My Blue Hawaii

Since Jennifer didn't go on the Scuba excursion, she asked me to write about it. Everyone knows that Scuba is my favorite activity to do in Hawaii. We basically only get to dive when we come to the islands (not a lot of good Scuba locations in Utah!), so we're always a little rusty when we first gear up. All we have to do though is hop in the water and descend 25 feet or so and it all comes back.


The last couple of trips we've gone out to the Lanai dive sites, so this time we stayed closer to Maui. Our first dive was a wreck dive. About 12 years ago several dive shops bought an old shrimp trawler and had the coast guard haul it out and sink it. Apparently the government has a paperwork process for someone who wants to sink a ship off the coast of Maui. :) The ship stayed there until 4 years later when a massive storm came through and the wind and tides scooped the ship up and deposited it on the beach. What would you do in that situation? They hauled it back out, filled the hold with 800 pounds of concrete and sunk it again! Mother Nature tried again 4 years later, but this time only managed to knock the ship on its side, and it's stayed there ever since.


The wreck is about 60 feet down, but the visibility is amazing. You would think you were in a 6 foot swimming pool. The first thing we saw was a frog fish latched onto one of the rails. Not exactly a pretty fish, but certainly interesting to look at. Our group had just begun to circle the deck of the ship when a large sea turtle rose up almost from nowhere and swam in between us. We've seen sea turtles before, but this one was quite large, and if we had wanted to, we easily could have reached out and shaken flippers with him. However, since it's illegal to touch, chase, or otherwise pester sea turtles, we all just hovered where we were and watched him go by.


One of the things I love about Scuba diving is the freedom to travel in all three dimensions - kind of like flying in slow motion. I'm pretty lucky that nothing about the vest, tank, mask, fins, or regulator make me feel claustrophobic or encumbered. Quite the opposite, after the first few minutes at depth I don't even think about them. I love the feeling of being almost in another world, seeing and experiencing things that few people get to in person.



The second dive was a reef dive that varied between 40-60 feet down, and the fish were out in droves. There was another group diving a few minutes behind us, and the photographer went back and forth between the two groups. At one point he was trailing the second group by about 35 feet when he noticed a white-tip reef shark. Although he tried to get the group's attention, they never turned to notice what he was pointing at. So instead he did what any good photographer would do -- he got some good stills and video. :) On the video he made you can see the shark swimming around about 20 feet behind the divers, just checking out the newcomers. Apparently they weren't very interesting, because he eventually turned and swam away.


Brett and I also saw a small octopus hiding underneath some coral. The dive master tried to get him to come out and say hi, but he was feeling very shy and only poked his head out a time or two. All in all a very good time, and I'm already anxious for the next dive!