Jeff and I had a mini-vacation to Kona last weekend, in conjunction with a work meeting I needed to be at Tuesday and Wednesday (hooray, frequent flier miles).

Naturally, the Wednesday before our trip, my doctor strongly suggested I NOT GO DIVING. Of course I asked what exactly she was worried about – if it was just that my ear infection would come back, I would risk it. But apparently she was somewhat concerned about the integrity of my eardrum. Not wanting to risk all the rest of my dives for the year (or, you know, my hearing), I heeded her advice.

My ear actually felt okay, except I couldn’t hear out of it – I gather there was still some gunk blocking it up from the infection. Yuck. Anyway, I was cleared to fly and to snorkel, so I was sure I’d still have a good time. And Jeff would be able to dive.

We flew out Friday morning, and landed around lunchtime. Naturally, we headed straight for beer and the world’s best pizza over at the Kona Brewery. Seriously – it’s that good, and not just because it’s in Hawaii and you can watch the mongooses run around in the shrubbery while you’re eating your pizza and working on your tan.

Saturday we were up bright and early for a two-tank dive with Jack’s Diving Locker. They’ve bought a new boat since the last time we were there; it’s almost twice as big but only takes a few more divers, so there’s more room to maneuver. I kind of miss the charm of the old boat, but it was still great to see the same old divemasters that I’ve been diving with for four years. I also bumped into a DM I know from here in SoCal; he spends 8 months a year working the boats here, and four months working for Jack’s. Pretty sweet retirement gig!

Jeff plopped into the water with the rest of his dive group, while I bobbed around on the surface building up my library of topside video footage. Sigh. I now have many, many shots of divers entering the water, the boat at mooring, and diver’s bubbles floating up from below me, taunting me with my be-snorkeled reflection.

What the real divers got to see on dive #1

I bitch about it, but it was actually quite relaxing to get to spend a day out on the water without having to fret over scuba gear.

And, as it turned out, the highlight of the day wasn’t on either of the scuba dives anyway. In between dives, we motored offshore in search of whatever critters might be hanging out in the blue. We found ourselves in front of a huge pod of pilot whales, which I’d never seen before. About a dozen of us slipped into the water just in time to watch them dive down and under us – not quite close enough to photograph, but a darned cool sight just the same.

Pilot whales surfacing near the boat

As we were finning around, waiting to see if any other whales would turn up, one of the divers calmly announced that we were being circled by a shark. From his relaxed tone of voice, I thought it might be something small and boring – but no; we were being cruised by an oceanic whitetip shark.

Jeff photographs an oceanic whitetip shark

She was gorgeous – about ten feet long, solid muscle, and just slowly circling all the snorkelers, seeing what we were up to. Every time she’d make a pass, all the photographers would hold our breath waiting for her to turn towards us for a good shot. But as soon as she did, that gut instinct kicks in – there’s a SHARK COMING RIGHT AT YOU. I had one slightly nerve-wracking moment when it looked like she was going to go right under me. I thought: do oceanic white-tips mind having a snorkeler right over them? Because if I was a shark, and something got that close to my head, I might want to BITE IT.

Whitetip shark headed straight for me

Whitetips are kind of funny. They routinely turn up on the “top 5 most dangerous sharks” list, but aren’t usually aggressive to divers. On the other hand, they’re apparently somewhat moody. A whitetip might show up and just be chilling out, and ten minutes later decide that it’s in a bad mood. This is much more likely when there’s more than one – and sure enough, as soon as one of the snorkelers thought they spotted a second shark, the boat crew shooed us all out of the water.

I should also point out that these sharks are in much more danger from people than we are from them: something like 99.7% of their population has been wiped out for shark fin soup.

After another dive, we took a break for dinner before meeting up with a different dive operator for a manta night dive. I was looking forward to doing the manta dive as a snorkeler, to get a different perspective on the action. We’ve done this dive three times before, with anywhere from three to eighteen mantas showing up.

This time? Zero mantas. Know what’s more boring than a “manta dive” snorkel with no mantas? Nothing.

Jeff had a fun night dive, though. In fact, he was the only scuba diver on our boat, so he and the DM just went off by themselves and had a blast.

Sunday was pretty much the same drill. The first dive was at Manta Ray Bay, right outside the harbor. This is where I saw a tiger shark several years ago, and other big critters often cruise through. Nothing so exciting showed up this time, but there was a really pretty area for snorkeling close to shore.

This would have been my third frogfish EVER if I’d actually been on the dive:

Once again, the real excitement was between dives. As we prepared to leave the harbor, a humpback whale and her calf showed up. Boats aren’t allowed to come within 100 yards of humpbacks – though if you stop the boat, and the humpback comes to you, that’s just fine. So – that’s pretty much what we did. At one point, they came right by the boat for a few breaths. The little guy was always right next to mama, like a little mini-whale. They were pursued by a pod of playful spinner dolphins for a while, just as curious about the whales as we were.

Humpback whale and her calf

The last dive was at Eel Cove, one of my favorite dive spots. This was the first time I was really jealous of the divers below: there were several times when I could see cool things going on down there (hunting eels, octopus) but was totally unable to join the fun, or even to get the attention of any of the photographers to point them out!

After the dives, Jeff and I hopped in the car and headed south to Place of Refuge. Turtles often hang out there in the evenings, so we planned on snorkeling around and seeing if any were friendly. Once again, there’s a rule about approaching them – but if you snorkel around the boat ramp, there’s not much keeping them from approaching you! I got tired of the murky water pretty quickly and headed over to snorkel in the pretty part, while Jeff waited to see if any turtles were feeling photogenic. There’s too much rainwater run-off there for really good photos as a snorkeler – but it’s a great place for scuba or freediving (which I also couldn’t do, thanks to my ear).

