Wednesday, September 24, 2014

SCUBA Diving Oahu Hawaii With Kaimana Divers

Diving in Oahu

SCUBA Diving in Oahu with Kaimana Divers Honolulu, Hawaii (Me with the yellow flippers)

My dive buddies and I called a few days in advance to book our 3 spots on the boat Nacho! We chose the morning departure as it was geared towards more advanced diving and we believed it would be less windy and calmer waters. The boat leaves twice a day for a 2 tank dive trip. We were picked up at our hotel in Waikiki and dropped at the boat in Kewalo Boat Basin Oahu. Tanks and weights are provided in the cost, other gear can be rented.

Diving in Oahu

A short 10 minute boat ride out to our first location, The Seatiger. She is a 168ft Chinese merchant ship that was sunk in 1999 by a local company as an artificial reef. Here we are getting debriefed on the dive, depth and what marine life we might encounter on our adventure.





Diving in Oahu

Gear-up, wetsuit on, and jump in the water. The water temp in summer is around 79 degrees fahrenheit.

Diving in Oahu

The visibility is not great today due to Hurricane Julio (2014) passing the islands about 2 days ago. We had about 60 feet of visibility in areas.

seatiger

We follow the mooring line down 100 feet to the bow of the boat. The boat bottom rest at 120 feet.

Diving in Oahu

As I got closer to the bow of the Seatiger on my descent, I saw two massive Green sea turtles resting next to each other.

Diving in Oahu

One of the turtles wasn't impressed with our bubbles and he jumped ship for the surface. I believe he was a Green sea turtle. Hawaiian name: Honu

Diving in Oahu

Everything down there must be treated with kindness and respect. As divers, we must do our best to always be aware of our surroundings at all times, and try to not touch anything while we're underwater.  Do not touch marine life, turtles, or coral.  Coral is quite fragile, yet often very brittle and abrasive. However, if you touch it and break through its protective mucous-like barrier, bacteria and other foreign material can break through and actually kill the coral.


Diving in Oahu

It's taken many years of SCUBA diving to achieve perfect buoyancy. Keeping neutral buoyancy while scuba diving is key to less Co2 consumption, safety of reef and others. Fine-tuning your weights and controlling your breathing are important factors to maintaining neutral buoyancy or less buoyancy shift with depth.

Diving in Oahu

Dropping down into a 'cavern' (penetration inside the target venue) on the shipwreck with no lead line. No line was needed since we were only going one layer deep. If multi layer penetration, always use a line so you do not get lost in the venue.

Diving in Oahu

Please note: Do not enter a shipwreck unless you have been properly trained in technical, full-penetration wreck diving.





Diving in Oahu

My dive buddy taking amazing photos of our adventure. I jumped out the window to see some fish!

Diving in Oahu

Two eels hanging out next to each other. The highlight of the dive! I've never seen two eels in the same hole.

Diving in Oahu

Too many divers. We upset the marine life.

Diving in Oahu

I love this photo of two turtles on the Seatiger shipwreck. Once we returned to land, we all head back to the dive shop to talk story about the fish we saw, have a few beers, and update our dive log book.

Our second dive was at MarioLand. The GoPro died. Ops! Need to charge the battery for tomorrows diving with Lisa!

DAY TWO - SCUBA Diving with Lisa - Afternoon diving

Diving Hawaii with Lisa

Afternoon diving is less advance, shallow diving. I really like the dive masters at Kaimana Divers and their equipment is new! Lisa, who use to live in Oahu, got us a Kamaʻaina rate.

Diving Hawaii with Lisa

Drop down to 50 feet to a reef, Lisa and I are enjoying the small reef life.

Diving Hawaii with Lisa

Green Turtle at a cleaning station. Cleaner fish are fish that provide a service to other fish species by removing dead skin and ectoparasites. It's like a spa for fish!





Diving Hawaii with Lisa

Four dives total in two days. I would have liked to see more and get in more diving, but the conditions were not great due to the passing hurricane.

3 comments:

Kaimana Divers said...

Thanks so much for the review!!! I love that you detailed all of the elements (boat, staff, dive sites, critters) and had awesome things to say about our operation. Can't wait to see you again.

Gabe @ Kaimana Divers

Dive.Travel.World. said...

This is a fantastic post. I found this blog to be quite interesting and informative. Continue to share more insightful posts. Also check out Best Scuba Diving Oahu.

Dive.Travel.World. said...

Such an amazing article. I really enjoyed this article. Keep us updating with more interesting and informative articles. Also, Visit at Best Scuba Diving Oahu.