I found the frogfish!

Never say good bye because saying good bye means going away, and going away means forgetting.  — Peter Pan

Matthew made a great morning breakfast for us, served with the usual panache.  We had toad i a hole, bacon, has browns, and eggs to order.  He made my toad in a hole scrambled for me!  Customer service at its finest.  A lot of operations could learn a thing or two from our Aggressor staff.

Our first dive of the day was at Paradise Pinnacle.  I didn't remember this dive from Jack's Diving Locker in 2006, and I still don't! Despite the dive log entry.  At least that log mirrored what we expected to see down here today.  We went down to the larger pinnacle, immediately past it and mini-me to another pinnacle, where we saw another Tinker's and I saw the long nose hawkish in the black coral. I seriously think I narced down there, I lost sight of Wayne, and completely spazzed out.  I don’t enjoy an unhappy narc, let me tell you.  We also saw several eels and the carapace of a sponge crab. There was a little hammerhead shark on the surface that some of the boys chased, but never caught.  Good for the hammerhead!

We stayed at the Pinnacle for our second dive.  We went back to the black coral, and I used my flashlight to light up the long nose hawkfish - twice. He lost it both times as it chose to flit away as he was focusing. I hope my pictures come out. Then we went into the canyon areas, saw a honu. The surge was pretty powerful. We ran into Karl and the divers. Karl asked if we had seen the anthias. Wayne said yes, I said no. Karl brought us to a conger eel (I thought it was dead, but apparently it had been interacting with Karl and the other divers just a short time before), a Hawaiian lion fish, and then to the anthias. Beautiful. Also present was a juvenile rockmover wrasse.

Nice dive.  Really nice dive.

We enjoyed a hearty lunch en route to our third dive site.  We started with New England clam chowder, which was very warm and flavorful.  We did do a little bit of a hot sauce treatment, but only to add a little more spice rather than flavor.  Matthew also prepared a cobb salad, corned beef and cabbage, a roast vegetable wrap, and a cous cous salad.  Wayne was in veggie wrap heaven, and I snuck some more clam chowder.  

Dive three was at the Dome, the site where we found the itty bitty frogfish last summer.  Descended several minutes behind all others and then totally proceeded to ignore the Dome. Found a very large yellow margin. Wayne took us into a cave, did a sharp u-turn into me and I hit the ceiling. Give the man a turn signal. Headed back near the boat with Wayne combing the sand. I went to the adjacent rubble patch and found the peacock razor fish. I signaled Wayne I wanted to go look for the frogfish, he signaled ok. I took off, headed for the same coral head where we found one last year. Lo and behold, there was a HUGE frogfish. I got James' attention and directed him. Most divers followed. Found two stragglers and pointed them in the same direction. Then we circled, did our safety stop and exited.

We were initially excited about the fourth dive at the former Sheraton Keauhou, as there were mantas swimming on the surface.  I spent the entire dive waiting to see mantas that never arrived. Wayne had a good time taking face pictures of collector urchins. He has quite the collection of faces going - I can see Grover in them.  For me, this dive was meh.  I was hoping that we would not be doing a manta dive again tonight, as the surge was still unpleasant, and the number of spiny urchins at this dive site is more than moderately intimidating.

Tonight was a seafood dinner night, and quite delicious.  We started with a warm spinach salad with mushrooms, onions and balsamic glaze.  That was followed by thin spaghetti with a garlic white wine cream sauce infused with saffron (are you drooling yet?), and garlic and pepper seasoned jumbo shrimp.  Four thumbs up!  Wayne benefitted with extra broccoli on his plate.  :)  And dessert was fried ice cream with corn flakes and coconut, hot fudge and caramel. Thank goodness we are doing five dives a day in very cold water.  Otherwise, my waistline would be expanding exponentially.

For the final dive there was the option of a manta dive, a reef dive, or the pelagic magic dive.  We had absolutely perfect condtions for the pelagic magic dive, so I’m glad it was decided thusly.  A pod of dolphins came through early on, pretty magical.  It is the only reason that I regretted leaving my camera on board.  Hopefully James got them on video, but we shall see.  I didn't see a lot of the longer critters, but seeing the dolphins made it enough.  Wayne saw a lot of the small stuff and the long critters, guess I needed to be lower.  We broke free at 30 minutes to go back on board.  Yay hot chocolate!

