Scuba Dive Reports Oahu - Page 86 of 96 - Island Divers Hawaii

April 13, 2014 – Remarkable Russ’s Scuba Diving

April 14, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Davy Eleen Vercoe

Another windy day in glorious Maunalua Bay, Oahu. Russ’s exclusive group of divers loaded up the Sea Hound for some underwater exploration. After fresh takes on the giant stride entry, cautious swimming along side the rolling Hound, and finally descending with ease onto Turtle Canyons Reef we began our dive. Turtle Canyons is one of my favorite shallow reefs on Oahu due to the wide, long plateaus of colorful coral and fish. The plateaus are followed by a sandy bottom valley filled with nooks, crannies, and crevices. To my surprise we founds numerous different species of Nudibranchs including Gold Lace, Red-Spotted, White-Margin, and Imperial, another reason Turtle Canyons is one of my favorite reef dives.
On our second reef dive at Koko Craters, it was thrilling to find a pair of Harlequin Shrimp since they can be tough to find. Harlequin Shrimp have creamy colored bodies with large purplish spots and banded legs. They look like they belong at the circus but are considered lethal by many starfish when the shrimp flip them over and eat them alive over a span. Luckily, they’re only about two inches tall.

Safe diving,

Davy

Harlequin Shrimp

Gold Lace Nudibranch

Red-Spotted Nudibranch

White-Margin Nudibranch

Imperial Nudibranch

Weather: Rainy, Sunny, and Windy
Dive Sites: Turtle Canyon and Koko Craters
Dive Conditions: 60 ft viz, temp. 75 F
Marine Life Observed: Harlequin Shrimp
Staff: Captain John, Russ, Davy, Bodhi

4/12 Everybody Do The Shark Shake

April 13, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Kellan Bernhardt

Saturday – Nearly ideal tidal conditions allow us to pick any site we want. And today I’m picking Koko’s and Spitting Caves. Koko’s is ideal for some navigation work for Erica, our newest Advanced Open Water student, who was working today on Advanced Nav, and Peak Performance Buoyancy. Also, the ease of the site allows already certified diver Brent from Australia to shake the rust off from not having dove (diven?) for a bit, and Arthur and Joe get some extra diving experience. Next up is Spitting Caves! This site is rare to dive on, as the conditions have to be really good (read:perfect) but I love it because there’s always sweet stuff to see. How about white tip reef sharks? On an afternoon Fox? Yup, Three. One big’un and two little tiny babies. Well, 2 foot babies. We get up close and personal to get some neat footage, and then it’s time to move on. Nice work Erica on day one of your AOW, and to all you other divers out there, stay safe.

White tip sighted!

Getting a closer look

Erica finishes up some paperwork.

Look at those fine chops on Brent! Money.

Weather conditions: Calm, No swell, Light trade winds, Partly sunny.
Dive sites: Koko Craters, Spitting Caves
Dive conditions: Koko’s: Medium Diamond Head current, 45ft, 78F; Spitting Caves: No current, 50ft, 75F
Marine Life observed: Eels, Pacific Octopus, White Tip Sharks! Green Sea Turtle
Staff: Captain Joe; Crew: Kelsey; Instructors: Kellan

Saturday Morning Special 4/12

April 13, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Mark Savel

We had a small group today with just Adam and Daniel diving making it a special charter this morning. We decided on going to Baby Barge for the first dive and had great viz as we dropped in the water. We descended right to the shark cave but only found a turtle in the area. Swimming along the reef back to the wreck we found a couple more turtles and a baby white tip reef shark resting in a small cave. There were a few more turtles resting around the wreck but soon it was time to come up from the dive.

For the second dive we drifted Spitting Caves. It was another great dive with tons of life around. We had a few more turtles including a young, very small one. There was also a large frogfish blending into the reef and reef fish all about. We saw 4 more white tip reef sharks hiding in the caves along the site as well as a few octopus hiding out among the rocks and coral.

Daniel with a turtle

Adam at Baby Barge

Frogfish

4/11 Friday Family Dive Day

April 12, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Kellan Bernhardt

Friday – Marney and I gear up with the Schuhmanns, The Sorensons, and the Pruitts, and we all go diving. Also in cast are the Sellmans, of which Stefan is doing his last dives to become Open Water Certified! Congratulations Stefan! They’re here on their honeymoon from Sweden, and are great sports. In addition we have Todd, Pat, and Chris diving with us, and Divemasters Chirs and David. Super helpful those guys. We jump into the water at Pa’awa Reef, putter around for a bit, see some eels, fish, etc. Finally on our way back to the boat, a tiny titchy octopus! It hangs out for a bit, then makes a break for safety at a small opening. Next up we head over to Mermaids Reef, where Stefan finishes up the skills he needs to do, one of them being the SMB deployment (Surface Marker Buoy). Thanks for coming guys, and congratulations again Stefan for finishing up. May you have many happy and safe years of diving.