Turtle pretending to ignore me

Monday morning started out with a horrible disappointment. As long as we’ve been going to Kona, we’ve been getting breakfast at Bubba Gump’s. Now, Bubba Gump’s is a lame-ass, touristy chain restaurant in general – but the one in Kona was the only one that had a breakfast menu, and it was absolutely AMAZING.

Well, I guess not everyone thought so – they stopped doing breakfast a year ago. Doh!

I made Jeff go to Borders with my for my traditional hunt for Hawaiian music, then dropped him at the airport just as my coworkers were arriving. The next few days weren’t really any more exciting than working here at home is – less so, since we were just trapped in a meeting room for two days in the rain.

But even with the all-day meetings and the rain, I’d still step outside for a minute and just feel completely, ridiculously lucky that I got to be in Hawaii.

The rest of Jeff’s pics here.

On Labor Day, Scott chartered the Sea Bass for a bunch of his photographer buddies. This is the second time we’ve joined one of these trips, and it’s a lot of fun – despite the slightly crowded conditions that result from sharing the boat with nearly as many enormous camera rigs as divers!

We did a repeat of our July trip: one dive on the wreck of the Olympic, followed by two dives at the oil rigs. Captain Richard dropped the anchor in the sand about 30 feet off the wreck. Jeff, Carol and I were the last group down, so we missed the initial search for the wreck – we reached the bottom just as a group of divers was headed back the other direction from a fruitless hunt in the dark. And it was DARK. There was a thick layer of gunk at the surface blocking out all the sunlight; the water cleared up quite a bit near the bottom, but it was basically a night dive.

We followed the dive lights and flashing strobes to our destination: the bow section of the Olympic. On our last dive here, we were over the stern area, and I didn’t realize just how much of the boat we missed. The bow area rose about 30 feet off the bottom, totally encrusted with anemones and other growth. The starboard side is largely open, so divers can cruise around the interior easily.

I’d love to see this wreck on a clear day. My video lights barely made a dent in the darkness and the super-green water: I can only imagine how gorgeous it would be with a little sunlight!

Not wanting to descend all the way back to the bottom in search of the anchor, we headed off in its general direction at about 70′ – but shortly realized we’d never find it in the dark, and did a slow free ascent. There had been a slight current running on the surface when we jumped in, so we fully expected a surface swim back to the boat. Imagine our surprise when we broke the surface about 10 feet away from the dive ladder!

Our second dive was at the joined oil rigs Ellen and Ellie – I never remember which one we actually dive on. The green layer at the surface was gone, and the visibility was a respectable 50′ or so, so we had a good view of the schools of baitfish swirling around the rigs – and the sea lions chasing them. Jeff and Carol were shooting macro, and I quickly got tired of trying to get decent wide angle footage in the dark shade, so I spent most of my time looking up and hoping a sea lion would come bother me.

We picked up and moved over to Eureka for our last dive. Visibility was a little bit better here – not the 100′ plus that I always hope for on the rigs (and have encountered more than once), but a damn sight better than the 5′ vis we’ve also seen here before! I jumped in the water and promptly lost a fin. (New jet fin, and new dive booties that weren’t quite a perfect fit, as it turned out.) Doh. One of the crew stepped up with a loaner so I wouldn’t have to miss the dive. And it was a good thing he did, because this was definitely the highlight of the day!

Sea Lion scaring baitballs:

Puttering around in 60′ of water, enjoying the sea lion and baitball show, I accidentally scared up a cabezon hiding in the rig structure. But instead of swimming away to hide, he turned around and headed right for Jeff – and settled comfortably onto his camera! Carol and I came close to get shots of the little guy, while Jeff hovered with a slightly confused expression on his face.

Eventually he started gently trying to shake the fish off his camera – but the cabezon wasn’t interested in leaving. He was finally dislodged – and immediately turned around to nip at the strobe, swim at Jeff’s face…. and then settled back on the camera again! Every now and then he’d move off long enough for Jeff to take his photo, but he kept coming back to his new home.

When Jeff finally thought he’d gotten rid of him for good, he moved on to other photo subjects while I kept an eye on the lonely fish. He didn’t disappoint: as soon as Carol got into range with HER camera, he tried to settle onto her rig! She fended him off with the lens, spinning around in circles while I completely cracked up.

We didn’t completely shake off the cabezon until we started our ascent: he constantly swum around us looking for a chance to sit on someone. Except me – for some reason, he had zero interest in my video rig. Which means I got lots of video!

I’ve edited together the highlights of our friendly cabezon encounter: enjoy!

“Why Can’t We Be Friends” – 1:43 Quicktime movie
Medium Quality – 14.7 MB
Low Quality – 4.7 MB

And some photos:
Jeff’s photos
Carol’s photos

Since I had so much fun doing ADP last year, I decided to do it again – this time around, as a “safety diver.” It’s kind of like being a divemaster, though without any official certification. There are usually a few instructors present at every class and beach dive, and the safety divers help out: setting floats, giving students one-on-one attention when they need it, doing demos, etc.

The first weekend, I had a nasty ear infection, and wasn’t able to actually dive during the SCUBA portion of the pool. I popped in some earplugs and hung out on the surface, videotaping some of the skills, and helping students with the skin diving parts of class (pike dives, swims, and such).

This past weekend we got down to business, and took the class to Redondo Beach for a checkout dive. The swell model looked totally flat, so we were a little surprised to discover 2-3′ sets when we arrived; the wind had picked up in the morning and driven up the swells. It was a good thing, though: ADP is all about teaching you to deal with surf, after all!