How to know when you need a new wetsuit

January 7, 2015

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy - Thelonius Monk

Actually, I don’t think we are crazy, but I do think a change in wetsuits is necessary.  We’ve had ours for over 10 years now (the 7 mils, that is), and Wayne had to repair a split in the crotch of his last March after our prior Aggressor trip.  I can tell that he is getting colder and colder as the days go forward and the number of dives tick upwards.  We had a serious discussion about new wetsuits this morning at breakfast (a breakfast sandwich on a croissant, and hash browns), and I set forward ordering our new wetsuits.  We will be leaving the old 7 mils here when we get off the ship; hopefully there will be a use for them.

After a morning dive at Manuka, we were going to head north again today.  We swam back to the bicolor anthias and garden eels, setting up a final photo opportunity.  Wayne was not comfortable with navigating to the site, so I was in charge.  No worries, we got there without a problem, and Wayne got to see the anthias.   We also saw 3 great pacific barracuda, lizard fish and eels galore, and explored a part of the bay we hadn't seen yet.  There we found a nice window pair in the walls, great for a photo opportunity. Alas, we never found the dragon eel.

The next dive was at Oz.  It has this name thanks to its “yellow brick road.”  Oz is a lava ridge wall from shore to 20 feet, with sand patches and reef giving way to a ridge that extends straight out off shore 200 feet.  The top of the wall starts at 40 feet, sloping to 80, and it is covered with yellow lobe coral.  There is a lot of finger coral. Ten years ago I would never have floated gracefully above it, I would hover terrified. It’s amazing that diving is a sport that definitely shows improvement thanks to repeition.  We didn’t find the elusive frogfish here, but a lot of cornet fish.

Lunch was absolutely delightful, assorted pizzas, Caesar salad, pasta with creamy pesto sauce, and sausage and peppers.  And Wayne was very happy with his broccoli cheddar souop and leftover chocolate nutella pie.  We were forced into a short food coma following the repast.

Our third dive was at Au Au Crater.  We searched for and found the bandit angelfish (too deep to photograph) and the tinker's butterflyfish. I went to take a photo of the tinker, but my battery had died!  I spent several minutes signalling Wayne about the tinker, but he was entranced by a wire coral goby.  Finally, I got his attentinon, and Wayne took the shots. We returned to the boat at 45 minutes, as the tear in Wayne’s wetsuit was worsening, making him very cold much faster than usual.  I am glad we ordered new wetsuits this morning.

Dive four was Robb’s Reef.  No camera for me, as my backup battery was dead too.  I wound up fully charging both over the next several hours.  It was a nice dive.  We saw Heller's barracuda, a gold ring surgeonfish with a chunk missing from his head, and lots of long nose butterflyfish dark form everywhere!  I did sort of feel naked without my camera, it’s like an extension of my being.  Oh well, teaches me, doesn’t it?

Supper was another grand affair - today was a Hawaiian theme!  We started with a Hawaiian greens salad, and then the main course came out.  We had rice, kalua pulled pork, purple sweet potatoes, and luau leaf.  That’s probably the only cooked green that I will eat voluntarily.  Too bad there was no poi, I’m pretty sure Wayne missed his poi.  Dessert was something that I might consider sacreligious - a bacon brownie fudge sundae.  That is not something that I would normally consider eating, but it was tasty!  Even Wayne wolfed his down.  I think we set records on these live aboards regarding Wayne’s consumption of sweets.  Who’da thunk it?

During our night dive at Robb’s Reef, my spidey senses were active!  No camera again, but I was ok about it.  We saw a slipper lobster, pair of decoy scorpionfish, a parrotfish sleeping in its sack, a Henshaw’s snake eel (my find!), and, the pièce de resistance, a baby manta that followed us back to the boat and did loops underneath for hours.  Lovely end to the day.

