We started out today pretty much the same as yesterday - up early, bike to Jim’s, and head to the marina.  We had the same lovely boat that we had previous days, and got ready in the same manner.

We headed out for one particular wreck of some significance; however, when we got to the location where there should have been a newly placed marker buoy, there was none (although we did have a few initial GPS challenges, we did confirm we had headed to the right place).  So, we headed off to another wreck, the Tateyama Maru, and proceeded down.  Nice dive, with a fairly intact ship, lots of ammunition, and some bones...human bones, that is.

From there, we headed out the channel up to Shell Island.  As we were speeding along, we saw Marshallese on Ebeye piled up in the backs of pickup trucks, moving along the manmade bridges between islands.  We also passed the Ebeye dump, where they were burning garbage.  Icky yuck.  The dive was in moderately murky water (murky for the Marshalls, not bad for Hawaii), and waited.  Alas, no manta rays, just a white tip reef shark and a spotted eagle ray.

We returned to the harbor, did our quickie lunch, and headed back out again, this time to the Daisan Maru.  The Daisan was fairly deep, and we were pretty close to deco, but it had a very cool gun (on which Jim posed), and lots of life.  Including an Emperor Angelfish.  Nice.  Unfortunately, very short dive. We were headed up the descent line within 20 minutes of start time.  In between dives, as we were changing out gear, a wave hit us, and my butt lifted up in the air and I wound up moving (unintentionally) from port side to starboard side.  I think that’s gonna leave a mark.

We went back to Shell Island, and did our dive again.  Once again, the only pelagics were a white tip reef shark, a spotted eagle ray, and (this time) we saw a stingray.  So, not bad, not mantas, but not bad!

The ride back in was bumpy, ouch!

Dinner again hosted at Malcolm’s place.  What a wonderful crew of people!  Discussion moved towards our return trip in 2011.  :)  What more could a girl ask for???