The entire clan out to dive with us. Or is it three clans?

Stefan inflates an SMB

Stefan and Ullrika

Underwater shakas are always nice. Kortnee?

Lydia is stylish in a graphic suit.

Weather conditions: 2 to 4 foot south swell, light trade winds, sunny.
Dive sites: Pa’awa, Mermaids Reef
Dive conditions: Pa’awa: Calm, no current, 45ft, 78F; Mermaids: Slight Koko Head current, 40ft, 75F
Marine Life observed: Eels, Pacific Octopus, Box fish
Staff: Captain Joe; Crew: Maximum; Instructors: Kellan, Marney; Staff: Chris, David

Island Divers Cozumel trip report with some of the best pictures and video clips from Palancar Reef

April 11, 2014/in Dive Reports, Dive Travel/by Matt Zimmerman

Cozumel was great! I’ve been saying that a lot this week having just returned from the trip. If you want to hear from us about future trips, use this sign up button

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Arguably one of the best parts of being a dive shop owner is planning and going on dive trips around the planet. Cozumel dive trips are some of the easiest to get to for a lot of former customers and guests. I tend to forget from trip to trip how much I really enjoying doing these trips. As Island Divers grows I trying to get a little more help with some of this planning, which has been working! We already have a Big Island trip to Kona for the manta rays dives in May and a trip to Bonaire in early November planned. You can view the trip flyers for these at Island Divers Dive Travel. For 2015 we have Palau in the works and Fiji at the Voli Voli resort later in the year, sometime July to Oct. Details to be worked out by the end of this April. Okay, enough about the future, let’s see hear about Cozumel.

This first video clip is on short one of what the canyons at the edge of Palancar Reef usually look like. This reef runs miles along the west coast of Cozumel, and dive one of each day is usually done somewhere along this giant drop off.

Click on picture below to take you to the Island Divers Hawaii Facebook album with all the trip pictures.

Here is a great little 10 second video clip of a rarely seen sand crab

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The whales are still here!!!

April 11, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Amy Bossler

Weather Conditions:
Dive Sites: F4 Corsair and Sea Cave
Dive Conditions: Slight swell, minimal current, 100+’ viz
Marine Life Observed: WHALES, green sea turtles, yellow legged hairy hermit crab, garden eels, various nudibranchs
Staff: Capt. Jo, Amy, Larry, Pete, Marnie, Carl, and Erica (crew)

Aloha,
Thanks for choosing to dive with Island Divers Hawaii. We had another fantastic day on the water. Steve, Steve, Mike, Jer, Emily, Todd, Paul, Chris, and Carlos joined us today for some underwater exploration. We had requests for the Navy F4 Corsair and headed there for dive #1. The viz was so good we were able to see the wreck from the surface! This is an actual WWII wreck; not to worry, the pilot survived. The plane actually crashed on a training missing and was later drug out to deeper water. Lucky for us, since it’s a beautiful historic site. We saw some beautiful garden eels, banded coral shrimp, soldier fish, and a silver leaf scorpion. My team enjoyed a nice relaxing :25 dive. During the surface interval we were rewarded with two pods of whales! This was great luck for use as it is the end of whale season and we don’t normally see this much whale action. Capt Jo was also lucky enough to catch a 20lbs yellow fin tuna (ahi). He and his wife will be enjoying some nice seared ahi for dinner, I’m sure. After the ahi action, we headed in for our second dive at Sea Cave. There was a mild current at the entrance. We headed in and found two large yellow legged hairy hermit crabs, a white margin nudibranch, needle fish, and a large sea turtle. We also found a large school of false moorish idols at the end of the dive. Overall, it was a fabulous day on the water. Erica also had hot mint towels ready for us to wipe the salt off post-dive. Talk about good service! We all ended up fresh, minty, armed with great stories, and ready for lunch! Thanks again for choosing IDH. Until next time, dive easy!

