Time to disembark

Cheers to the world’s most awesome crew!

I admit to being a novice at diving on liveaboards.  I have been on the Odyssey (THE boat on which to dive Chuuk) and the Oleanda (whose fate remains unclear to me) previously.  The Odyssey was pristine, with large rooms (small showers, though), a nice salon, large dining room, and a decent sun deck.  The diving space was also large and comfortable.  And there was a cat on board!  The Oleanda, her sister ship, was not quite as pristine, the rooms were smaller, no real salon, but a really good crew.  The dive sites were virtually untouched, and the sealife as wild as could be. Both were great experiences, ones that I am thrilled to have been part of, and I would never trade them for anything.

But this crew beat them all.  As did the Kona Aggressor II.  The ship is much smaller, as are the cabins.  There is only one crew, not several, to take care of everything on board.  There is one salon and dining area.  But it doesn’t matter.

From left to right, let me introduce our crew:

David:  Dive guide, instructor, flatterer, and hater of fins.  He saw me charging down in the water towards him as he made a manta sign (everyone else had left the water), and we swam together following the two beautiful mantas.  I will not forget him walking barefoot across the sand at Garden Eel Cove, or his habit of hanging upside down, barefoot, from the hang bar.  His sense of humor, dive briefings, and general overall personality were a great part of the trip.

James:  Chief Captain and dive guide.  He has a good solid knowledge of and passion for the ocean.  Quiet, respectful, and good at pointing out critters.  He was extremely kind in directing the boat southward for our checkout dives rather than to the usual Turtle Pinnacle site outside the harbor because I asked if we could go south.  He, along with the other dive guides, gave Wayne and me a lot of space to dive our dives.  And he let us drop in the water to snorkel with pilot whales and dolphins.  I hope that I helped keep a good dive log of sightings for the week for you to write your Captain’s log.  Thank you for a great week!

Mindy:  The Skinny Girl - do not take away her chocolate cake!  Dive guide with an awesome camera who did the success dance with me during our Garden Eel Cove afternoon dive.  Mindy is a former teacher of young children.  “Now divers, we can go the same way you went this morning, where all the other divers are, or we can go the other way and see the beautiful reef with no one else there...”  Thank you for humoring me when I asked for my camera after Will mentioned there were mantas off the port bow, as well as bringing me my fins.  It would have been hard to get down to David without them.   You helped make it so much fun.

Karl:  Co-Captain, instructor and dive guide.  He showed extreme patience with all of us (including new divers), and was a great person for pointing out some small stuff.  The devil wrasse, the harlequin shrimp pair, the fire dart fish, and the undulated moray eating the squirrel fish.  He even gave us good directions on our dawn dive on how to find the dragon moray.  And I did find it!  We did at least provide him with two surprises, finding a teeny, tiny, Thanks, Karl.

Matthew:  Lover of all things small!  Also our sous-chef, serves as the lead chef when Chef Chris is gone.  He was usually a little withdrawn in the early morning (remember, we are happy early risers), but by the time the first dive bell was rung, he was in full swing, and super interactive.  His plan is to eventually go to a one year program, full immersion, in culinary arts, and then come back as the chef on a super yacht (he has done the personal dive guide/deck cleaner route before, like our friend Kevin Davidson).  I really enjoyed talking and diving with him.

Chris:  Chef Chris was absolutely fabulous this week.  He themed each night and based it on organic foods he found locally in Kona, particularly at Costco.  His trade recipes and signature dishes are incredibly good, and I wish he were producing a cook book.  I would buy it immediately, even if it only came in hardcover.  It was really that good.  The Kona coffee cheesecake was so good that Wayne (Mr. No Dessert Ever Man) ate 3 pieces on the first night it was served, and another for breakfast the next morning.  And when he made his Fijian curry lamb chops, both of us sucked the marrow from the bones.  Thank you for deliciously narrowing the calorie deficit this week.

And there you have it.  Originally, this was going to be a short posting, but I just had to sing the praises of the crew of the KA II.  We will be back next spring break for sure.  And hopefully bring a few others with.  Maybe by then, the crew will have a dive cat!     

And then there were two

Dives, that is.

I circulated the dive notebook around this morning and last night to get email addresses.  I’ll forward out the blog and Wayne and my consolidated photos from this trip.

We were planning to do two dives at Turtle Pinnacle today, but the current and surge were too rough.  It’s a shame, because the dive right outside the harbor is so nice.  We’ve seen spotted eagle rays, turtles, sharks, lots of big pelagic stuff.  Another time perhaps.

The first dive wound up being at Kaloko Arches, which we formerly knew as Lone Tree Arch.  It was originally named for the lone tree on the beach.  The area has since grown in vegetation, and I do not know who Kaloko is.  But that’s beside the point!

James led, we were being videoed for the trip DVD.  Wayne and I were barred from entry until James was in with his camera.  We did our giant stride entry together, and then proceeded to follow.  I found a very large yellowmargin moray, and I encouraged it to come out for everyone to see, and James to video.  It went well.

We also saw another horned helmet eating an urchin (reluctantly, it seemed!), went through the swim thru to see ta’ape, and ran across a porcupine pufferfish, devil scorpionfish and an octopus before the safety stop.  While at the safety spot, a pod of dolphins swam through (that’s what you see in the intro photo), and I busted away from the safety stop to chase.  When I returned, I was assessed a 2 minute stoppage time.  Not a terrible price.The break between dives seemed too short, how could it possibly be the last dive of the trip?

We headed over to a site we have dived before.  It is a shore dive, and it used to be known as Old Airport.  It is now called Shark Fin because of an appropriately shaped rock on shore.

