked Fantasy Reef as our last site and had a pretty good west current for our drift dive. It was many of our divers first time doing a drift dive and finding out how much reef you can cover with very small effort. It was a great dive and as usual we got to see tons of turtles. Weaving our way around the reef, through the arch and chimney swim through was great for all. The large helmet shells were out in force and seemed like a convention. This was the most relaxing dive of the day and a perfect way to finish up. Kelsey and Capt. Joe had fresh pineapple and chocolates for the divers as we laughed and talked about the day. Another perfect three tanker day!! Congratulations to John on completing his Advanced Open Water class!

Awesome divers: Chase, Christian, Chri, Stephanie, James B, James M, Jared, Jeff, John and Stephen!

Amazing Crew: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Jeremy, and Kelsey our fantastic Boat Crew!

Dive Sites: LCU, Max depth 95, viz 100+ Wreck

YO 257/ San Pedro, Max Depth 95, viz 85, Wreck

Fantasy Reef, max depth 55, viz 100+, Drift

Historic Corsair and Fantasy Reef 7/20 AM

July 20, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

In 1946 the Corsair plane went down on a training mission and sits on the floor of the sea. This is where we started our dive day today. This wreck is always highly requested so we get out there quite often. It sits at 107 feet at the sand, surrounded by the graceful garden eels swaying with the water movement. The visibility was excellent today at 100+ feet and the current was very light. There is a resident green moray eel that lives there that was quite active today. Swam out of the wing towards the garden eels then back again, poking its head out and inspecting all the divers. Also there were two scorpion leaf fish there, one purple and one black that were moving around quite a bit under the tail section. The divers taking many pictures. This was a bucket list item for one of our divers and boy was he happy to put that check on the list. Caitlin and Khaled doing their PADI Enriched air class, got to spend extra time at the site.

Corsair Wreck

Scorpion Leaf Fish

Corsair Wreck

Front view Corsair Wreck

Yellow Margin Moray

Free Swimming Yellow Margin

With a slight easterly current we did our drift dive at the ever popular Fantasy Reef. Surrounded by large Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles we drifted slowly. The first small cave we looked in had a small white tip reef shark in it. Through the swim thrus and always having the dance of all the reef fish around. So many things to see on the way. Today, I think I saw some of the largest turtles that I have seen on the south shore dive sites. Poking our heads under the last large overhang on the main reef got to enjoy to rather large 5-6 ft white tip reef sharks hanging out with a turtle. Pretty exciting for all the picture takers. This was a very leisurely dive for all. Back on the boat on the way in with Marissa provided us with hot minty towels to freshen up with. Another awesome dive day here.

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle

Diver with swimming Turtle

Milletseed Butterfly fish

White Tip Reef Sharl

Shark and Turtle

Aloha!

Ornate Butterfly Fish

Green Moray Eel

Dive Sites: Corsair, max depth 107 feet, 100+ Viz, Wreck dive

Fantasy Reef, max depth 55 feet, 80 ft viz, drift

Awesome divers: Khaled, David, Eric, Kelly, Caitlin, Nathan, Aaron, Paige, Rochelle and Severin.

Dive Crew: Capt. Joe, Dive Instructors Mary and Jeremy, Crew Marisa.

2 Dive, 2 New Dive Masters!! AM 6/28

June 29, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

The upside down LCU sits in around 85-90 feet of water. When it was sunk it flipped over, laying on it’s wheel house on the sandy bottom of the sea. This affords us a very interesting daytime prospective of seeing the nocturnal fish that dwell there. We were met by a mild current but amazingly clear water. The eagle rays were circling as we decended to our site. As the group was down there was a huge green sea turtle doing a dive on the wreck also. He became more interested in the divers for awhile then made his way off the wreck. We also got to see a huge (300-400) schooling barracudas. That was quite a sight.

Barracuda

LCU with Divers

Spitting caves is one of our favorite dive sights and the conditions were perfect to see the sights. So many things to mention on this dive, eagle ray, sharks, so many turtles, eels, octopus, scorpion devil fish, The group was happy to move along slowly and explore all the small caves and wall on the way. We don’t often see the eagle rays there but a very mature adult one swam right by us today. All of our photographers had more subjects than they could ever hope for. This was also a fantastic setting for Audrey and Ben, they completed their PADI Dive Master Course!! Both put so much hard work into their training and we are all very proud of them!

