Maui & Oahu Insider's Guide - The Oahu Questions

[MauiScubaSteve]

I receive one of the big dive mags because it comes with my professional membership. I would really prefer the membership was optionally $10 cheaper without it. I do however glance at every page so I know the propaganda the typical diver/reader is bombarded with.

The featured article in the May issue is titled Maui & Oahu Insider's Guide. After reading that article, I am wondering if my rebellious college days have negatively affected my memory, so I am asking for some clarification on some of the article's details.

Is the Sea Tiger a former Hawaiian fishing vessel, 168' in length, sitting on a 130' bottom? I thought from my numerous dives there that the sand under the bow was just deeper than 120' and at the stern it is less than that. I also thought it was not a fishing vessel from Hawaii. Rainbow Scuba's site claims 189' long, and sank in '99 (same date as Hawaii Scuba Diving's site). Not related to the article, Oahu Scuba Diving's site claims it was scuttled in '96.

The article states the San Pedro was sunk in '96 and "Although partially collapsed by typhoons that have scoured it over the last decade or so, it remains a picturesque home for turtles and whitetips (sic)." Now I did live in Monterey/Carmel '98-'00, but I thought I would have heard about Oahu moving south of the equator and experiencing more than one typhoon!

The next paragraph contains this sentence; "The company that placed the Sea Tiger no longer uses it as a tour subject, so for the moment at least, divers have it to themselves." While not as egregious as the previous gaffs, that's a little misleading I think.

The Mahi gets it's own section, with this as the second sentence; "Placed on the bottom in '96, the Mahi was turned completely around and partially collapsed by Typhoon Iwa, so it is no longer recommended for penetration (sic)." Since Iwa was in '82, typhoons are in the Southern Hemisphere and the popular penetration passage collapsed in this century, do you think someone working for the mag should proof read/google the articles facts before publishing? The Mahi section ends with, "Nearby lava tubes offer a fascinating and natural setting for a second dive", which seems kind of lame as an insider statement.

Finally, the Corsair also gets it's own section, calling it a "genuine World War II relic." The article states that, "two years after Pearl Harbor (sic), the planes pilot ran out of fuel on approach and ditched into the sea." I was pretty sure it was ditched "two years after World War II ended ('46 not '43) but Rainbow Scuba's site claims '45. The article also states "local divemasters say the pilot (sic) is still alive and living on Molokai." I thought Captain Joe said he lived on Oahu?

OK O'hana, let's hear your opinions/facts!

 

[caymaniac]

It sounds kinda like when they tell you all these facts but then none of it turns out to be true, like when MRS. Hillary tells you about ducking bullets...hmm, some call that lying :>0.
If it's printed ... it must be true? Mostly what you read in a newspaper is Bull/hockey, isn't what you're saying something like this?

 

[meesier42]

its a dive mag, being lead by a bunch of .... well, I don't need to say it. I laughed when I read that article because they listed NONE of the good dive sites in Oahu, but then again, I am glad they didn't because I really don't want all the out of town tourist divers that are doing their 3-4 dives a year on the wonderful reefs and destroying them.

 

[Charlie99]

I laughed when I read that article because they listed NONE of the good dive sites in Oahu, but then again, I am glad they didn't because I really don't want all the out of town tourist divers that are doing their 3-4 dives a year on the wonderful reefs and destroying them.

They were consistent at least. They listed 4 recommended dive ops for Maui. They were the bottom 4 on my list of over a dozen dive ops on Maui.

 

[Rickg]

halemano,

FYI, tropical cyclones named "typhoons" only occur in the Northern Hemisphere and then only in the NW Pacific. Naming methodology for tropical cyclones around the world is confusing to say the least. For example, the same tropical cyclone can be named both a hurricane and a typhoon if the cyclone moves from the NE Pacific to the NW Pacific. It can give a person a person a headache to say the least


Tropical cyclone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

QUOTE:
Tropical cyclones are classified into three main groups, based on intensity: tropical depressions, tropical storms, and a third group of more intense storms, whose name depends on the region. For example, if a tropical storm in the Northwestern Pacific reaches hurricane-strength winds on the Beaufort scale, it is referred to as a typhoon; if a tropical storm passes the same benchmark in the Northeast Pacific Basin, or in the Atlantic, it is called a hurricane.[53] Neither "hurricane" nor "typhoon" is used in the South Pacific.

Additionally, as indicated in the table below, each basin uses a separate system of terminology, making comparisons between different basins difficult. In the Pacific Ocean, hurricanes from the Central North Pacific sometimes cross the International Date Line into the Northwest Pacific, becoming typhoons (such as Hurricane/Typhoon Ioke in 2006); on rare occasions, the reverse will occur.[88] It should also be noted that typhoons with sustained winds greater than 67 metres per second (130 kn) or 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) are called Super Typhoons by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.[89]
UNQUOTE:

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

Thanks for the tune-up on tropical cyclones! Ewa was on a North East track, so I will give this one to the author.

There was a t-shirt I should have bought after Iniki; showed the mph of the anemometers all over Kauai when they blew apart. There were lots of +170 mph readings all over the mountain, but there wasn't the necessary corroboration, since all of them spiked real fast and snapped. The official highest wind speed on Kauai was ~150 mph, because those were the only ones that survived long enough for verification.

 

[Rickg]

halemano,

I truly don't know why they haven't gone to a standardized name for the various types of tropical cyclones around the world because their current method is confusing and gives me a headache. Then on top of that the storms rotate in different directions depending upon which hemisphere you live in. I'm just glad I wasn't in HI when Iniki blew through. I don't need that kind of excitement any more

 

[DiveWestOahu]

boy a mountain of "mis"information
sea tiger is definately longer than 200, the mahi is 186'
the san pedro was definetly sunk prior to 96, more like 93~94 along with the 2 707's
contrary to belief the mahi did not move during hurricane ewa, it did settle abit, the barge that sits off of the port bow did move about 100 yards farther away (south) you used to be able to see it on a clear day (I was there the day the mahi was sunk and one of the first to dive it)
the near by lava tubes is probably makaha caverns although there is one cave/lava tube near the mahi called wishing well but no one other than me goes there (for rec diving, some tropical collectors still dive there)

 

[DiveWestOahu]

the sea tiger was built as a fish processing ship,
later in life it was used to smuggle chinese persons and was intercepted and brought to honolulu while awaiting deportation of the chinese nationals, the ship was later purchased by nautilus submarine and after 2 1/2 years of fighting with surfers/canoe paddlers was finally given a permit to sink the ship as a site for the sub to view on tours, company soon after went out of business

 

[scuby-doo]

And just to add some spice to the mystery... though we have all been led to believe the Sea Tiger is a Chinese ship, one of my wreck diver students pointed out to me that all of the buttons and gauges, etc. are labeled in Japanese! Turns out she's fluent in Japanese and told me what each of them said ...

Remember the game "Telephone"? ... I think Oahu dive sites suffer from this a lot