I think I’m enjoying diving with other men a little too much.

Don’t get me wrong; I love diving with Jeff. We communicate well, I get to feel useful if I can help him get a great picture, and there’s nothing snugglier than a dive boat bunk after three freezing cold dives.

But I’ve done three or four shore dives with my dive club when Jeff’s been out of town, and I have to say that there are some serious advantages.

First, no camera. This may seem like more of a downside since it means I don’t get any beautiful pictures to remind me of the dive. But you don’t get a lot of beautiful pictures out of shore dives anyway. And if my buddy doesn’t have a big, fancy camera, he makes fewer stops (read: I stay warmer from moving) and has an extra hand free to help me get through the surf, about which I am a huge sissy.

Second, guilt-free bailing on dives. Although I always wind up doing just great on shore dives, I have a hard-wired, gut-wrenching fear of surf stemming from my first certification dive attempt, and I spend most of the drive to the dive site stressing out about what the conditions will be like. When I’m with Jeff, I have the additional stress of worrying that my deciding to bail at the last minute might ruin his day – he has, in the past, gotten just a wee bit grumpy about cancelled dives, especially after driving all the way to a dive site. (To his credit, he’s gotten better about this – the last time we had to cancel a dive, he didn’t mope at all.) When I’m with a big group of random Sole Searchers members, I worry a lot less about what my surf-sissy attitude will do to any potential dive buddies, and only have to worry about myself.

Kaz and gang seem relatively amused by my sissy attitude, since I then march right in everytime and do just fine. But unlike Jeff, they haven’t had to listen to me stress out about it verbally for the entire week leading up to the dive.

Last night, Lars, Kaz, Jimmy and I all drove down to Laguna together in Lars’s monstrous 4Runner. This thing holds four people and all of their dive gear comfortably – at least for a shore dive, when you don’t have to pack for several days on a boat. We met up with three other guys around 6:30pm as it was getting dark, and the mostly-flat ocean put my internal surf-sissy to rest.

Gearing up with Kaz

I triple’d up with Kaz and Jimmy, but all seven of us pretty much stayed together throughout most of the dive – a pretty amazing feat for a night dive, and a beach dive at that! The visibility was decent, probably better than most daytime dives I’ve done at Shaw’s Cove. We scared up an octopus, an enormous (and totally unafraid) lobster, lots of scorpionfish, and half a dozen small stingrays in the sand, plus a larger thornback ray and one bat ray that cruised right over Kaz’s head.

As night dives go, it hardly compares to diving in, say, Kona. But it’s still always pretty darned cool. There’s something incredibly peaceful and surreal about wading into the ocean at night, identifying your dive buddies by the types of lights they use, watching the bio-luminescence in the water stirred up by your fins.

(The part where you’re wading in is made a bit additionally surreal for me thanks to the fact that I have poor vision, so everything’s a bit blurry until I descend and my HydroOptix mask kicks in.)

At one point about three-quarters of the way through the dive, I was getting extremely cold and uncomfortable, and starting to wish we’d be done already. I started to stress about keeping an eye on Kaz and Jimmy, about not running low on air (those two are both air conserving machines), about whether the surf might have picked up between our entry and exit. And I realized how ridiculous it was to be down there stressing over essentially nothing, instead of appreciating the experience completely. Such a small fraction of the planet’s population ever gets to explore underwater like we do; an even smaller fraction gets to see it at night, or bothers with southern California diving. It’s such an incredible privilege to be down there, shining my light on the anemones that are opened up to feed at night, getting my face inches from a nearly-translucent stingray, seeing fish trying to sleep in their crevices.

Round Stingray, about 9″ across

Of course, it also helped relax me when we rose back above the thermocline and I wasn’t freezing anymore.

Post-dive, I started to miss having my usual dive buddy around. We all went to have dinner at Ruby’s, and it kind of felt like cheating. Here I was, having a great evening of diving, followed by cheeseburgers and milkshakes, while Jeff was probably at some sort of work-related function. (Or possibly eating at a delicious Italian restaurant and getting drunk at a fancy New York club. But hey, that’s still less fun than diving.)

When I made it home at 11pm, I really missed Jeff as I began to rinse out the dive gear. Of course, there’s only half as much to rinse, but it just feels like more work when only one of us is doing it.

Well, maybe Jeff can tag along on the next Sole Searcher’s beach dive.

The rest of Lars’s pics, if Jeff would like to see what he missed, are here: Shaw’s Cove 10/22/05.

