Dive Partner Desired - Maui, May 16-22

[beasleym]

I've been diving Kaui for many years but this is my first visit to Maui where I will have time to dive.

My wife doesn't dive so I'm looking for someone to do some shore dives. It would be great to team up with someone from Maui or anyone that has previous experience in Maui. That said, I'm perfectly open to dive with anyone, or to join other parties that like making new friends!

Have experience diving in my Pacific Northwest backyard, many years on Kaui, and various trips elsewhere including Indonesia.

Please leave a post and I will get back to you right away.

 

[j_spot]

theres always Shaka Doug. He gets great reviews on here, so I would check him out.

 

[Blazinator]

Myself and two other divers are staying in Kihei 14th through 25th, and doing mostly shore diving. Been researching all the sites constantly and would love to have another diver to share stories.

I'm also planning on doing night diving with my black light filter on my 24 watt HID to see the corals fluoresce and hope to find nudibranchs that fluoresce. This should be real cool - was a hit at SB's ITK 2008 night dive #2.

 

[Shaka Doug]

You say that's a black light filter? How does that work? Could it work with other lights or just the HID? Sounds interesting....I've seen black lights in aquariums for the same reason, bringing out the flourescent corals, but have never heard of taking one on a dive.

 

[Blazinator]

You say that's a black light filter? How does that work? Could it work with other lights or just the HID? No, just HID, and some LED's. Sounds interesting....I've seen black lights in aquariums for the same reason, bringing out the flourescent corals, but have never heard of taking one on a dive.

When I researched HID lights before buying one, I realized they use mercury to get the intensity, and being a UV chemist (my curing lamps are 20,000 watts @ $15K each) I knew they would throw out quite a bit of UV along with the visible light (I tested my Darkbuster HID, and it hardened my UV resins within seconds, proving high UV output). So remembering a Blue Planet special where they fluoresced corals in GBR with huge black lights that looked totally awesome, I decided to get a filter for my new HID, since it had a filter ring holder.

Googled and found Roscoe, a theatre lighting supplier, and bought two filters that were dichroic, (which allows 9% more UV passage than dark violet traditional Wood's Glass filters). They cost less than 50 bucks for both AND they cut them to the DIA that I spec'd.

Residual white light leaks around the ring obscured the subject a little, so I covered the filter ring holder with black rubber, and WOW what a show!

The results are far more dramatic than these photos and videos show.

So then I tested the filter at a local aquarium:

I finally made it to the FL Keys for a true test in the wild, and wild is an understatement (see above post for video, and more are on youtube under DrDichro).

Most corals fluoresce from green fluorescent protien (GFP), but many have both green and red and orange proteins which are awesome to consider that you are shooting a blue violet light, and all (dead) surfaces come back to your eye as blue violet til you hit some live coral, and you get colors you never would expect.

Some corals fluoresce both green and orange. I illumined a brain coral that was green in the ridges and orange in the furrows - waaaayy cool.

Other threads about my black light:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...228530-biofluorescent-fun-your-hid-light.html

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/in...cent-glowing-coral-videos-night-dive-2-a.html

You wanna get together for a night dive in May to see this light in action Doug?

 

[Shaka Doug]

That's quite a story. You really know glass. I'd be delighted to do some night diving with you in May. Does this only work with HID? Can you use halogen or LED lights and get decent results? (Whoops, just saw your comment on the LEDs.) It's certainly interesting to me...

 

[Blazinator]

That's quite a story. You really know glass. I'd be delighted to do some night diving with you in May.

Hey Doug, I just sent you a PM for night dives.

"Does this only work with HID? Can you use halogen or LED lights and get decent results?"

Check out the second link in my post above about the ITK night dives, and Roatanman is the last post on the first page, and he has a great idea for low cost UV LED dive lights. Of course his Inova UV LED is less than 60 lumens, while my monster HID is 1750 lumens. The Darkbuster HID may be 8X the price ($390.00) but its got over 28X the light output.

Halogen puts out very little UV - mostly long wave IR and visible light spectrum.

 

[beasleym]

Blazinator - just sent you a note on the night dives.

 

[smellzlikefish]

Black lights underwater-what a cool idea! I may be doing this on Oahu soon. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Blazinator]

Black lights underwater-what a cool idea! I may be doing this on Oahu soon. Thanks for the tip!

If you have a HID light, get the filter and watch the reef light up like you wouldn't believe. Truly a hidden world within a hidden world.

Just don't expect to take good stills, unless you anchor your camera with a tripod for 1 second or more exposures. Video is cool though.