Heading back Kona way

This morning was almost perfect!  We got up early (not really, 5 am) in order to get started before the sunrise dive.  We spent the night moored in the bay at Miloli`i.  We were very sheltered for the wind, and spent the night rocking mildly in the surf, unlike the 5 foot waves our previous two nights. 

Back it was into Manuka Bay.  We were waiting for the dive briefing at 6 am, which was not forthcoming, so we bowed out and let the crew know that we would be on our own this morning.  It was good to get in before everyone else and take off for parts where we would not be followed.  One of the first unusual things we saw was a box jellyfish (or what I call a Matthew thingy from the deep).  We continued to tool around, and as we were headed back, I found a dragon moray - woo hoo!  Those are not easy to find.  From there we ran across a group of Heller’s barracuda on our way back to the KA II.  Lo and behold, on the KA II we saw a baby honu on the hang bar.  Too cute for words.

If only I had had my memory card in the Canon.  :p  At least Wayne had his.

From there we moved north, and hit Au Au Crater, a familiar spot, reminiscent of Honaunau, with even another honu towards the end of the dive.  There we saw both beautiful antler coral, and antler coral taking a beating.  And a plethora of yellow tang.  It is good to see the species rebounding.  There was whale song during the dive, and a pair apparently passed us about 200 yards away.  So close to that encounter, and yet so far!

We spotted some pilot whales on our way to our third dive site.  The whales stayed close to the catamaran, so the Captain told us to go ahead and snorkel.  I didn’t get any great shots, they were quite a bit away, but I did get good shots of the dolphins following them along.  And earned my lunch.         

Lunch today was Mexican themed - we had quesadillas, beans, rice, and a guacamole salad.  Very nice.

Our third dive was at Driftwood.  There are two lava flows on either side of a tunnel, and a sandy patch in between.  We entered the deep end of the tunnel and went through.  We found a helmet shell having lunch.  I wish I had seen more, there were over a dozen crowns of thorns across the dive site.  We did encounter a shy porcupine puffer fish, and I had a stare-off with an arc eyed hawkfish.  I think we both won.                                                                                                               

Once we were on board, off it was to “Mantaville,” which is actually the Sheraton Keauhou.  We went in and did an orientation dive for the manta dive tonight, and we noticed hundreds of yellow tangs, eels roughly every 10 feet, and thousands of spiny urchins.  We will have to be careful where we plant ourselves tonight for the dive.  It is extremely silty there, as there is a well traveled harbor.  It felt like I needed to rinse my mouth of the silt when we came up.

Dinner was Italian themed - a spicy marinara sauce with prawns over black bean pasta, topped with kale.  I think that is the only way that I will ever eat beans.  I know my mother cries as I say that... Wayne got the kale from my plate.  Our chef has a tendency to make things spicy and with a lot of garlic.  We like!

Then we were off to manta dive, at what the crew calls “Manta Mayhem.”  It’s a tradition with the dive outfits here - the site has one name by day, and a different, manta based name at night. 

Almost as soon as we reached the dive site, there was a fly by of one manta. I then spent several minutes trying to find a place to occupy where I had something to hold onto - the current was going pretty strong.   That manta was the only one we saw all evening.  :(  Our greatest entertainment came from the local undulated moray, which wrapped itself around several members of our party, some of whom freaked out.  After 26 minutes I was cold.  At 33 I was freezing, and signaled Wayne.  At 42, I looked at Wayne, he looked at me as if waiting for a question, and I signed “boat.”  He gave an ok sign and nodded vigorously.  We followed the chem light lit trail back to the boat and got back on.  In the process, I swallowed a lot of silty seawater, and basically felt like I could not breathe.  After a few minutes of hacking up a lung, I got out of the wetsuit, and into my yoga jammies to start the blog.

Good night, all!

Moving even further south

Super duper busy day.  After our 5:45 wake up, the boat started moving south away from Robb’s Reef, towards the furthest part to which the Kona Aggressor sails - near Miloli`i. 