On this same dive last year, I didn’t even make it past the breakers. Granted, they were a little worse than this time around, but I was also just much more scared. This time, I felt totally confident about charging into the surf zone, anchor-laden float in tow.

Everyone made it in without incident, and we spent an hour or more doing skin diving skills at the floats. There are only eleven students this year, and almost as many staff on any given day, so we basically have a one-to-one ratio. I really like having the opportunity to work with a single student at a time, and pass on whatever tips and tricks helped me out last year.

My second time through the surf, I have to confess I got totally owned. Dana and I headed in together, and both came up against a WALL OF SURF: 3 -footer after 3-footer pushed us back, right when we thought we’d found a lull. I was a little embarrassed at getting so totally walloped, but also proud of myself that it really didn’t phase me – I just got up and tried again. What a difference a year makes!

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do the SCUBA checkout dive after all – by the time all the skin skills and surf entries were over, we were running a little late for a 1pm appointment at Sealab.

Sunday was a pool day: SCUBA bailouts and skin DNRs. If you were reading my blog this time last year, you might remember how much I loved those. I’m woefully out of practice myself, but I know that I can do it if I try – and I remember how un-doable it seems the first time you’re told to do it! So again, I really enjoyed working one-on-one with people, encouraging them to take the plunge, and helping out as needed on the bottom. (Though I admit to feeling a bit hypocritical doling out advice – but not volunteering to demonstrate myself! Time to start practicing again.)

This weekend we’ll be heading to White Point, which was one of my favorite dives last year: rocky entries and washing on/off rocks, and surfing the channels. I might have to dig up Jeff’s old underwater camera (the little one) and bring it along so that I can illustrate my next ADP blog entry!

The thing about not blogging for a while: you start to feel like you need to catch up on all your stories chronologically. And the longer you wait, the more overwhelming that becomes. Sure, I have time to write about what I did yesterday, but first I really need to write about what I did last month, and last week, and I don’t have time for that… etc.

So, for now I’m giving up on the idea of “catching up” and skipping straight to yesterday. The day of my Star Trek dive.

Several weeks ago, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry (son of Gene Roddenberry, and if you don’t know who that is you don’t deserve to read my blog) sent an email out to all the local dive clubs. He’s decided to start a Star Trek Dive Club, and their inaugural boat dive was set for the 4th of July.

Well, obviously, sign me up!

Jeff was game as well, and I pestered some friends at work and Ray into coming along. (It’s not hard to find geeks at Caltech.)

So yesterday morning, we piled onto the Peace at 6am for a day of diving at Anacapa with a bunch of Trek nerds. Except, it turned out, we were a little short on nerds! There was some trouble with the Roddenberry Store online booking system, and Rod thought the boat was sold out even though it wasn’t – there were only about 20 of us. A good chunk of those were my friends, and several of the rest were Rod’s family or friends, people who knew him through diving rather than through Trek. I’d been half-hoping we’d see someone attempt to dive in costume. Maybe we can attract more nerds to the next trip.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry – straddling the line between cool and geek:

There was an 18-year old guy on the boat who knew Rod through a SCUBA club he funded at his old high school. When I asked him if he was also a Trek fan, he answered that he was TOO YOUNG. Apparently even TNG/DS9/Voyager belong to an older generation. Way to make me feel my almost-30 age.

One thing that made it feel a bit more Trek-ish was the presence of Tim Russ (“Tuvok” on Voyager), who’s apparently a long-time SoCal diver. I tried to keep my inner fan-girl in check, and not be too geeky around him – though I did ‘fess up to having seen him at conventions years ago. He was sociable when approached, but not outgoing. I suspect a decade of dealing with Trek fans teaches you to appreciate your “off” time.

I couldn’t resist one geeky request: my diving-with-Tuvok photo:

Tim turns out to be quite into astronomy, so he happily conversed with my scientist-geek friends. I wonder if his interest in field astronomy predates his involvement with Star Trek, or if it was the result. I certainly know a lot of scientists who became interested in physics and astronomy because of their love for science fiction.

At the end of the day, we each got little goodie bags with Starfleet-logo dive flag stickers, which just about made my day. That, and the hot tub. I love the Peace.

Oh, and the diving was fine, too.

UPDATED: More photos here.

One of the great perks of my job is the occasional trip to Hawaii. Although I usually spend far more time in a meeting room than on the beach, I sometimes manage to tack on a day or two of vacation – which is what I did last weekend. Armed with Lars’s hi-def camera rig again, I flew out to Kona on Saturday morning for a weekend of Hawaiian leisure before starting our meeting on Monday.

I didn’t have any firm plans for Saturday; my plane landed at noon, leaving me with quite a lot of time to kill, and I was a little worried that it would be a lonely and boring afternoon without the company of Jeff. I should have known better: Hawaiians are far too friendly a bunch to leave a traveler feeling alone. I nabbed lunch at Lulu’s, where my server struck up a conversation. Then I spent a while wandering around downtown chatting up random homeless guys and tourists.

As I wandered back towards my hotel, it struck me that I still had several hours left until sunset – why not hop in the car and drive down to Place of Refuge? I’d read that turtles tend to hang out there nibbling on algae in the late afternoon, and that sounded like a pretty good video opportunity.

When I reached Place of Refuge, there were just a handful of tourists left snorkeling off the rocks. The tide was high, giving turtles lots of room for their snacking in the tidepools. Their antics attracted a small crowd, oohing and aahing appreciatively when a turtle got knocked over by an especially high wave, or managed to hold his ground as the water flowed back out to the sea.