Aloha,
Amy

PS- Don’t forget to sign up for the IDH Easter Egg hunt/dive on April 19th! It’s going to be epic! The Easter bunny will be there and ready for his underwater photo shoot. Call the shop to reserve your spot.

STARS THAT FELL INTO THE OCEAN april 10

April 11, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Larry Hogan

Wow, such nice diving today! a flat surface and no current made for a fantastic dive experience on the mighty LCU, our artificial reef that used to be a Landing Craft Unit (and still is!). It sits at ninety feet and is home to whitetip sharks and eagle rays. Plus lots of smaller stuff, eels, nudibranchs, octopus, and schools of fish. Along the side of the LCU we found one of our stars, a sea star, also know as a crown of thorns. one look at it a and you immediately understand why! ouch! (check it out in the photo below) Joining me today were semi-regulars stacy and andy (heading out soon for some diving in the Dominican Republic!), plus Dive Master candidates, david and chris, out working with instructor David, as well as Sunshine Scuba, our japanese friends. 2nd jump was a drift of Spitting Cave, one of my favorites! 3 sharks, 4 frogfish, lots of big and small turtles, plus more stars – cushion starfish and a comet starfish with a tiny regenerating arm! Of course the biggest stars were guest instructor CJ Mac and wife Paula, out for some fun. thanks to all for a spectacular dive day!! Larry

Training with Turtles

April 11, 2014/in Dive Reports/by Marnie Cadden

We had perfect conditions this afternoon for Open Water and Divemaster training! Visibility was great and there was only a slight current which allowed all of the students great conditions to perfect their diving skills.

We had time to enjoy some of Hawaii’s well known marine life, but still had some business to attend to. Both of the divers completed their skills and passed with flying colors.

Putting our diving skills to the test

We even got to feed some of the fish which allowed our divers a hands on experience with some hungry locals!

Enjoying an afternoon snack

Our second dive at Angler’s Reef got our divers into some more advanced skills and proved to the instructors that they were ready to become open water divers.

Working on the CESA

Since the visibility and current were in our favor, we had the opportunity to truly enjoy some of the marine animals that are housed in the coral ledge.

Visiting with the locals

We had two great dives today and some fantastic weather which made for a really awesome afternoon of diving. the boat came back with two newly certified divers. Congratulations Sofie and Mike!

PADI’s newest divers!

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Conditions: Sunny with a slight breeze.

Visibility: 80-90′+

Dive Sites: Koko Crater & Angler’s Reef

Dive Conditions: Koko Crater 90+ vis, max depth 40′, 39min dive time, water temp 75f; Angler’s Reef 80+ vis, max depth 40′, 36min dive time, water temp 76f

Marine life observed: moray eels, trumpet fish, green turtles, wrasse, butterfly fish

Staff: Capt Kendal, Instructors Marnie and David, Crew Chris

Today was an excellent day of diving I started out in the pool this morning with two refreshers and a Discover Scuba diver. Everyone was incredible in the pool extraordinarily comfortable and ready to learn from the Fabulous Maxine. We aced the skills and had plenty of time for lunch. After Davey and I geared everyone up and prepped the boat, we began our journey into Maunalua Bay. We started out at Koko Craters, once everyone had checked their weight, we descended into the deep blue, coming right down on a Beautiful green sea turtle and his friend. We then were harassed by the nesting sergeant majors heading butting more than one diver. After 45 minutes at Koko’s we ended our dive. We got everyone’s gear switched to a new tank and headed over to the next dive site. Turtle Canyons, fortunately the visibility was incredible and my group of four headed in land toward the brighter coral, where we spotted an array of various eels. We were also blessed with a baby green sea turtle, just laying in the sand enjoying the warmth of the water. After a 35 minute dive of excellent buoyancy, we got back on the boat and enjoyed some of the younger gentlemen blissfully jumping off the boat. It was a incredibly fun day with all great attitudes and easy going vibes. Thank you all for coming out and I can not wait until you come out with us again. Davey and I thoroughly enjoyed each and everyone of your company on the boat today.

Weather conditions: 2 to 4 foot south swell, light trade winds
Dive sites: Koko Craters and Turtle Canyons
Dive conditions: Koko Craters; max depth 37 ft, 40 minute dive, temp 74 f, light east current: Turtle Canyons; max depth 40 ft, 35 minute dive, temp 76 f, light east current
Marine Life observed: Green Sea turtles, White spotted moray eel and Cushion star fish
Staff: Captain Joe, Crew: Dene, Instructors: Maxine and Davey and David