Our first stop was Tubastrea Tunnel, where we did two dives.  The first dive was very nice - we headed out along coral fingers, through a tunnel and spied through a keyhole.

The water was a pleasant temperature, and there was a lot of sea life surrounding us.  In particular we saw the orange cup coral, a hairy yellow hermit crab, a spiny pufferfish, a red pipefish, and a gold lace nudibranch.  There was a plethora of butterflyfish around us as well.

On our second dive, we broke away from the group and headed out to the farthest part away from our initial dive, with the intent to track it back.  The current was strong!  It was definitely a lot of work.  We did find our first (and only thus far) honu of the trip, and we ran back across the (shy) spiny pufferfish.

From there we had our lunch served.  Sweet corn soup, followed by tuna sandwiches, Korean chicken, salad and pineapple cole slaw.  And lots of water for everyone!  After the work of the dive, it was time to eat.

Our third dive took place off of Miloli`i, at a site called Manuka Bay.  In fact, that was where dives 3-5 happened today!  This site is the furthest south that the Kona Aggressor II can sail.  Wayne and I had asked if we could go further south than usual, as we have not been past Honaunau, and the crew was willing. 

We descended on dive 3, and the water was fully two degrees colder than it had been this morning.  All that could go through my mind were a few swear words punctuated by the word cold.  We were in our 5 mils, and moving slowly.  I think my entire body was purple by the time we returned on board.

We changed into our 7 mil suits to go on the next dive.  As on the dive prior, we went exploring on our own, hitting the swim thrus and tunnels again.  Fish life was plentiful, and there were a lot of juveniles present.  It was quite a sight to see, and a happy sight indeed.

Dinner afterwards was superb.  We had a salad with toasted walnuts, sun dried tomatoes, and fresh mesclun leaves.  This was followed by filet mignon, creamy garlic mashed potatoes and french beans.  It was so good that I actually ate it before giving thought to taking a photograph!  In a wine reduction sauce, the beef was sublime. 

After dinner, it was time for a dry bathing suit and back into the 7 mil.  Into the depths of night we were headed.  The crowd tonight was small, only 4 of us, but it was a great dive.  We saw 2 giant eels (one of which was hunting successfully), 2 scorpionfish side by side, a gigantic lobster, a large yellow head moray, and a decoy scorpionfish.  We never found the dragon moray, but there’s always tomorrow morning, when we will have our fourth and final dive at Manuka Bay.

And now it is time to attempt to transfer over the dive log, finish up the blog, and get ready for the dawn dive tomorrow morning - 5 am wakeup time, and in the water by 6:10. 

Sweet dreams, all!

Moving south

Wake up time this morning was as advertised - crew downstairs in full by 6 am.  Our chef was up at 5:30, getting hot beverages and a continental breakfast ready.

We were welcomed on in style last night, unpacking our dive gear and hanging it over our seat for the week (Wayne and I got new 5 mils for the trip), setting up the BCDs and regulators, and familiarizing ourselves with the stations. 

Then it was in to eat dinner (a boneless pork chop with teriyaki reduction gravy, rice, spinach - didn’t eat that mom - a salad, and more), and to meet our crew.  While they have global experience, they are all from the mainland, and transplanted to our location.

My biggest concern on this trip is the fact that the ship’s nitrox membrane system is down, and will not be fixed until Tuesday evening.  That is 15 dives on air.  We are going to have to be very conservative in order to finish all our dives.

The daily pattern is going to be wake up, breakfast, dive, snack, dive, lunch, nap, dive, snack, dive, dinner, dive.  I can live with that program.  It will be a very physical week for us here on the boat.

Sleep was good, even though the boat was riding five foot swells. While breakfasting, we were moving south to our checkout dive location - a new dive site called Meadows.  We descended amongst the throng.

Great fish life on the first Meadows dive - lots of eels, and tons of yellow tang.  I’m so very happy to see them resurging.  Looks like the work of keeping a ban on collectors is doing some good.