As the last tourists packed up to go home, the locals started setting up for the evening. Across the harbor, a large group of hula dancers in Hawaiian dress practiced on the beach. Next to the boat ramp, a guy started playing ukulele and signing in Hawaiian, to an appreciative audience of his friends (and me). Behind where my car was parked, a group of older guys hung out by their pickup truck, and I insinuated myself into their group by virtue of being a fellow smoker. Some were white guys who’d moved to the island years ago and stayed, integrating themselves into local culture; others were Hawaiian born and bred. All wanted to talk about how there was too much development going on, and too many rich people moving in and creating a society separate from the locals. They all welcomed newcomers, but wished it didn’t feel so much like this new community was the one deciding the future of the island. I couldn’t help but sympathize; my flight in afforded an excellent view of the huge tracts of land currently being turned into condominiums all along the coast. According to these folks, it was just as bad down south.

Of course, part of me is dying to be one of those rich people who move to Hawaii. But I’d like to think I’d be the sort to join the local community – they’re certainly friendly enough.

When I got tired of turning down beers (or marriage offers from tipsy Hawaiians), I headed back up to Kona for sunset-watching, complete with more chatting up of random Hawaiians. After dinner and a mai tai, I was ready for bed by 8pm. A small cockroach materialized out from under the fridge in my room, and I vigorously stomped him. I can’t plan to live in Hawaii one day and continue being a weenie about roaches…

Sunday morning I was wide awake by 6am, and didn’t need to be at the harbor until 9. I took my time packing up and strolling around the hotel grounds, chasing lizards with my hi-def camera. Next to the Royal Kona is a beach bar, which turns into a coffee shop in the mornings, so I headed there for breakfast. My previous visits had familiarized me with the overly-aggressive birds, who will sweep down onto your table the instant you walk away from your muffin. But I was surprised by just how fearless they’d gotten; as I toasted my bagel up on the bar, a dove wandered across the bagel cutting boards (mm, healthy) and right up to my hands. Sheesh.

It was a gorgeous day for diving: sunny, no wind, and flat seas. I was thrilled to discover Captain Roger was driving the boat today, and I knew one of the divemasters from previous trips as well. I quickly made friends with the other divers in my group, including a couple from Alaska who mostly dive the cold water up there, and a photographer from the east coast who was on a vacation with his (non-diving) wife. There were about 12 divers on the boat total, including a brand new 10-year-old scuba diver and her dad, who’d just gotten certified together.

We had an auspicious start, coming across a playful pod of spinner dolphins on our way out of the harbor. We didn’t go far; just hung a right and zipped over to Lone Tree Arch, a little bit north of the harbor. On the first dive, our group of six divers followed the divemaster down to about a hundred feet, looking for interesting fish in the rubble that covered the bottom. Heading shallower, we swam through some mostly-open lava tubes. On our way into the first one, we got a close look at a pregnant white-tipped reef shark lying on the sand. After getting sucked out the other side of the tube, we took our time moseying back over to the moored boat. I spotted lots of juvenile coris wrasses, as well as their adult counterparts, a mating pair of surgeonfish, and – briefly – a turtle in the distance.

During lunch, we scarfed down sandwiches while Roger took us out to look for “Easter pilot whales.” No luck there, but it’s still about as pleasant a way to spend an hour as I can imagine – bouncing across the nearly-flat Pacific in the Hawaiian sun, geeking out with other divers.

Our second dive wasn’t too far from the first, at Golden Arches. This site has several nice archways you can swim through (or just hang out in, insinuating yourself into the schools of fish that are doing likewise). In between are large rubbly areas where I always see lots of rock-moving action by coris and rockmover wrasses, and today was no exception. I found one large yellowtail coris in particular who turned out to be a great video subject; after his initial wariness, he let me put the camera practically right next to him while he turned over enormous rocks and blew away sand in search of food.

We also spotted quite a few moray eels on this dive, though none were feeling very perky. There was even a large zebra moray, although we only saw his midsection – the head and tail were buried in a coral head.

During a long safety stop near the boat, I was thrilled to discover two rockmover wrasses who appeared to be mating. They’d sort of poof up their dorsal fins (until this, I’d never realized their dorsal fins were poofable) and twirl around each other before spinning away. Like the coris wrasse, they let me get surprisingly close, but it wasn’t long before they worked their way into shallower, surgier water than I felt like dealing with.

It was a short ride back to the harbor after our two dives, and alas, that was it for my mini-vacation. I met up with my Bruce (my boss) and David (project scientist), and we headed up to Waimea to check into our hotel.

We stayed at the Jacaranda Inn, a lovely, romantic bed and breakfast. Felt a little weird for a work trip. My room was enormous, with a four-poster bed all carved and painted with tropical birds. The shower was impressive. The boys each had a bedroom in a separate cottage, which came with a hot tub.

Interestingly, the rooms did not have televisions. Or telephones. Or wireless, though it claimed to; nor did this self-proclaimed “bed and breakfast” serve breakfast anymore. My room didn’t have an alarm clock, either, so I relied on wake-up calls from David or Bruce (who did have them). It did, however, have mosquitoes – in spades. I sat down to read for five minutes, and got as many bites, so I high-tailed it over to the cottage (which for some reason was mosquito-free) until it was time for dinner. When we got back, I high-tailed it under the covers and didn’t give them any chance to bite!

