A few days ago Sean AKA "Divebuddysean" calls and asks if I want to dive Molokini ... why not. After discussing all the cool sites we both want to see we get word that there are 2 DSD on board, which means we will be doing the inner reef, but that's fine with me because I've been wanting to explore the basin of the crater with the scooters
After sleep driving to Kihei at 4:30 am :S we got geared up on the boat and headed out with B&B Scuba http://www.bbscuba.com. The plan is to follow the contour of the reef out along it's edge from Enenue to Reefs end (point to point on the crater rim) but no deeper than 140fsw and when we get to 1500psi come up 40 fsw and spend the rest of the dive there (btw RB was 1700psi)
I've been looking forward to this ever since I discovered that I don't get near as narc'd at depth since I started using a scooter. So this will be my deepest dive planned yet. We drop in and while it's still dark (sun won't be up for another 10 minutes or so) we can see nearly 100 ft. The vis was INCREDIBLE, as the sun shone thru the water the vis increased to at least 200 ft. We headed out and found the reef ended at 130 fsw (I never dropped below 128 today) where we were treated to a close visit by the largest Ulua (Trevally Jack) I have ever seen - a solid 4 foot long at least. From there we followed the contour of the reef as it rose back up to 70 fsw taking us thru huge schools of penant fish and damsal fish. Next we jumped across the sand channel where the garden eels live (I love watching them), circled around them to where they are thickest (probably 200-300 of them or more) at 90 fsw and then briefly left the crater bowl at the 60 fsw level. About 50 yards around the edge we turn back into the bowl and scooter back across the middle of the crater. It turned out to be a little deeper than I realized, so we were in 50-55fsw instead of the 40 we had planned on. We continued on up to the inner rim of the crater circling a snorkel catamaran boat and another dive boat slowly working our way up to 20 fsw where we scootered for about 5 minutes, then up to 10 fsw for the last 5 minutes as we approached the boat. We ended up having a 47 minute dive with more fish, better vis and larger Ulua than I have seen on any other dive. Our total route took us just shy of a mile and every minute of it was exillerating
I didn't take a camera, but hopefully Sean will post a link when he puts up his photos on his website.
Aloha, Tim
After sleep driving to Kihei at 4:30 am :S we got geared up on the boat and headed out with B&B Scuba http://www.bbscuba.com. The plan is to follow the contour of the reef out along it's edge from Enenue to Reefs end (point to point on the crater rim) but no deeper than 140fsw and when we get to 1500psi come up 40 fsw and spend the rest of the dive there (btw RB was 1700psi)
I've been looking forward to this ever since I discovered that I don't get near as narc'd at depth since I started using a scooter. So this will be my deepest dive planned yet. We drop in and while it's still dark (sun won't be up for another 10 minutes or so) we can see nearly 100 ft. The vis was INCREDIBLE, as the sun shone thru the water the vis increased to at least 200 ft. We headed out and found the reef ended at 130 fsw (I never dropped below 128 today) where we were treated to a close visit by the largest Ulua (Trevally Jack) I have ever seen - a solid 4 foot long at least. From there we followed the contour of the reef as it rose back up to 70 fsw taking us thru huge schools of penant fish and damsal fish. Next we jumped across the sand channel where the garden eels live (I love watching them), circled around them to where they are thickest (probably 200-300 of them or more) at 90 fsw and then briefly left the crater bowl at the 60 fsw level. About 50 yards around the edge we turn back into the bowl and scooter back across the middle of the crater. It turned out to be a little deeper than I realized, so we were in 50-55fsw instead of the 40 we had planned on. We continued on up to the inner rim of the crater circling a snorkel catamaran boat and another dive boat slowly working our way up to 20 fsw where we scootered for about 5 minutes, then up to 10 fsw for the last 5 minutes as we approached the boat. We ended up having a 47 minute dive with more fish, better vis and larger Ulua than I have seen on any other dive. Our total route took us just shy of a mile and every minute of it was exillerating
I didn't take a camera, but hopefully Sean will post a link when he puts up his photos on his website.
Aloha, Tim