Beating the swell

“If you can’t be batman, always be batman.”  No one said the quote of the day would make any sense.

Wayne was thrilled with his breakfast this morning - a Greek omelet.  I had a plain cheese omelet, sausage and hash browns.  Good, hearty fare to prepare us for freezing during our morning dive.

Our first dive of the morning took us to perhaps my new favorite dive site off the Kona Coast.  Hard to believe that any site would beat Honaunau, but this certainly did.  Discovered in June, Pele’s Playground has only been logged 25 times by the crew. On our first dive, we descended into the canyon to about 80 feet in search of a Tinker’s butterflyfish and a big hand lobster. While both are theoretically there, we saw neither. We did see a number of other good things, to include wire coral shrimp and a HUGE titan scorpionfish, you will see it below. Like I said, it was a beautiful reef. If I were a Hawaiian fish, I would live here.

We remained at Pele’s Playground for our second dive.  We decided to try to find the tinker’s butterflyfish at the start of our next dive. This time we went down to 100 feet and worked our way up. No dice, no tinker’s. We did see the big hand lobster, though. And I got a beautiful shot of a white mouth moray with Wayne in the background. It was as though we were having a private conversation We also saw a baby green sea turtle, so adorable. With all that awesomeness, it was hard to go wrong on the second dive either. Again, this was a vibrant reef that I would like to dive again.

Lunch was a welcome treat - cream of tomato soup, roast chicken legs, baked macaroni and cheese (no, not for Wayne!), bean salad (no, not for Stephanie!), and a Mediterranean salad.  We just eat so well on the Aggressor, it is unbelievable.  But divers do travel on their stomaches, so you’d better prep us some really good food!

And then we went to our southernmost point of the trip.  Manuka Bay.  I had fond memories of this site from our first trip.  First Officer, Captain Karl, pulled me to the side to tell me how to get to a patch of sand, and a lava rock, where there are garden eels and bicolor anthias. This site is at about 90 feet, and Karl was not positive all the divers could get there, see the anthias, and then make it back for an extended dive time. We went down, and the directions were spot on. There was a rock where at least 10 of the anthias could be seen at any time, right in the middle of the garden eels. We continued our dive circling around the bay, where we saw scrawled filefish, Potter’s angelfish, flame angelfish, and baby ta’ape. The landscape at the bay is wonderful - filled with lava fingers, arches, and little caves.

The fourth dive found us cold before we even entered.  The water delivered a cold shock when we first got in, and it got progressively colder through the dive. We began our hunt for the elusive dragon eel that we found last year. Alas, we did not see him, but I got plenty of quality time with my favorite creatures of the deep - eels of just about any kind. Fish life was abundant too, but I was captivated by free-swimming undulated morays of substantial size, as well as by huge yellow margin morays. The yellow margins looked to be bigger than six feet long, and their girth was impressive. As we were headed to our safety stop, a HUGE yellow margin popped out of the rocks to say hello. After my heart started to beat again, I took its picture.

Dinner was magnificent.  Matthew is truly an artist, and he takes such great joy in preparing meals.  We started with my favorite salad, the caprese.  Delightful, I could have eaten seconds or thirds.  The mozzarella was fresh and moist, the tomatoes meaty and flavorful.  Color me happy.  The main course was braised beef short rib in beef stock and red wine reduction, roast asparagus, and au gratin potatoes.  Dessert was chocolate nutella pie.  Wayne had thirds.  I wish I had ordered the small poriton of the short rib, as I could not finish it to save my life.  Too tasty to waste, but waste is what I wound up doing.

And finally it came for our night dive, still moored at Manuka Bay.  I set a time limit of 30 minutes given how cold we were at the end of dive four. Wayne heartily agreed. We stayed close to the boat, so we didn’t have quite the show we had at the night dive last year, but we saw two small stout morays, a flowery flounder, what appears to have been a Therese’s sole, a scrawled filefish, and a porcupine pufferfish. All interesting enough, but not as sexy as last year! We came up at 43 minutes, so we extended our bottom time a bit. As we approached the ship, there was a school of blue trevally under the boat, and a horde of crocodile needlefish at the surface. Wayne was pleased that we got out of the water before we froze to death. And we were wearing 7 mils.  Thank goodness for hot chocolate surface intervals.