The second night there was even more exciting bug-wise. First I got to practice my cockroach-crunching some more in the bathroom (this one actually went CRACK when I stepped on it – ugh). I headed towards the bed, carefully NOT examining any dark corners for roaches, but made the mistake of glancing up… and spotted an enormous daddy long-legs dangling from the top railing of the four poster bed. Then I repeated the mistake by looking to the left, and spotted another one up towards the headboard. I briefly considered attempting to squash them, but decided that they’d most likely escape, and then I’d be even more freaked out about where they might be. Plus, if I looked any closer, I might find MORE of them. So I just went to bed and pretended there weren’t spiders two feet from my head.

I won’t bother blogging about work, since it’s pretty boring. That’s why it’s work. Still, cockroach-intensive though my trip was this time around, I was extremely sorry to leave. I like the big island a little more every time I go.

I woke up Tuesday morning hacking up a lung, but determined to dive (with Nitrox, no less). The skies were overcast, and the surface a little bit choppy, but hey – we’re tough California divers. There was no stopping us.

My mood improved immediately once we were underwater. The visibility at our first dive site – The Great Wall – was better than any we’d seen the day before. We enjoyed the extra time the Nitrox gave us at depth, and not constantly worrying about whether it was time to ascend. Once we found something worth photographing, we could just stay put and relax (well, except for worrying about our air consumption – but that’s rarely the limiting factor for us at this depth).

After finding a couple of nudibranchs, we spotted Shea waving us over to a coral head. In the dive briefing, he’d mentioned that another divemaster had reported a black frogfish at this dive site – common in Papua New Guinea, but rare in this neck of the woods. Amazingly enough, he’d managed to find it!

We surfaced to an unpleasant sound: silence. The compressors were off, and so was the air conditioning. Apparently, we’d lost one of our engines for good this time, and would be limited to nighttime AC and slow compressor use.

Bummer.

This meant there was no way to squeeze in more than 3 dives a day – but that kind of worked for me, since I was continuing to feel sick.

The next (and last) two dives were both at Lighthouse Bommie. It’s kind of a funny dive site; there’s a skinny pinnacle from about 70fsw to 20fsw, with a bit of a mound off to one side at depth. Only half the divers went in at any given time, to keep from overcrowding the bommie. After the boat moored, we were greeted by a turtle and a sea snake popping up at the surface to check us out. Well, probably just to breathe. But it was still a fun welcome.

They weren’t shy underwater, either. On both dives, we spotted multiple sea snakes at depth, even friendlier than the one at Snake Pit. There were also a handful of turtles, including one who was clearly very used to divers.

The visibility took a nosedive for the worst before our second dive at Lighthouse, as did both the current and the surface chop. Just hauling myself back the surface line to the boat took all my effort, and I was happy to sit out the night dive and drink some tea.

By Wednesday morning, I was done getting sick; I was sick. My cough had been joined by a stuffy nose and a sinus headache – really not a good combination for diving. (If you’re one of my instructors, stop reading now.) I could still clear my ears, and I didn’t want to miss out on our last day of diving, so I decided to start popping Sudafed. Since I’d just finished reading the Nitrox book, which had a big bold section about NOT TAKING SUDAFED especially if you’re on Nitrox, I had to ‘fess up to the divemasters that I was feeling ill so they’d switch me back to normal air. Although they’re supposed to care if you try to dive sick, they mostly seemed amused that I was worried – I guess when you’re a divemaster on a liveaboard, you spend most of your year diving sick, thanks to all the germs people bring in!

The first dive was in no way worth all that effort. We headed down the anchor line into a screaming current, lousy vis, and another dive site that might have been pretty in better conditions. I can usually find a redeeming feature of any dive, but this one just sucked.

Luckily, conditions improved at the next dive site, Gorgonia Wall. It still would have been nicer with sunshine, but hey – that’s what video lights are for. We saw tons of interesting little gobies and juvenile fish hiding in gorgonians or in soft coral, and spotted a handful of whip coral gobies.

I was looking at something tiny on a sea fan when I noticed a few bits of something drifting down, and Jeff grabbed my arm and pointed up. A huge school of humphead parrotfish was above us – and had just been pooing on Jeff’s head. (Thankfully, parrotfish poo is basically sand.)

The only downside of the dive was that the tender boats had dropped us off a little too far from the boat. (They consistently overestimated the distance that underwater photographers are able to cover in an hour-long dive!) We ran low on air and surfaced to find ourselves only halfway back to the boat… and heading in a straight line to the SpoilSport put us right over reef, in about 3 feet of water – too shallow to call over a tender boat. We made it eventually, though Jeff completely drained his tank, and my lungs were about done for.

Our last dive was at Flare Point, a nice shallow coral garden. I was delighted by a school of juvenile blue tangs in a small coral head, bopping in and out. Of course, as soon as I waved Jeff over to photograph them, they all disappeared down into their hidey hole!

My ears were still able to clear, but as I went up from my initial depth of 50′ or so, I started to have problems clearing my sinuses. Any time I headed back down – even just a foot or two – my head felt like it might explode. Since every time I went up a bit, I couldn’t go back down, it wasn’t long before I found myself in 20 feet of water, trapped. (Well, I could have gone up. But dammit if I wasn’t going to finish this dive!) Jeff continued to amuse himself beneath me, occasionally attempting to get me to come down and look at something. But if it was deeper than 20fsw, it just wasn’t worth the pain.

Despite being stuck in the shallows, I really liked this dive. I didn’t get much video or see anything too spectacular, but it was a pretty way to spend an hour. As we finished our safety stop, we could hear a hissing noise; we looked up to see that it was caused by a steady drizzle of rain on the surface.

We surfaced in rain and chop, and the tender boats quickly came to whisk us back to the boat. There had originally been talk of a fourth dive, but that idea went out the window thanks to the deteriorating weather and the slow return of divers. My sinuses couldn’t have handled it anyway!