So many turtles

more

eagle ray

As always on the boat we cleaned up all the gear and were refreshed with hot moist minty towels from the crew to freshen up with!

Dive Sites: LCU 85-90 feet, Viz 100+, Wreck dive

Spitting Caves: 50 foot max depth, 85 feet of Viz , Drift dive

Awesome Divers: Audrey, Ben, Courtnie, David, Andrea, Hanea, Carrisa, Sarah and of course the Amazing Sheila!

Amazing Dive Staff: Captain Joe, Dive Instructor Mary, Crew Marissa.

Three Beautiful Dives! 6/25

June 27, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

Sunny skies and calm waters greeted our fantastic dive group today. Descending down on the LCU we had 100+ of visibility. We saw the eagle rays lazily circling the wreck. The LCU lays upside down on the ocean floor and sits on it’s wheel house. This makes it pretty interesting for us to explore the underneath area of the wreck. Exiting the door on the side of the boat we went and looked around the Z blocks that surround a good portion of the wreck. Coming back we then made our way towards the back and up over the top. Such a nice relaxing dive and so much to see.

The YO 257, pictured above was our next stop. It has been one of our top wrecks to dive on for such a long time much changed when it used to be top side. This is an old Oiler and is in fantastic condition on the bottom of the sea. We had a little current but crystal clear water again. Schools of reef fish surrounded us as we dropped down the line. We also made our way to the San Padro which sits 70 feet away. On the far side of the San Padro we got to encounter 2 rather large white tip reef sharks asleep. Also should mention we had encounters with eels and turtles. Another great dive in the books!

Our Drift dive today was at Fantasy reef. Again we were lucky enough to have great visibility which was perfect so we could see the many many turtles that swam around us for a good part of the dive. We had a very special visit from a baby green sea turtle. He was about the size of a football and all the divers were super excited. Two more sharks on this beautiful reef for us to see and so very many eels. All and all this was a perfect Sunday to dive! A Big CONGRATULATIONS TO Jared on this PADI Advance Open Water Certification! Great Job.

LCU: 95 feet, 100+ viz, wreck dive

YO257: 95 feet, 100+ viz, wreck dive

Fantasy Reef: 55 feet, 100+ viz, drift dive

Thank you to all our Awesome Divers: Audrey, Ben, Dan, James, Jared, Julie, Liza and Ruben.

Amazing Dive Staff: Capt. Kendal, Instructor Mary and Crew Britney!

Turtles, eels, and fish! Oh my! June 20

June 22, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Chelsea McLaughlin

The water was still relatively calm as we made our way out into Moanalua Bay for our afternoon dives. We had a few people completing their Open Water certification, a few working on the Advanced certification, and some certified divers. Conditions were lovely and we were able to head out to Fantasy Reef (max depth 55ft) for our first dive. We stumbled upon an octopus right at the base of the mooring, which was a great way to start out our dive. As we swam along, we ran into multiple turtles and little eels. One group even saw an eagle ray! The shark cave didn’t disappoint: there was a small whitetip reef shark trying to get comfortable for an afternoon nap.

Our second dive site was Turtle Canyon. The current was a little strong, but there were hundred and hundreds of little gold ring surgeonfish in a mating aggregation. The water looked so dark as the fish swarmed. We found a few little nudibranchs, a small hawaiian green sea turtle, and even an octopus!! The best part of the dive for me was swimming through the massive gold ring surgeonfish aggregations. It was so great to have these little fish so close to us and not caring that we were there trying to swim along. Congrats to the Todorinovs who are now Open Water divers!

Amazing staff: Capt Joe, Inst. Chelsea, Larry, and Jim

Drifting Sunday!! 6/12

June 12, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

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

Whata Wednesday! AM 6/8

June 8, 2016/in Dive Reports, Diving Courses/by Mary Christensen

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

Three Tanker Bliss! 8/28

Super Saturday! 8/13 AM

Monday’s are made for Diving! 8/8 AM

Perfect Last Day of July, 3 Tanker! 7/31

Historic Corsair and Fantasy Reef 7/20 AM

2 Dive, 2 New Dive Masters!! AM 6/28

Three Beautiful Dives! 6/25

Turtles, eels, and fish! Oh my! June 20

Drifting Sunday!! 6/12

Whata Wednesday! AM 6/8

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