We descended to whale song that lasted through the entire dive.  Wayne and I had ditched our tertiary tops, and were diving with five mils and hooded vests that have seen better days.  The coral was breathtaking, so was the continued conversation between a mother whale and her calf.  We saw many, many large peacock groupers, there was a flame wrasse, and it was just surreal.  We would have stayed longer to listen to the music of the deep, but it was just too cold.

Lunch was hot dogs and hamburgers upon on the sun roof.  I had some beer with lunch, and it was good and cold!

We were given the option to go into Kona from 2 until 4:30, or stay on board.  We remained on board, and I updated my dive log, and worked on the blog until I hit a wall, and had to go to sleep.  About an hour later, we got up, I put on my first hint of makeup in a week, and dressed up for our farewell cocktail party before being dispatched to shore to fend for dinner. 

There was an awards ceremony, delightful, where those who received certifications and “did homework on vacation” received awards.  Wayne and I received “Iron Diver” awards for doing all 27 dives, and we got medals to boot.  What a kick! 

I would definitely dive an Aggressor again.

Dinner was at the Kona Brewing Company, where everyone enjoyed their last dinner together.  Hot and muggy, but enjoyable with good company.  What more could a girl want?  To come back next year.

Tonight will be the last night sleeping in a rocking boat, smelling the ocean breeze, and feeling supremely content.  School starts on Monday, and the books are calling.

Good night to all.

Pardon me, sir, can you point out the mantas?

Oh. My. God.

Sorry, had to get that out of the way. We had the most absolutely fantastic day in the world possible today.  I thought that Tuesday was the most awesome, but I was obviously mistaken.

The first dive of the morning was at Aquarium.  This is a site with which Wayne and I are very familiar, each of us having nearly half a dozen dives here.  We splashed into the water ahead of everyone, and headed north.  We went through a swim thru that reminded me of Shark’s Cove, although the washing machine effect was less than pleasant.  We managed to dive from Aquarium to a favorite spot, “Suck ‘em Up,” and we entered through what is traditionally the exit. 

Wayne’s sign for Suck ‘em Up is really cute.  I just can’t quite describe it.

When we got out, we saw a 5’ white tip reef shark that looked reasonably well fed and relaxed.  Unfortunately, the larger group did not get to see it.  We also looked into a cathedral area, where there were two spotted puffers swimming around.  Before exiting, I managed to find a Hawaiian red lionfish.                

On our second dive, we were planning on heading south, but the current picked up strongly, so we headed out on the same direction.  Little did I know, but the valve in my low pressure inflator got stuck again as we headed up, continually filling up my BC bladder, which then vented the air in order to avoid bursting.  When I saw that, I disconnected the hose, but I had lost about 800 psi in about 4 minutes.  I’m just not that heavy a breather.

While we were diving there, we saw a hawksbill turtle, a bigeye emperor school, a few lone pyramid butterflyfish (amongst the myriad of other fish), and then Karl showed us a pair of harlequin shrimp hiding in a head of antler coral.

From here was lunch - vegetable soup (Wayne loved it), a great salad, chicken and cabbage wraps, and sausage and cabbage.  I partook in the salad and the chicken wraps, along with a hot chai tea.  Perfect.  Diving nitrox, I wasn’t at all tired, and didn’t need the post lunch nap.

We were going to do Keahole pipeline, but the current was ripping, so we moved on to Garden Eel Cove.  An awesome selection, if I do say so myself. 

On our first of three dives, Wayne and I headed south to see the garden eels, and we wound up running across a peacock flounder, a peacock grouper hunting with a whitemouth moray, and an undulated moray.  Whale song resonated loudly throughout the dive.  Near the end I found a five pound weight in a weight pouch, and we brought it to the surface.  Will (a fellow diver) then mentioned that there were mantas on the port side of the cat.  I asked for my camera, and Mindy brought me my fins as well.  I reentered the water, descended to meet David, and got to shoot stills and video of two mantas.  What a great surprise.

Second dive of three had a smaller group.  We headed north, away from the other divers, and were rewarded almost immediately with a manta.  And then another.  And then three others.  One of the five was missing his cephalic fin, as well as part of his tail.  This was likely because of fishing line that kept wrapping tighter and tighter.  :(

I have absolutely no idea what else we saw on the dive.  Zero.  Period.  And I think I am famous as the crazy redhead dashing after manta rays, hair streaming behind her as she pulls up her hood, pulls out her camera, and searches for manta rays.  I thank the crew and our fellow travelers for putting up with me.

We paused for dinner - our last night dining with Chef Chris.  He made a wonderful meal - an oriental salad with Chinese cabbage and cucumbers, and other good veggies.  Then out came the main course - huli huli chicken, Okinawan sweet potatoes in a coconut milk sauce, rice, and carrots.  I’ll leave everyone to guess how I liked this meal!  Dessert was individual servings of pineapple upside down cake and vanilla bean ice cream.  Great final dinner with the chef.

And then we move to the last dive of the day.  Our night dive with the manta rays.  As I opened the blog, Oh. My. God.

There were at least 19 boats out waiting for divers and snorkelers to get into the water to begin the viewing.  During dinner and afterwards (we were waiting for all the other groups to get in and to have been there for a while), mantas were swimming up around the catamaran.  After the other groups entered, we started getting ready.  It really worked out well.  We swam past 3 mantas getting to our “manta circle.”   We had an overhead pass-by of one manta, and then we waited.  There was one consistent manta after about 5-8 minutes, and then the other groups started leaving.  Then James (Captain and dive guide extraordinaire), came back and brought three mantas with him.  We wound up with a total of four before we finally headed back to the ship, bringing one manta along with us.             

Everyone was up and excited at the end of the dive, unlike most other nights here, where we all fell asleep.  I love the benefits of nitrox.

Good night to all, and sweet manta dreams!

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!