The original plan was to have another barbecue while the boat was moored. But with the seas kicking up and only one engine to get us the 100km back to Cairns, the captain needed to get moving. Dinner was quite an adventure in the rising seas, and quite a few of us had to pop seasickness pills once it got dark and the horizon was no longer visible. (Seasickness pills weren’t the only ones being shared around the boat – two or three other divers were struck with the same cough and cold as me.)

It was too bad our last day of diving wasn’t a better send-off, but I think most of us felt like the weekend at Osprey Reef had been worth the price of admission by itself. Well, almost. And despite the murky water and strong currents of the last few days, we saw sea snakes! And… sea snakes!

Monday morning, I woke up a few minutes before the daily door-pounding wakeup call. We were moored off Lizard Island, and looking forward to a morning exploring the place, hopefully with the same sunny conditions we’d had over the weekend at Osprey Reef.

Sadly, it was not to be – at least, not how we imagined it. A drizzle of rain was splattering against the cabin window, and the skies were gray with no hint that it would let up anytime soon. And I was feeling sicker.

Since our only alternative to hiking around the island was sitting in the lounge while the crew busied themselves cleaning up, swapping linens, and getting ready for the next batch of guests, we decided we’d still give it a shot. Hey, what’s a little rain? We’d been wet most of the trip anyway, right? About a dozen of us made the trip over to the island, most with various amounts of rain gear.

And then… we walked around. It would have been gorgeous on a sunny day; in the drizzle, it was just – uncomfortable. It didn’t help that my lungs weren’t up to even the slightest of uphill walks. Or that the mosquitoes were out. Or that Jeff and I nearly got ourselves lost trying to find the meet point after we split off from the rest of the group.

We did get to see a big lizard, though – some type of monitor or goana. And there were bats. And big burrowing crabs. There would have been lovely lookouts, if the sun was shining.

Back on board, the mood was a little down. Apparently one of the engines had died during the night, and the crew was waiting for a replacement part that would come along with the new guests. In the meantime, the divers were getting grumpy from sitting around (or from walking around in the rain), and were ready to get back to diving.

Jeff and I passed the time by signing up for a Nitrox classe, and zipped through most of the reading before lunch. It probably would have made more sense to take the class at the beginning of the trip, so we could dive Nitrox all week… but we figured better late than never.

At last, the new divers were aboard and briefed, and the engine was repaired – temporarily, as it turned out, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We ate lunch and headed out to a dive site called Snake Pit for the first of three Monday dives.

I’d assumed the name of the dive site was whimsical, or perhaps relating to some sort of feature in the rocks and coral. But no – it turns out the main attraction of this site is the friendly population of olive sea snakes. Yes, the highly venomous ones. No, they’re not aggressive.

We followed the anchor line down to the dive site, where there was a whopping current and crummy visibility. It would have been fairly crummy even by Southern California standards; I’d say 15′ or so. The water was a murky brown, and I was instantly NOT impressed with the dive site.

Until a snake swam over.

It turns out that sea snakes are extremely curious, cruising up to divers’ masks and cameras or between their legs. This one was immediately mobbed by photographers, so we continued on in search of our own snake.

Much like Lizard Island, it would have been a pretty dive if there was sun and clear water. Instead, it was just a frustrating fight against current, with the occasional pretty fish. Which was hard to photograph in the current.

We worked our way back over to where we’d first dropped down, and the camera-friendly snake was still puttering around. This time there were only two other photographers in the area, and the snake seemed quite happy to share his time between us. It moved so slowly and non-threateningly that I never felt at all scared; I was simply fascinated by the sinuous way in which it moved. And by how it looked just like a big snake on land; sort of cobra-like, but with a paddle-tail.

Our snake eventually tired of toying with photographers and retreated into a hole. I caught myself just short of waggling my fingers in front of him to try to draw him back out – that’s how quickly I’d forgotten they were venmous.

Our next dive was back at Cod Hole – or actually, around the corner at Cod Wall. The tender boats dropped us off up-current to ride back towards the main part of the dive site and rendezvous with the boat. At first, there wasn’t any current at all, and Jeff and I took our time looking at little fish along the wall. The visibility was much better than at Snake Pit, and we saw plenty of bannerfish hiding under ledges, pufferfish munching on algae, and the usual anthias, anemonefish, and juveniles of various species.

As we got closer to the corner of Cod Hole, the current picked up… and picked up… and picked up. Within 100 feet we went from a leisurely dive to an E-ticket ride. When Jeff decided to stop and photograph a puffer, I could barely hold myself in place by kicking, even if I ‘cheated’ with a hand on the rock – and since I was a little under the weather, I couldn’t keep it up for long. We finally gave up the effort and just let the current take us.

As we zipped around the bend into Cod Hole, the current dropped back to nothing. We were able to relax and enjoy the schools of anthias clustering out in the current, and I spotted a little lizardfish who posed for the camera. I thought we’d have a nice lazy safety stop before making our way over to the boat.

Nope. 50′ beyond the corner the current started dragging us along again. I no longer had the energy or desire to fight it, so we kept an eye on one of the divemasters and let him (and the current) lead us to the boat’s mooring line.

I marshaled the energy for a night dive; we rounded up one of the DMs to guide us, since we hadn’t had much luck on our own at night. I was still sort of unimpressed – aside from schools of jacks trying to hunt by our lights, there wasn’t anything video-friendly. Jeff, with his macro lens, had a slightly better time, as Shea pointed out all sorts of microscopic little crabs and shrimp, and even some pipefish.

