It was a wonderful Sunday diving off the Sea Fox on the southeast side of Oahu. We decided to head for the LCU for the first dive. There was nice viz but a strong current as we headed down the line. On the bottom the current was a lot weaker as we cruised around the site.  We found a white tip reef shark hiding under the wreck and tons of reef fish about the area. There was a large school of goatfish and even a large frogfish hiding on the wreck.

For the second dive we hit the Seatiger as the current was too strong on the YO-257 and had a great dive.  There were a couple turtles resting on the wreck and eels hiding all over the wreck.  There was a large yellow margin morey hiding under the wheelhouse. There were also nudibranches all over the wreck, but soon it was time to head up and go to the last dive site. As we came to the safety stop we saw a couple of ono just hanging under the boat checking us out. Sadly we could catch one for a nice after dive meal.

For the final dive we drifted Spitting Caves. We had nice viz for the last dive and great life along the wall.  We found a couple more turtles around and reef fish all over the place. Wer even had a spotted eagle ray come cruising by. It was a great day and wonderful end to the weekend.

Conditions were great this morning for diving in the Maunalua Bay area. We only had three divers on the boat this morning which made for a nice intimate group of divers. We had decided that we were going to go on two wreck dives this morning, and it came down to which ones we were going to explore. We chose to first dive Corsair and follow it up by dropping down on LCU.

Over at the Corsair, we dropped down on to almost no current, which made for a really easy descent. With such a small group today, we got to have a chance to explore this wreck in a more personal way. As always, it was covered in fish and we came across a crown of thorns on the exposed wing piece.

That particular part of the wreck has been teeming with eels over the last few days, and it was great to see four eels all on that same exposed wing piece! Of course the garden eels were out, which are one of my favorite parts of this dive. This site is one of the only places to see those particular kinds of eels is such large groups.

We spent about 22 minutes at the bottom, which was plenty for this 107ft wreck.  We made our way back to the boat and had a nice long hour surface interval before we dropped down onto the second site.

Over at LCU, we again dropped down onto one of the large schools of fish that inhabit this wreck. Its so cool to swim through and have the fish part as you explore the overturned barge.

We explored all parts of the wreck but did spend a significant amount of time looking under the concrete blocks that surround the boat. There was a ton of different fish under them and it was a surprise under each block.

The top of the wreck (or the haul of the barge) had a lot of marine life on it today as well. It was quite an active day on this artificial reef and it was great to be a part of it.

About 30 minutes passed before we made our way back aboard the Sea Fox and made our way back into the marina. Between the weather and the great company, we had an awesome day out on the water, enjoying the great diving here on Oahu!

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CREW: Marnie (instructor) Joe (captain) Brent (crew)

WEATHER: 81*F, humid, partly cloudy

DIVE PROFILES: Corsair: max depth 107ft, visibility 90ft+, bottom time 22 minutes, 80*F

LCU: max depth 92ft, visibility 80ft+, bottom time 30 minutes, 81*F

MARINE LIFE OBSERVED: crown of thorns, brittle seastar, moray eel, parrotfish

Such a small group this afternoon out on the Fox! It really made for a more personal experience for all of the divers and a really great time for the instructors! We had more great weather (surprise!) and some great conditions out on the water. We listened to a briefing from Captain Joe and set out into the bay for some diving.

We dropped down at Koko Crater right onto a turtle! I think we may have startled him a bit because once we hit the bottom, he took off straight to the surface. What a great way to start the dive! We continued exploring the back crater and then made our way to the Big Buddha statue to see what we could find.

We came across a rather large eel under the ledge, who loves to hang out in this area. There were tons of fish, from sergeant majors to saddle wrasse, and we got to swim through them all.

We came across this pincushion seastar, who had a tiny little crab on it! A pretty cool find under the reef ledge.

We turned the dive and made our way to the back crater and got to check out some of the cool statues that make up the reef ledge. I love this one, which is one of the seven dwarfs from snow white! I still can’t figure out which dwarf it is……

We also spotted this tiny little sea snake that was weaving his way in an out of the coral. I snapped an OK picture, but this little guy was only about 5 inches long. So cute!

We envetually made our way back onto the Sea Fox and enjoyed some snacks and good conversation. We made our way to the next site and were excited to see what we would encounter!

We were really lucky to drop down right ontop of this starfish, another great way to begin the dive! We made our way over to the reef edge and we encounter a massive amount of fish!

It was crazy how many different fish there were! We had a great time swimming through all of the schools of fish and got to snap a couple of really great shots of the divers! After we spent about 7 minutes or so exploring this area, we made our way down the reef edge to check out some other parts of the site.

We came across another eel, and this one was more curious then the others. He came right out and was very interested in the divers. It was quite cool to see him so intrigued, and I got a good shot of him coming out of the reef. However, that wasn’t even the coolest thing we saw!

We spotted this flounder swimming across the bottom. And we followed him along the bottom for the while and came across another just a few feet away! It was crazy how many that we came across at the site!

We made our way back aboard the ship and back into the marina with a new PADI Open Water Diver aboard. Congrats!

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CREW: Marnie (instructor) Max (instructor) Joe (captain) Alex (crew)

WEATHER CONDITIONS: 84*F, Sunny with a Breeze

DIVE PROFILES: Koko Crater: 28min bottom time, 40ft max depth, west current, surge, 81*F water temp

Pa’a’awa: 30min bottom time, 43ft max depth, west current, surge, 81*F water temp

MARINE LIFE: green sea turtle, flounder, pincushion seastar, wrasse, sergeant major, moray eel, seasnake, moorish idol