Sunday morning, I emerged from our stateroom on the Great Escape to a spectacularly beautiful day in Southern California. The seas around Catalina were calm, no clouds blocked the sun, the air was warm enough that I didn’t bother with a sweater, and – best of all – I’d slept the whole way out to the island without getting seasick. Thank you, Triptone.

But we didn’t seem to be at our expected destination: Farnsworth Bank, on the far side of Catalina. Instead, we were approaching the familiar white pinnacle near Two Harbors, Bird Rock (not because it looks like a bird, but because it’s covered with birds and bird poo).

This makes us 0-for-3 on Farnsworth attempts, but I couldn’t be too disappointed on such an obviously beautiful morning. The only reason we’d be on the near side of Catalina was if the far side had looked too rough, and I’d rather have a pretty dive by Bird Rock than a yucky one at Farnsworth anyway. It was also going to be my first California dive with my video rig, so I was happy enough to be parked at a less advanced dive site.

To make up for the last-minute switch, Captain Time had anchored on the north side of Bird Rock, a spot he hadn’t dropped divers at before. Jeff and I were some of the first divers into the 65-degree water (toasty heaven!), and dropped down onto boulders in sand at about 70 fsw before heading towards the “wall” that is Bird Rock.

Even better than the warm temperature was the amazing visibility, which seemed to surpass 80 feet in spots. I couldn’t have asked for better video conditions! It also made it easy for Jeff and I to give each other lots of room to work without losing sight of each other. (The more we venture into photo/video, the more I think about signing up for a Solo Diver course.)

The wall on the north side of Bird Rock was simply spectacular. The farther east we ventured, the more sheer the drop-off became. At one point I found myself at a totally vertical wall that was covered with gorgonians, and yet kelp rose around me (presumably anchored at some outcropping deeper than I could see). Straight down was nothing but blue water; all around me were waving sea fans, while above the sun shone through the kelp and scattered in waves on the surface.

Since it was my first time taping California critters, I found myself completely fascinated by every garibaldi and blacksmith, normally near-ignorable fish. I also took advantage of the clear conditions to get as much footage as I could of the sun in the kelp, and the waving sea fans.

We did two dives at Bird Rock, and then moved to one of our favorite sites: Eagle Reef. We’ve always experienced stellar conditions there, and it’s basically a big pile of rocks full of fun crevices to poke around in. Today we parked over another fairly steep wall, and were treated to more amazing visibility and warm temps. The highlights of my video footage here were a few bat ray swim-bys and some fun chasing down a giant kelpfish in the well-lit kelp. (Maybe I’ll figure out how to post some little QuickTime movies here later!)

Captain Tim of the Great Escape posted a message on the local diving bulletin board about how one of the divers on the boat complained bitterly about the change in destination, and was demanding his money back, since he’d dived the frontside of Catalina so many times before. This sort of attitude always baffles Jeff and me. We can dive the same site over and over and find something new every time – and we know no dive destination is ever guaranteed, since the weather and ocean conditions are changeable. I’d rather have a beautiful dive on the frontside of Catalina than be throwing up all the way to a murky Farnsworth. I’d rather dive, period, thna get turned around and head back to harbor! I certainly have no complaints about such a beautiful day, with two fantastic dive sites.

More pics here: Catalina 08/28/2005

Dive logs: #181, #182, and #183.

Alas, I had neither Jeff’s camera nor Jeff’s photographic skills on my last trip to Hawaii, and so this is the best I can do:

It’s hard to tell since the fish swimming with the shark are also enormous, but that’s a 14′ long tiger shark. (And pretty darned wide, too!)

Here’s another one; sharkie taking a gulp of something near the bottom of the ocean:

She was not a small shark. She didn’t get closer than about 25 feet (if that), which is another reason I got such lousy shots. In the short time she was remotely within video distance, the autofocus on my camera had a hard time getting a lock on her not-too-contrasty figure. Hopefully it’ll look marginally cooler edited into video and shown on a TV screen (where the low resolution isn’t as obvious). Maybe next time I see a shark the size of Jaws, Jeff will be there to get a real photo and really scare the pants off our moms.

Why do we dive California? Here’s my fave from Jeff’s Saturday photos:

I was in Hawaii at the time. I love getting the chance to dive someplace warm with amazing visibility – but I’m constantly having to tell people that yes, California has diving, and yes, it’s really beautiful here. We’ve had at least as many memorable critter encounters here as in the tropics.

While Jeff was playing with this cutie, I was trying to get footage of a 14′ tiger shark at 100 fsw outside Honokohau Harbor. Though it was a cool experience for the 30 seconds it took her to cruise by, I think I would have had more fun goofing off with seals for half a dive!