Despite only doing three dives (again), I was WIPED. My cough had gone from being an itchy-throat sort of cough, to a phlegmy-lungs sort of cough. Diving Nitrox makes some people less tired than diving air; we’d be trying it out for the first time on Tuesday, and I wondered if maybe it would make me less sick!

The shark attraction is one of the highlights of the Mike Ball trips. They’ve been doing it every week for years without incident, but since these are (obviously) wild and potentially dangerous animals, you have to sign away all liability before you suit up:

The dive happened at North Horn, where there’s a sort of natural ‘amphitheater’ formation. A big coral bommie comes up to about 40′; this is the ‘stage’ where the sharks are fed. The bommie is surrounded by coral-covered walls which go up to the surface, and this is the ‘seats’ where the divers are placed to watch the action.

Shea, the divemaster in charge of the event, headed down first. As each buddy team came down the mooring line, he directed them to their spot on the wall, trying to arrange divers so no one’s bubbles would be in the way of a person behind them. To me, the strangest part of the dive was being told to go ahead and sit on the coral, usually an enormous no-no. Considering how many dives have been held here, with divers wedging themselves in between coral heads to stay put during the shark feed, the coral is in surprisingly good shape.

As we settled into our spots, the sharks were already gathering.

When everyone was in place, a tender boat on the surface dropped the feeding apparatus into the water: an old metal trash bin with holes cut into it, which contained a length of chain with tuna heads attached. Shea ran one end of a rope attached to the trash can through some sort of pulley on the bommie (whether man-made and installed, or just a nook in the rock, I can’t say), and slowly hauled the trash can down to the ‘stage.’

Once he had it secured in place, he backed away from the feeding area and yanked on a quick-release cord to pop the top off the trash can. The tuna heads floated up into the water column on their chain, and the sharks went nuts!

And yes, those are potato cod getting in on the action – those guys were fearless, and got a pretty good share of the spoils!

Most of the sharks in the water were white-tipped reef sharks (4-5 feet long) and the more “sharky-looking” gray reef sharks (more in the 10 foot range). A few silvertips – even bigger – appeared in the distance, but didn’t come in for a snack.

Gray Reef Shark with Ramoras:

I tried to keep the camera rolling the whole time, but I was using one hand to keep myself in place on my “seat,” and my camera-hand required occasional breaks from supporting the camera’s weight. Still, I think I managed to capture plenty of action. Below are links to a few clips:

QuickTime (hi res download – 7.5MB)

or

YouTube (low res streaming)

Eventually the tuna heads were gone, and the action died down. Shea declared the shark-feed portion of the dive officially over, and we were able to leave our “seats” and go scour the bommie for shark teeth. (No luck.)

After a late lunch, we had time for one more dive at North Horn. The tender boats dropped us off in the other direction from the day before, so we could check out the wall on the other side of the amphitheater. With no current, it was a bit of a long swim, but a great way to end our time at Osprey. We saw the occasional leftover shark cruising the reef, and lots of interesting fish, including these little longnose filefish:

As we finally approached the amphitheater, I noticed pairs of parrotfish spawning in the water column up above. They’d twirl around each other and head towards the surface, then release clouds of spawn. Hm. Maybe that explains the chunky visibility.

We had the option to try and squeeze one more dive in, but it would have meant an awfully short surface interval, so we opted out. I had a little twinge in my throat that was making me cough a lot, and worried that I might be coming down with something, so I was perfectly content with a 3-dive day.

Instead of a night dive, Sunday was one of two barbecue nights. The 7-night SpoilSport itinerary is actually two shorter trips; you can do one or bothin a row. About 8 divers would be leaving Monday morning at Lizard Island, where they’d hop on a little plane back to Cairns, and be replaced on board by divers brought up that morning. After dinner we stayed awake just barely long enough to watch the official trip video and photos, and participate in the trip photo contest. With such a huge group of photographers on board, we hoped the contest would be quite an event – alas, very few people chose to join in. Jeff nabbed two of the four winning shots.

My cough started to morph into a sore throat, so I happily crashed in our bunk as soon as the video showing ended. The schedule for Monday would include a morning on Lizard Island, which I was looking forward to despite starting to feel crummy.

This was more like what I expected from the Great Barrier Reef! Our first dive at Osprey Reef was Admiralty Anchorage; one big bommie surrounded by little deeper ones. We dropped down into the sand and almost landed on a white-tipped reef shark. There were lionfish, lots more anemonefish-packed anemones, and a cool swimthrough in the main bommie.

I really fell in love with the little fish, though. We hung out at the top of the main bommie for a while, where there were schools of anthias swarming around over the reef. I especially loved these little purple anthias with their pointy noses:

Our second and third dives of the day were a little further north at False Entry, where the tender boats dropped us off a good ways from the boat, along a wall. This was our first tender entry of the trip (backrolls!) and we didn’t do so well. My snorkel – which I’ve had since I first got certified, and which we were required to have with us in Australia – immediately popped off and disappeared into the thousands of feet of water below us. Jeff made it through the backroll intact, but then lost a weight pocket while putting away his camera lens cover.

Luckily, neither one of those was a dive-stopper! We moseyed over to the wall and enjoyed the long swim back to the boat. As we approached the sandy area beneath the SpoilSport, we could see white-tipped reef sharks hanging out in 60 feet of water, and we noted their location for the next dive.

The second dive, just in the sandy patches and bommies under the boat, was even more fun than the first. Besides getting close to several whitetips being cleaned, we discovered two “families” of fire dartfish. In Hawaii, these guys are really a special find, so I was bouncing off the walls when Jeff first spotted one here. He even had the right lens on! Then we noticed another… and another… a whole family group of fire dartfish, all different sizes!

Turns out they’re a little more common in the GBR. Oh well – they’re still cool.

