Archive for category: Diving Courses

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!

After completing all the book work and scoring high on the test and hours in the pool really getting the rescue skills down.  These divers were ready to take the challenge of the open water parts of the class.

We loaded up on sunny Saturday morning and went out on the dive barge.  Bringing unresponsive divers to the surface was a little more difficult in open water than in the pool.  John, Taylor and Louis did a great job.  Then we went on and had them deal with an unresponsive diver at the surface.  Getting them out of gear as they gave rescue breaths back to the boat.  Each of them showed their mastery in these skills and this instructor couldn’t be prouder.

We also had some time to do some search patterns under the boat.  They all figured out the team work very well and recovered my bag of gold, well gold weight bag anyway!

Very, very proud of all the new PADI Rescue Divers….Great Job Taylor, John and Louis!

Current was a little quick this morning so we opted to do a double drift on Fantasy and Anglers!  We were greeted on the way to the dive site with humpbacks breaching!!  What a great start to the morning, plus we had birthday girl Courtney on the boat and also newly engaged couple Sophia and Nathan. (They did it yesterday on our Afternoon charter under the water!!)    Fantasy Reef was fantastic today, with Sharks, to many turtles to count, frog fish and millions of reef fish.  The dive was so amazing no one wanted to come up.

White Tip Reef Shark

She said YES!! Sophia and Nathan

Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle “Hono”

Anglers Reef was  super relaxing today, the current died a little.  We drifted along slowly which gave us time to look in all the little nooks and crannies.  We found a huge tridents trumpet,  purple scorpion leaf fish, lizard fish, loads of eels.  This gave Zach, Sophia and Nathan time to finish up there PADI Drift Diver Specialty.

Lizard Fish

Yellow Margin Moray Eel

Amazing Divers: Birthday girl Courtney, Keana, Kekoa, Lonnie, Tammy, Michael B, Matt, Nathan, Sophia, Neil, Rui, Sanghwan, Eunja, Zach, Heidi, and Michael D.  DMC: Steven!

Amazing Divers!

Dive Sites:  Fantasy Reef, max depth 56 feet, viz 100+.  Anglers Reef, max depth 50, Viz 65 feet.

Dive Staff:  Captain Kendal, Dive Instructors Mary and Ryan, Boat Staff Imran!

Thank you for a great day of Diving!

The skies were grey and the rain was falling but that did not put a damper on these divers day!  By the time we made it to the LCU the sky was bluing and the divers were ready.  There was a little chop in the top but we were greeted with just a slight current and over 100 foot of viz. This dive was filled with students training and divers just getting to explore.  Much of the marine life we loved was there today including a white tip reef shark, eagle rays and millions of reef fish.

eagle ray at LCU

We got to celebrate a birthday on the boat today which is always a good time.  Fantasy reef was our next location.  As always there were to many turtles to count and today they seemed very interested in us.  Many eels, nudi’s and again loads of fish.  There was very little current for our drift dive which gave us loads of times to explore all the reef.  The students completed their tasks and enjoyed the dives.  What a great day.

Moray Eel

starfish

Hawaiian Hono “Green sea turtle”

Spotted Moray

Congratulations to our new PADI Advanced Open Water Student, Sarah, who also completed her PADI Enriched Air class today.  Congratulations to Eric, Completing PADI Enriched Air and PADI Drift Diver Specialties.  Congratulations to Jeff and Kristen for completing there PADI Boat Diver Specialties!  You all did Amazing jobs today!

Fantastic Divers:  Sarah (birthday girl),Stephen, Eric, Jeff, Kristen, Ian, Vince, Bradley, Dan, Jan, Diana, Nick, Phyllis, William B., Tina, and William M.

DMC’s:  Steven, Tyler and Luke

Boat Staff:  Captain Joe, Dive Instructor’s Mary and Davy, and Amazing boat Sprite Kelsey!

Dive Sites:  LCU, Max Depth 90 feet, viz 100+,  Fantasy Reef, Max Depth 56 ft, Viz 80

A new group of students all signed up to become rescue divers.  They were excited and a little nervous starting the class.  They came to class all ready to take the next step in there diving skills.  We finished the testing and all did excellent on the written portion of the class.  Next we were off to the pool.  We spent hours learning all the skills.  Going over rescue breaths in the water.  How to bring a diver up that was unconscious.  Taking care of panicking person.  Self Rescue, missing divers….we covered it all.  By the end of our many hours at the pool they all felt a bit less nervous and really tired!!

Today we all boarded the boat and embarked on our open water skills.  The sun was out and there were some slight winds.  Each of the divers went through the required skills and earned a whole new respect for this sport.  It was tiring and rewarding.  Each of them laughing, being a little frustrated, working through their issues and at last being super proud of this great accomplishment!

Newest PADI Rescue Divers:  Steven, Luke, Penny, Jeremy, Imran, Kevin and special thanks to Tyler (Dive Master Candidate) our victim of the day!  You all are awesome and I was honored to be your Instructor!!!