Back to the Red Hill area today

Normal wake up time this morning - 5:30 am.  Coffee was already percolated, and Wayne set up the hot water.  We came out and I transferred dive data off of his Oceanic to my computer so that I could keep my log up to date.  I hit 985 today!

Our first two dives were at Ampitheater.  We went north on our first dive, entering a lava tunnel.  The sunlight through the holes made lovely patterns of light in the tunnel.  We were greeted and followed by a porcupine pufferfish through the tunnel.  It was lovely.  We had a lot of surge, though, so it was a bit challenging.  Plus, I had switched over to a steel tank, and was still a little over weighted with six pounds.  

Our second dive at Ampitheater, we went south.  We went to the arch, where we saw a pair of rockmover wrasse moving together tossing rocks to find their lunch.  Then we went through the other tunnel and made it to the other side.  We were then followed by a motor boat that stopped and started and remained in sight.  Annoying.  As we headed back towards the Aggressor, the boat pulled away.  We got to see four blue trevally, another porcupine pufferfish as well.  Nice dive, even with the surge, the tunnel was manageable.

Lunch was awesome - tri-tip Philly Cheesesteaks.  Our chef continues to outdo himself with his recipes.  We had a portobello soup to start with.  The beef was rare, and there were some snacks from between dives one and two left - crab dip, different cheeses, and coconut macaroons.  Would you believe that Wayne at two of those today??

I feel bad - as good as the food has been, I have been wolfing it down and not taking pictures of it.  Or of the napkin folding done by the dive crew.  You have to see the whole thing to really get an appreciation!

Our third dive was at The Dome.  It is down Red Hill way as well.  There was huge surge and current - the target is to get into a domed area near the back of the site, but the surge really pushed us out.  It was ok, though, there was only a blue dragon nudibranch, of which we have plenty on Oahu.  We did see a very small Comerson’s frog fish, juvenile and transitional rock mover wrasses, and a horned helmet eating a collector urchin.  We thought he should be put over a crown of thorns, but I’m not sure that they eat those.  I was still at six pounds, so overweighted.

Because of the surge, we changed the location of the fourth dive to Ridges, a bit away.  There was still current and surge, even if not as strong.  I was actually a bit distracted on this dive, which was filled with lovely bommies and tiny critters.  My SS1 was malfunctioning, filling the bladder of my BC with nitrox (oh, my precious nitrox, so good to have you back at the start of the day).  I disconnected the hose, and then proceeded with the very cold dive.  We saw a devil scorpionfish, what I assumed to be the spawning of collector urchins, and several eels, two of them swimming freely.

Dinner was spectacular again.  We started with a mixed green/spinach salad with orange slices and macadamia nuts.  Wonderful.  The main course was rack of lamb in a Fijian (I think, I could be wrong) curry, slightly sweeter than Indian curry.  And rice pilaf and asparagus.  Once again, I neglected to take a photo, but I would have felt bad publishing it, because I gave Wayne my asparagus.  Dinner was a triple threat chocolate treat (Wayne has been eating dessert on this trip, btw, particularly enjoying a coffee cheesecake) - chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream.  Decadence, but we have been burning off the calories here.  I soaked my SS1 in a vinegar/water combination during dinner in the hopes that the leak into the BC bladder would stop.

Our last dive was one we have done four times previously, three in Kona with Matthew D’Avella, and once on Oahu with Steve Vincenti of Dive Air.  Pelagic Magic.  Essentially, you wind up 3 miles off the coast, with 3000 feet of ocean below you, and you descend to between 20-40 feet in the pitch black of night.  There is a mass migration of plankton, and other little organisms that come up to the surface to mate, to eat, or just to visit the tourists.  There are also squid and other fish that come closely as well.  We had been tethered the four times previously, this time we were holding on to a line and shining our lights.  My left arm got decidedly sore as we held on and the boat moved quickly.  We did see squid, a lot of small organisms, a squid attacking and eating something, and what looked like rainbow runners (I know Matthew, too far off shore to be rainbow runners, but they still had the same body shape).  We were going really quickly, and didn’t get to see much, and didn’t get to photograph anything.  Ah well, we only stayed down for 30 minutes, so not too much of a loss.  And, on the positive side, no leak into the BC.  Time to service when we get home.

We’re on our way to classification as “Iron Divers,” as we will like have done all 27 dives at the end of the trip.  I have to say that I have needed the ocean and the good food this spring break.  I know I should be studying, but mental health days are important!

Sweet dreams, everyone!    

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!