Aloha -
(Parts of this report may appear in other threads, but decided to do one complete report)
I am back in the great Pacific Northwest after spending 2 weeks in Kona on the Big Island. Got in a total of 6 days of diving.
I was there on a REEF Field Survey. We did 5 days of 2 tank boat diving with Jack's Diving Locker. We had the whole boat to ourselves. There were 12 divers with the group. We did 10 different sites. We also did a day of Shore Diving on our "off" day. I did an additional night dive and 9 different snorkel dives. So, I did a total of 13 dives and 9 snorkel dives covering a total of 16 different sites.
I positively IDed a total of about 164 fish species and a handful of additional invert species. Hawaii REEF only counts fish, so, didn't spend much time looking at or for the inverts. As a group, we collectively saw and IDed 213 species.
Pictures are already posted at TimRenz.com and dive site reports and a video or two will be posted at some point.
The bummer of the whole trip was that dang Hurricane Flossie. I was scheduled to do a Manta/Black Water dive on the 13th. Which was the day before I was flying out. Big Island Divers "invented" the dive and they only do the black water dive occasionally so I didn't have much choice in when I was going to do it. Well, I got the call about an hour before I was scheduled to be at the dive shop that they had called the dive due to the Hurricane Warning. Dang it! I knew it would happen. Everyone told me not to schedule it at the end of the trip. Oh well. Guess I have to go back.
I ended up wearing only a 2mm shorty the whole trip. I was the only one in a shorty in our group. The others were wearing everything from 3 mm long suits to full 7mm with hoods and gloves. One guy even dove a dry suit for his shore dives. They were mostly all warm water only divers and many complained about being cold on most of the dives. I guess 78 degree water is just too cold for warm water divers. I never felt cold before, during or after a dive.
My dive times ranged from 43 minutes (in high current with an AL 72) to 90 minutes (on an AL80). The first day of diving they gave me AL 72s. I wondered why my dive times were so short that day (43 and 62). I always thought I was better on my air than that. The next day they got it figured out and I had AL 80s. I haven't dove those for a while. My big HP 119s are so much bigger. I averaged about 70-75 minutes per dive.
Visibility ranged from about 150 feet to about 50 feet or so. The first and the last dives of the trip were the worst. The first was in high current, at times and places it was so strong you couldn't swim against it and the boat wasn't live. The last dive every invert in the area was spawning, so viz was horrible. It was like swimming in spawn soup. I did get a nice picture of a sea cucumber spewing its stuff.
One other cool diving related thing that happened was on one of our Surface Intervals motoring between dive sites a pod of False Killer Whales showed up. They were very curious and actually approached the boat and hang out with us. I got several very good pictures of them from the surface and then we actually got in the water and snorkeled with them. I got some pretty good video of the group of them underwater.
More detailed site reports will be on my website at some point in the future.
I would have liked to have done more diving, but, with my kids and parents with me, it would have been difficult.
Special thanks to all the locals who may or may not have been involved in any part of the diving process. I just love being in Hawaii and think that that people are just great. Someday, maybe I will be a local... one can only hope and dream.
Mahalo for reading.
(Parts of this report may appear in other threads, but decided to do one complete report)
I am back in the great Pacific Northwest after spending 2 weeks in Kona on the Big Island. Got in a total of 6 days of diving.
I was there on a REEF Field Survey. We did 5 days of 2 tank boat diving with Jack's Diving Locker. We had the whole boat to ourselves. There were 12 divers with the group. We did 10 different sites. We also did a day of Shore Diving on our "off" day. I did an additional night dive and 9 different snorkel dives. So, I did a total of 13 dives and 9 snorkel dives covering a total of 16 different sites.
I positively IDed a total of about 164 fish species and a handful of additional invert species. Hawaii REEF only counts fish, so, didn't spend much time looking at or for the inverts. As a group, we collectively saw and IDed 213 species.
Pictures are already posted at TimRenz.com and dive site reports and a video or two will be posted at some point.
The bummer of the whole trip was that dang Hurricane Flossie. I was scheduled to do a Manta/Black Water dive on the 13th. Which was the day before I was flying out. Big Island Divers "invented" the dive and they only do the black water dive occasionally so I didn't have much choice in when I was going to do it. Well, I got the call about an hour before I was scheduled to be at the dive shop that they had called the dive due to the Hurricane Warning. Dang it! I knew it would happen. Everyone told me not to schedule it at the end of the trip. Oh well. Guess I have to go back.
I ended up wearing only a 2mm shorty the whole trip. I was the only one in a shorty in our group. The others were wearing everything from 3 mm long suits to full 7mm with hoods and gloves. One guy even dove a dry suit for his shore dives. They were mostly all warm water only divers and many complained about being cold on most of the dives. I guess 78 degree water is just too cold for warm water divers. I never felt cold before, during or after a dive.
My dive times ranged from 43 minutes (in high current with an AL 72) to 90 minutes (on an AL80). The first day of diving they gave me AL 72s. I wondered why my dive times were so short that day (43 and 62). I always thought I was better on my air than that. The next day they got it figured out and I had AL 80s. I haven't dove those for a while. My big HP 119s are so much bigger. I averaged about 70-75 minutes per dive.
Visibility ranged from about 150 feet to about 50 feet or so. The first and the last dives of the trip were the worst. The first was in high current, at times and places it was so strong you couldn't swim against it and the boat wasn't live. The last dive every invert in the area was spawning, so viz was horrible. It was like swimming in spawn soup. I did get a nice picture of a sea cucumber spewing its stuff.
One other cool diving related thing that happened was on one of our Surface Intervals motoring between dive sites a pod of False Killer Whales showed up. They were very curious and actually approached the boat and hang out with us. I got several very good pictures of them from the surface and then we actually got in the water and snorkeled with them. I got some pretty good video of the group of them underwater.
More detailed site reports will be on my website at some point in the future.
I would have liked to have done more diving, but, with my kids and parents with me, it would have been difficult.
Special thanks to all the locals who may or may not have been involved in any part of the diving process. I just love being in Hawaii and think that that people are just great. Someday, maybe I will be a local... one can only hope and dream.
Mahalo for reading.