Cruising the Kona Coastline

Surprisingly, some of the crew has been getting up consistently earlier than we have.  And not taking post lunch naps!  Hmm.  We were presented with bananas foster french toast, ham steak and eggs to order for breakfast - along with the typical continental style early morning buffet.  I was drinking as much warm beverage as I possible could this morning, but just not coffee.  I think I am getting less and less tolerant of it as I get older.

Playing beat the weather today, and heading south down the Kona Coast. 

First dive of the day was Ampitheater.  Super large yellow tang under a ledge. We went into the amphitheater area, swam around a while. Karl came back to us later in the dive and took us through the L-shaped lava tube, a little enclosed for my liking, but I made it through. You would think after 20 years I would have this one down. Still feeling a little overweighted with 6 pounds, maybe the 7 mil is compressing somewhat.

Dive 2 was also at Amphitheater.  Went to the other lava tube, much larger. Karl was trying to convince Wayne to do a crawl through space, which I vetoed. We saw a hawksbill turtle - juvenile - at the end of the dive, a camera hog. Whale song and dolphin chatter throughout the dive.  Then we started heading down the coastline.  As we were approaching Kealakekua Bay and headed towards Honaunau, we were treated to a little bit of tail action - humpback whales!  I absolutely adore those critters.  It took a significant amount of convincing to get me off the upper deck and into the salon to eat my lunch.  Once again, a feast fit for a king and queen.  Mexican fusion salad, chicken tortilla soup, beef and bean tortillas, Mexican rice, refried beans, jalapeno poppers, and nachos.  And water.  Lots of lots of water.  I can’t emphasize how important it is to remain hydrated while on one of these trips.  

Today’s saying was by another unknown author - Laugh as much as you breathe and love as much as you live.  I think it applies!  Especially when you consider that today I did my 100th dive off the Kona coast.  Finally!  But I’ll still never catch up to Wayne.

One small problem with our menu today - Chef Matthew forgot to include what the meat would be for our dinner.  Literally, we were only having salad, burssel sports, rice, and chocolate cake.  Where’s my meat?  Augh!!!  Luckily he hand wrote in the main course.

Dive 3 was at Lion’s Den, famous for lionfish.  Cold dive exploring with Mindy. Saw a devil scorpionfish, 3 leaf scorpionfish, and 2 tiger cowry. Still whale song. No lion fish here, though. :/  Maybe some other time.

I haven’t been logging our snacks, and I probably should.  The order of the day is breakfast, dive, snack, dive, lunch, nap, dive, snack, dive, dinner, dive, and then wine.  But there’s just too much to process in a day - between a blog and the dive log, it gets a little crazy.  Maybe next time we dive off of the Aggressor I will log the snacks too.  Or maybe not.

Dive 4 was somewhere new - The Hive.  First time ever on this site,the boat is triple moored, making it very stable as a dive platform. Lots of bommies. My hooded vest is farting quite a bit on this trip. Saw a long nose dark form, Hawaiian lion fish, and a green sea turtle who also loved the camera. This dive marked my 100th on the big island.

Once I knew what the main course was, I was much more excited by dinner.  We started with a greens salad, strawberries on top, with a champagne vinaigrette.  There were sauteed brussel sprouts (kept true to my promise to my husband and ate one), seasoned wild rice, and honey dijon garlic herb and butter panko encrusted lamb chop!  SCORE!!!!  Matthew won big points with me for his dinner efforts tonight.  He finished up with his decadent chocolate cake.  He literally called it decadent chocolate cake.  And Wayne had more than one piece.  :)

Our night dive kept us at the Hive.  Found the red hawaiian lion fish again, this time more active; also a decoy scorpionfish, a white mouth moray, and saw a conger eel eating a soldierfish. Cold, went up at 45 minutes.  I am supporting my decision that on this trip that if I’m too cold and not having any fun, I am done!  

