What a beautiful day for an afternoon dive! Myself and Max had some really great divers today, and it allowed us to see some of Hawaii’s most loved marine life. With a handful of students and a small family of Discover Scuba Divers, we had decided that it was best to split our group into to to make the best of the time we had underwater.

At our first site, Koko Crater, the DSD’s that went with Max had a great chance to explore and see some of the local sea turtles that often hang out under the overhangs that make up this dive site. They had the opportunity to see some sea stars and eels and got some close encounters with trumpetfish.

Trumpetfish

The students spent most of the dive completing some required skills, including underwater navigation, and passed with flying colors. We worked on mask removal and perfected our buoyancy as well, which we all know is a very important aspect of scuba diving. They did a fantastic job at surfacing with their CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent) and made their way back onto the boat so that we could head over to our next dive site.

After about a 30+ minute surface interval, the divers reentered the water at our second dive site, Angler’s Reef.

An eel at Angler’s Reef

Max and her DSD’s spent time checking out the ledge that makes up the dive site. Sitting at about 40 feet, the site has alot of things to look at. They were lucky enough to spot some conch (which are currently in mating season) and even spotted a huge octopus!

Mating conchs

The students had the opportunity to enjoy the last dive since we had completed most of our skills on the previous dives. With this time underwater, we spent looking around at some of the marine life on the reef as well. We spotted a crown of thorns and some spotted boxfish (which are my personal favorite!).

Crown of Thorns

After we competed our skills, we all boarded the boat and made our way back into the marina with 5 new divers! Congratulations to you all on completing the Open Water course and thanks to all of you for coming out on the boat with us today. It’s all of you who keep us in the sun and in the saltwater doing what we love. Mahalo!

Congrats to our newest PADI divers!

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Crew: Marnie (instructor) Max (instructor) Joe (Captain) Greg (crew)

Conditions: Sunny 81*F, slight surge

Koko Crater: Slight Diamondhead current (SW), 78*F water temp, 80+ ft visibility, max depth 36ft, dive time 36 min

Angler’s Reef: Slight Diamondhead current (SW), 77*F water temp, 90+ ft visibility, max depth 40ft, dive time 28 min

Special dives happen all the time – a pod of dolphins glides by, a school of rays drifts overhead, a turtle comes and sits on your chest.  Another kind is when you just have such good energy with your divers – sometimes you make friends for life!  Another is when you get to mentor a young diver.  yesterday and today were like that for me with Taylor, an incredibly sweet and joyful young diver.  These have been her first ocean dives, after being certified in a quarry in texas, and she just loved everything about them. such a great experience to be part of! Today we moored up at Anglers Ledge, 48 feet, seeing large morays, loads of reef fish, helmet conch, and her favorite, a porcupine puffer fish! She had just done a report on them in school and loved seeing them in the ocean!  2nd jump was Fantasy reef, max depth 53 feet.  the resident turtles gave us a show with their graceful swimming, and today there were huge schools of fish there, many more than usual. perhaps because the viz was down a bit, maybe 60 feet.  just a beautiful day!  thanks to all, Larry, Joe, and Kelsea.

what a great day today!!  bright and sunny, with great viz in the big blue.   Lord Admiral Kendal sailed us out to Koko’s, home of the giant turtles and fat statues.  twin brothers ben and noah were joined by older brother ward for dives 1 and 2 of the Open Water course.  great buoyancy and skills, congrats guys!  also out working on her Advanced was Bostonian Kristina, who was also an ocean first-timer, having been certified in a cold Ohio quarry!  super job by her and the boys, as we cruised the silent world spotting turtles, reef fish, an octopus, and a variety of large eels!  good job all,  thanks,  larry.

KOKO Craters 38 feet 40 minutes

TURTLE Canyons 35 feet 44 minutes