The second dive at Meadows started off well, we took off ahead of everyone else doing the reverse pattern of their dive.  But then an o ring blew in my low pressure inflator hose, so we surfaced, and swam 1/2 hour back to the boat.  Luckily, the crew was able to retrieve the miserably broken o ring from its difficult location, and replace it for me.  Yay!

After dive two, we moved south and anchored out at Lion’s Den.  Wayne and I had done this dive back in 2006 - and there was a dearth of the aforementioned lionfish.  Not the bad lionfish, endemic Hawaiian lionfish.  We did see one on this dive, along with 3 leaf scorpionfish, a devil scorpionfish, a baby viper moray, a yellomargin moray and other great life.  All while listening to whale song!  Woo hoo!  And when we got up, we were treated to a visit from the singing humpback.

Our fourth dive site was thwarted by fishermen and their lines, so we went to Robb’s Reef for dives four and five.  On our fourth dive, my computer was starting to be irritated with my extended depth and bottom time, so we played it safe and averaged about 25 feet.  We did see a longnose butterfly fish in dark form, 3 blue trevallys and even more yellow tang.

Dinner was spectacular again - a Hawaiian farmed Chilean fish with clams in a butter and chive reduction.  Starter was green papaya salad.  Magnificent.

Even better at night was Robb’s Reef.  We saw ghost shrimp, a conger eel, what looked to be a variant of the dendrodoris negris, and many decoy scorpionfish.  Update:  The nudi is a speckled platydoris! Color me happy and put me to bed.  I feel so much better than when I arrived here two nights ago.  Thank heavens for the ocean.  Tonight I go to bed a happy woman.                                                  

Good night, planet!  And thank you to our dive guides James, Matt, Mindy, and Karl for a wonderful day.  And to chef for wonderful meals today.

Spring Break 2014 on the Kona Aggressor II

So last summer I sent an email asking about the kama`aina rate for the Kona Aggressor, viewing spring break as the target week.  We would find out in a week or so, I thought, how much we would need to save in order to go dive.  Well, the price came back in less than 24 hours, and we realized we could book and pay the deposit before I got into school. 

It was done!

I have to say, I think this is probably the best possible break for me.  The past 18 months have been particularly trying with my CASA cases (I love my kids, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve been in the court room every month for 18 months.  My trial that just finished took 15 days, when it typically is one that will only take 3.

My professors all said we need to study over the spring break, so I have text books on my iPad, but I really need a break.  Thank goodness for the ocean.

So we are spending the week off the shores of Kona, doing dives that take us further down south over at least 3 of the days.  I’m looking forward to seeing humpback whales, different sharks, maybe pilot whales, dolphins, and all our Kona favorite fish.  And I’m praying for a whale shark!  There are a lot of favorite old sites (I have 87 dives here, Wayne has 95), but we are positive we will get to see new ones as well.

Today has been nice so far - we arrived last night and checked into the King Kamehameha (now a Marriott Courtyard) after 9 pm, and slept in a bit.  We left for breakfast at 6 am, checked out a new sushi place we have not been on Ali`i Drive, walked up to Longs to pick up a few things for on board ship, and scouted out our lunch location.  On our way back from the initial morning scouting trip, we went to see if there was indeed a pedestrian route up to the Kona Brewing Company (there now is, so walking there is a breeze from the King Kam).

Breakfast was at Java on the Rock, a favorite place to sit, watch the water, and have breakfast.  Free wifi, and you can see sharks from the shore.

Lunch was at Laddawan's Phuket Monkey Thai Cuisine.  It was great.  

And then we went to see my favorite jeweler, Oscar.  His shop is Originals by Oscar.  He is packing up his shop and storing everything in his home, and is only seeing people by appointment.  I sent him an email asking if he would be available next Saturday, when we depart.  He has written back and asked if there was anything in particular that would hold my interest.  I asked if he had any photos of sea life jewelry.  He will hold things I request to look at.  I am sad he is retiring, but at least I got to contact him today.                 