After another dive up north, we headed back to Admiralty Anchorage for the night dive, then crashed in exhaustion. Sunday was going to be a big day, with a shark feeding dive in the afternoon!

It didn’t start out so auspiciously. Our first dive Sunday morning was just kind of an okay site, nothing special. When we surfaced, the boat was eerily quiet. All the lights were off, the compressors weren’t compressing, and there was no air conditioning or water in the rooms.

Gack.

The party line was that a generator overloaded, but the version I heard from a crewmember later was a bit more annoying. Some unnamed diver had “plugged in” their device without using a real plug – just bare wires stuck into either side of the outlet. This setup created a huge power drain on the first generator, and when it finally gave up all that drain killed the second generator as well!

It took several hours for the engineer to get us back up and running, during which most of us repaired to the top deck to stay out of the muggy interior of the boat.

When we finally got moving, the plan had changed – we’d do the shark dive before lunch instead of in the afternoon. Apparently the tuna heads for the shark feed were starting to spoil because of the power issue, and I think they also wanted to hurry up and get the big dive in before anything else went wrong…

After our first day in Sydney, we both kind of felt like we were done already: we were ready to get on the dive boat. But then we spent Sydney Day Two being shown all around the area on a bus… and we started to wish we had longer to explore! So it was a little bit sad to hop in a cab Wednesday morning and head to the airport, even though we were psyched about getting on with the diving portion of the trip.

The Sydney domestic terminal was a little bit trippy for two reasons. First, instead of a combined check-in where you get your boarding pass and leave your bags, it was two separate areas: check-in and “Luggage Drop.” They accepted our insanely heavy pile of backs without even flinching, and we breezed on through security – which is when we realized trippy thing #2. They never checked our IDs! Not at check-in, not at security, and not when you board. Quite a change from flying around the US.

We landed in Cairns to heat, humidity, and a steady drizzle from cloudy skies. The hotel we’d picked based on recommendations from other divers turned out to be a little crummier than expected – and there was NO ELEVATOR. We were only on the second floor, but hauling all our crapola up an outdoor staircase in the rain and humidity was not the best introduction to the facility. The room itself was stuffy and ant-infested, with a comforter that clearly had not been washed in years (as I discovered when I lay down on it – first I thought maybe I smelled that bad, but we quickly ascertained that the year-old-sweat smell was not coming from me).

We headed out to spend an evening exploring what Cairns had to offer. Turns out, an evening is plenty of time to check out the Esplanade and the Pier, with all the little tourist shops and restaurants. We also passed a lovely-looking Holiday Inn, and decided on the spot to change our reservations for the following week to that lovely, elevator-having hotel.

There was one very cool thing about Cairns at night: as soon as the sun sets, the bats come out. And I’m not talking about wussy little American bats: these are “flying foxes,” enormous fruit bats that squawk their way into the night.

We got a better look at the bats Thursday morning, on our way back to the hotel room after breakfast. Passing under some enormous trees, we suddenly realized the noises we were hearing were bat sounds – and the trees overhead were full of them:

We checked out of the “hotel,” dropped our bags off at the Mike Ball office… and then had about seven hours to kill until dinner and boarding the boat. And we’d already explored the Esplanade the night before. Doh. After wasting some time photographing the bats, we crashed for a few hours at a big backpacker’s resort – with a pool. And a bar.

Once we were sunburned enough, it was back to the Esplanade and Pier. We killed another hour just lounging around in a park; I snoozed on a bench in the shade while Jeff snapped macro photos of green-assed ants (yes, that is the scientific name).

Somehow, we passed the time until dinner, when we met up with the rest of the folks who’d signed up through California Digital Diving. And then – at last – it was time to board the boat! Everyone was exhausted and cranky from a day spent walking in circles around Cairns, so it was kind of funny as we were all herded onto the boat and they tried to get everyone’s picture. Sweaty, grumpy people – so photogenic.

It felt great to finally curl up in our bunks. I’m not sure what was more exciting: knowing that we’d spend the night steaming out to the Great Barrier Reef, or knowing that we wouldn’t have to pick up our damned luggage again for a week. Woohoo!

We woke up Saturday morning at Challenger Bay, at the end of one of the northern Ribbon Reefs. Everyone seemed to be bundling up in 3 or 5 mil wetsuits; so much so that I started to worry about our measly 1mils. But as soon as we dropped into the 84 degree water, I quit worrying – bathwater, baby!

Our first impression of the Great Barrier Reef was actually a little disappointing. Thanks to a lot of recent rain and wind chop, the vis was only about 40′ – not any better than it’s been in Southern California the last year. And Challenger Bay, while pretty, didn’t exactly blow our minds like we’d expected.

But hey – we finally got to see giant clams! And anemonefish!

After two dives at Challenger Bay, we motored up to Cod Hole, home of enormous potato cod. I was unimpressed by one diver who insisted on grabbing at the fish – although, it did make for some cool photo ops:

The vis still wasn’t great, but getting to see these enormous fish tooling around pretty much made up for it. Jeff saw one pounce on a fish and snap it up with an audible gulp.

We stayed at Cod Hole for the first night dive of the trip – and again, I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. The night dives we’ve done in the Caribbean and Hawaii have always been so full of action, and packed with different critters. At Cod Hole, we saw another potato cod… a few jacks trying to hunt by our lights… and some fusiliers hiding under coral ledges. If you looked really close, you could also find some interesting little crabs and shrimps. But – eh.

Luckily, the next morning we woke up at Osprey Reef, another 70 km northeast of the Ribbon Reefs. There we had perfect weather, calm seas, and incredible vis….