Kicking it off with a swell - and some mantas

Chef Matthew has instituted a small change with menu presentation, he now has a saying of the day.  Today’s was “Be a pretty cupcake in a world full of muffins - Author Unknown.”  I think it is going to be a fun week.

Breakfast started us out in wonderful form - blueberry pancakes, Portugese sausage, and eggs to order.  Nom nom time.  We were well set for the morning’s dive.

Our checkout dive was at Aquarium.  Check out dive with Mindy, Wayne was having some difficulty with the $99 replacement housing for the Canon G12, and he didn’t seem thrilled.  I reminded him that it took me several dives, and then working with the housing top side for me to be comfortable with it. It probably got worked up when he put the camera in the housing, it did that to me as well. The dive was nice, we were set free even before we headed down.  Saw two octopus, a pair of devil scorpionfish sititing side by side.

Dive two was also at Aquarium.  Saw a fairly large porcupine puffer, a large undulated moray, and a huge school of pennant butterflyfish. Chilly on deck between dives! Definitely overweighted for the 7 mil.  Alas and alack, no harlequin shrimp like last year, the pair seem to have gone away.  It would have been good to see them.

Lunch was warm and very welcome!  Matthew prepared an Asian fusion salad, miso soup with chicken won tons, tofu with orange sauce, fried lumpier, Fijian curry with shrimp, and blended grilled cheese sandwiches on sour dough bread.  We have a good number of vegetarians on this trip (read as more than one), as well as a gluten free passenger, so Matthew has his work cut out for him trying to be innovative for all kinds of eaters.

The rest of the dives today were at Garden Eel Cove.  Much like last year, a manta showed up at the tail end of the first dive.  It was very surgey on the surface this afternoon, made reentry onto the boat very difficult. Nothing like being battered about. Karl saw a manta ray below the ship on this dive, we were sorry to have missed it. Will look for it at 4 pm. No garden eels, but we did see Heller’s barracuda, and several long nose butterflyfish in the dark form. As I mentioned, very bumpy exit.

Second dive was as difficult as the first.  In a word, ouch. We dropped down, and took off. Several people skipped this dive. Whale song throughout the dive, just kept looking into the blue to see if a whale was evident. Alas, no luck, but we did see a stumpy tailed manta flew by us, spectacular. Also saw a reticulated butterflyfish, and a fairly large white mouth moray.

We were very, very cold at the end of the second Garden Eel cove dive.  I even changed bathing suits, which I try not to do too frequently.  I huddled up trying to suck the warmth out of my spouse while wearing my warm Aggressor pullover.  I love that fuzzy thing.  Wayne tried it on himself, and we let Captain Karl know we were going to buy another one on this trip.  A warm dinner was more than welcome.  Tonight was a hydroponic greens salad, sliced red potatoes with French onion and asiago cheese, sauteed garlic green beans, roasted chicken thigh and a peach and raspberry crisp.  One thing I am noticing with Matthew is that he prepares more food than his predecessor, who I feel prepared exquisite food, but only enough to keep me from starving to death.  I had better be on all the dives in order to make sure that I don’t gain weight this vacation!

The third dive at the Cove had to be the worst manta ray night dive I have ever been on.  I loaded up with three extra pounds to help with the surge.. No such luck. Bounced around like a basketball for the entire time of the dive. We did see two manta rays, one was HUGE, the other smaller. 5 blue trevally were with us along the way, probably looking to feed on the krill as well. Also saw a really large moray - yellow margin maybe? - swimming along the floor on the way back. We wound up heading back in after 25 minutes. 

I am sooo sticking to the if it’s no fun, get out of the water after you can legally call it a dive.  I think this was probably the most uncomfortable dive I have ever had at night for mantas.  I stopped taking pictures after the first few, bungeed my camera to my BCD, and held on to a large boulder for dear life.  Really truly for dear life.  This boulder and I were picked up and relocated several times during the course of the manta show, so I’m certain I missed quite a lot.

On board the ship, warm water shower, and bed.  I’ll admit it, I’m a tired puppy.  I could barely log my minimalist dives before wanting to crash into neverland.  It’s been a while since we did five a day, I guess I should be tired.