We turned in our dive gear after lunch to two of the crew (James and David), and have at least seen four fellow divers.  They are repeaters from last year.  And then it was off to the library to spend the next 3 1/2 hours in a quiet, air conditioned location. 

The library has wifi for free, so I’m doing the first installment of the blog today.  Most of the entries will be limited as it pertains to pictures, as I will be limited to bandwidth from tethering my iPad, but I promise to keep everyone up to date on the adventures.  I’ll have more on our day when I write again tomorrow.

Happy first day of spring break!

Ungil Beches Er Rak!

I had the rare treat of sleeping in until 5:30 this morning - yippee!!  We went down to breakfast still at our normal early hour, and enjoyed our last breakfast at the Sea Passion.  Although our two stays here have been good, I don’t think we will be coming back, but I would still recommend it as a reasonable location close to the dive centers (Sam’s and Neco).

It’s no secret that we haven’t been happy with Sam’s Tours’ front office this trip.  Dermot’s reorganization and streamlining has made it a less friendly, attentive and discerning operation.  New divers are mixed in with experienced divers, repeat visitors are made to go through dive checks again, the billing system is highly flawed, and the staff at the desk seem to say “No, it is impossible to do that” rather than “Let’s see what we can do.”  If I hadn’t recruited other divers, we wouldn’t have made it to Peleliu (and the gentleman working the front desk actually told me no, we couldn’t go to Peleliu because there was no way he could get permits at 3 in the afternoon).  We signed up, but never got to go on a night dive.  We had five different divemasters and four different boats.  Not that we are complaining about the divemasters, we appreciated them.  The tanks are poorly cared for - so many leaky valve stems and valves, chewed up yoke adapters.  The front office doesn’t have a spreadsheet controlling what gear goes on which boat - we even had to use creative replacements for camera buckets!  And the poor Hammerhead has seen better days, and needs some serious repair.  It just seemed like the front office didn’t care.  And neither do Sam or Dermott.  I am going to have to write to the Traveling Diver’s Chapbook about this visit.  And I don’t think that I can go back there again. 

With all of that in mind, we walked up to the Carolines Resort to check out the rooms.  The manager was quite friendly, and we went up to see one of the cabins.  They are lovely, all with lanai views of the water below.  There are only 8, so the service is very personalized.  I expect that we will be staying there in June this year when we return.           

From there we walked to Fish ‘n Fins - a little over an hour away from the resort.  We walked in and the shop was as busy as Sam’s, but it took only a few minutes before someone came up to us to ask if we were being helped.  And it turned out to be one of the owners - Tova.  She took us around and showed us the operation.  We were both very impressed with the tour.  Despite the December crowd, the mechanics were efficient, not chaotic.  Divers are on the same boat for their entire trip, and the boats are booked by skill level rather than haphazard choice.  The other owner, Navot, is a Naval engineer, and he custom designed the boats.  Each row is set up to enter the water separately rather than jockeying for position on one of two or three entry points.  Each set set has an area to set up the tanks, and its own dry box.  The seats are cushioned!  

Gear rinsing is set up by equipment type and clearly labeled, and the gear is very close to the boats.  The dining area seems clean, and the bento boxes are made in their own cafe.  We spoke with a number of the divers who have used FnF, and they all rave.

Oh, and did I mention, they have a cat?  I’m sold!  We’re booking a try-out visit in June, and asking to tour their live-aboard boat.

From there we walked to Red Rooster Cafe for lunch.   A diver we met yesterday gave rave reviews to their New York pizza, but, eh, hard to do NY pizza outside of NY.  It was passable, but no real rush to eat there again.  :)

We cabbed it back and enjoyed nap time!  After packing gear, logging dives, and starting the difficult photo selection, we headed back to the Taj for our last meal in Palau.  Robert (owner) was very kind to us - gave us the meal gratis, and then arranged to have us driven back to the hotel to get ready to return home.  He has done very well with the Taj, expanding it with a bar, and having a creative menu that is also authentic.  If you ever are here in Palau, you must come and eat at the Taj!

Back for a little rest before the long flights home.  I already miss Palau!