shark's cove in april, the elevator shaft, and a monk seal

[VBlueV]

i just dove shark's cove!
woke up this morning and GQ posted near-flat on the North =D
'tho' viz was only 20-40ft =( we still saw a whole bunch =)

tons of large fish: 3' parrots, 2' blue-trevally, 20" titan scorpionfish [i measured with my fin], the biggest soldierfish i've seen [1'], and a school of about 1000 convict-tangs within the cove.

but the highlight was the full-size 7-foot hawaiian monk seal... all 400+lbs of him!
we were going thru a series of large lava-tubes, when this giant monk-seal drops down thru a sky-light =O woah! [brain processing data... shark/seal/shark/seal... seal! whew =] but then he saw us and pro'ly thought "i'm sorry, i didn't know anyone was in here"... and i tried in my best telepathy to say "it's okay, we're just leavin', you can hang-out in here"... but he turned non-chalantly and meandered away =/

('tho' i've seen monk-seals from shore, this was my first monk-seal underwater =)

 

[fishb0y]

i just dove shark's cove!
woke up this morning and GQ posted near-flat on the North =D
'tho' viz was only 20-40ft =( we still saw a whole bunch =)

tons of large fish: 3' parrots, 2' blue-trevally, 20" titan scorpionfish [i measured with my fin], the biggest soldierfish i've seen [1'], and a school of about 1000 convict-tangs within the cove.

but the highlight was the full-size 7-foot hawaiian monk seal... all 400+lbs of him!
we were going thru a series of large lava-tubes, when this giant monk-seal drops down thru a sky-light =O woah! [brain processing data... shark/seal/shark/seal... seal! whew =] but then he saw us and pro'ly thought "i'm sorry, i didn't know anyone was in here"... and i tried in my best telepathy to say "it's okay, we're just leavin', you can hang-out in here"... but he turned non-chalantly and meandered away =/

('tho' i've seen monk-seals from shore, this was my first monk-seal underwater =)

Awsome....
Maybe I'll keep my eyes open and try to do a night dive there this weekend!

 

[justleesa]

sigh....I wanna see one in the water too! How lucky!! Pictures?

 

[VBlueV]

sigh....I wanna see one in the water too! How lucky!! Pictures?

no pics =/ tho' GQ posted nearly-flat, it wasn't supposed to be totally-flat... so, i didn't want to take any extra baggage so's i wouldn't have to choose whether to protect my camera or my noggin, if a rogue wave tried to roll me on the jaggies =(
... besides, i was too busy yelpin' like a 9irl =O to take a picture =P

break, break...
... let me know if you try that night-dive... i might be able to go.

with GQ's forecast... monday or tuesday might have better viz with 3-days-in-a-row of near-flat... me and jimbo are already plannin' to do a couple dives on tuesday morning (if conditions permit). everyone's invited to shark's =)

 

[justleesa]

dang..I wish I didn't have mandt training on Tuesday...:frown:

 

[VBlueV]

... define "mandatory" =P

jimbo's in the sea-lancers too... maybe after the show-n-tell wednesday, we can all arrange another shore dive... haleiwa-trench might be a player too [turtles and the discovery-channel, hmmm]

 

[VBlueV]

well, i was on the way to e-beach, but decided to look at the surf forecast one last time... cool, flat to the North! shark's cove, here i come again!

this time i was armed with my camera... good thing too, 'ran into a 4+foot wide hawaiian stingray at a depth of 55-feet =)

tip to tail 'had to be 7 feet long...

i was sooo close, 'looked like he had two eyeballs in each eyesocket =/

okay, maybe too close... after a dozen stills and 3 minutes of video...
he must got tired of me =( woah! watch out for that stinger!

oh, and here's the second titan scorpion i've seen in 2 days of diving here...
this one was only a foot-n-half... the one the other day was a bit bigger.

it's supposed to be flat in the North for the next few days... see y'all up there!

 

[justleesa]

We drove up to the North Shore today....B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!

We stopped at a couple of beaches that still had warning signs up and people will still going in the water :classic: ....(No signs at SC though)

 

[mrjimboalaska]

VBLUEV and I dove Sharks Monday, and although I think the surf was up a little, it was awsome to northshore it again, maybe next the Trench? eh Blue??????
Jimbo

 

[VBlueV]

We drove up to the North Shore today....B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!

We stopped at a couple of ^WINWARD beaches that still had warning signs up and people were still going in the water :classic: ....(No signs at SC though)

leesa... thanks for clarifying "signs" were for WINWARD-side =\ whew!
seems most North beaches are relatively "clean".

today, the NNW-swell held-off...
so we jumped into haleiwa-trench... typical trench-viz <20ft. tons-o-turtles tho'!
'even found a tcs with 5 turtles... and, they were actually being cleaned =)

well, 'needed more viz... so 'drove back to shark's-cove for the second tank.
'gettin' churned up again, but viz outside the cove was still good 40-50ft.
'heard whale-song the whole dive! and saw a couple huge spectacled-parrots.
i think i'm startin' to remember how to find all the lava-tubes... not =(
me <------ needs underwater gps

'saw a blue-trevally hangin' out with an eel... swimmin', circlin', bumpin'.
that's the second set i've seen this week. anyone know why?

and, for the smart-ones... what's the common-name for this reddish nudibranch?