It’s been quite a week. Work’s been insane, I’ve been acclimating to a slightly different sleep and workout schedule, and Jeff and I have made great strides in the eating-in department. :)

Still, I managed to squeeze in some scuba trip planning! My work is taking me back to Hawaii for a Thursday/Friday meeting at the end of July. I have a few more vacation days available than Jeff, so I decided I might as well use one and extend the trip through Monday, so I can get some diving in on Saturday and Sunday. (diving over by 2pm on Sunday; plane takes off 1:30 Monday – if you were wondering why I’m diving the day before flying!)

My original plan was to dive both days with friends and colleagues. One of the guys who will be in the same meeting, coincidentally named Jeff, is finishing up his scuba certification this month, and we talked about going out diving with his outfit up near Waikoloa. It sounded like a lot of fun, since I’d probably get to dive some more northerly sites. However, he was only available on Saturday. My old college friend Julie was available both days and up for anything; she’s also a pretty inexperienced diver, though she finished her certification with Jack’s in Kona a few years ago.

So my initial plan was to split up the diving: a day up north, and then a day with Jack’s. This would mean moving my gear around a lot, but no big deal. I also still had to find a place to stay.

After several on-line attempts to discover good rates, I finally found the best deal at the Royal Kona by calling, and booked myself for Saturday and Sunday nights. Then Jack’s Diving Locker wrote back to me that they actually had a THREE-TANK, ADVANCED dive trip going out on Saturday, with 2 spots left. Jack’s, of course, is right across from Royal Kona.

My plans to dive with Jeff went out the window (sorry, Jeff), and I instantly signed on. This meant I was dumping Julie, too (sorry, Julie!), since Jack’s has requirements on divers who sign up for their advanced trips, that she doesn’t yet meet. But now I’m diving right across the street from where I’m staying, and my gear stays in one place – and I get in FIVE dives instead of a measly four.

Julie gave me a call yesterday to say she’s still up for diving Sunday, and is actually quite content to do just one day of diving to ease back into it, so it’s all good. She’ll also keep me company in Kona Saturday night, and probably stay until I head back to the airport Monday around lunch.

I can’t wait! It’ll be a little strange diving someplace exotic without my own Jeff (and his camera). I’m hoping to borrow or buy a video housing, so I can take more footage while I’m there. If not, I might at least lug along our old Reefmaster for some point-and-shoot pics; we’ll see!

I had a lovely birthday weekend at Catalina with my favorite dive buddy. The weather was beautiful, the water was warm (well, it was warm when you stayed above the 30′ thermocline), the vis was not as bad as it often is, and the fish were out in force. What more could I have asked for?

Friday evening, I picked Jeff up from the airport after his week-long business trip in Florida. He somehow managed to get some dives in while he was there (check out pictures), even testing out his new dual-strobe setup. For our Catalina dives, he had an extra gizmo to learn how to use: we bought the port for our macro lens, so we could get some better pics of all the tiny critters out here and abroad.

Although he’d been up since 3am Pacific time, Jeff managed to make it down the 405 in traffic with me, onto the Catalina Express, into a taxi, and up the many stairs to our musty, un-air conditioned room at the Atwater. We grabbed a quick dinner (though I did most of the eating), and conked out as soon as possible.

Saturday morning, we hopped onto the King Neptune, dive boat of Catalina Scuba Luv. We’ve always been big fans, but this time we weren’t as impressed as usual – mainly because they’d crowded about 26 divers onto the boat, and frankly, more than 15 feels packed! It got worse when they arbitrarily assigned everyone into one of three groups, and said that only one group could gear up and get in the water at a time. We were in group 2, and a big class of new divers was in group 1 – meaning they’d take forever to get in the water, stir up lots of sand once down, and make it generally less pleasant for us. (Can you tell we’re get-in-the-water-first people?)

Jeff made his displeasure known, and for the second dive of the day, our group went first. At the last dive site, we were back to the number 2 spot, but Jeff and I sneaked in while group 1 was dawdling around.

The diving wasn’t spectacular, but it definitely didn’t suck; this is a good thing. Temperatures were 60 or a little over, as long as you stayed above 30 feet or so. There was a nice little thermocline at 30 where the temperatures dropped into the upper 50s, and I’m sure if we’d gone deeper we would have found a few more – but since the visibility also became poorer the deeper we went, we were more than happy to cruise the kelp at 25 feet on pretty much all three dives.

Our second dive site was one I’ve enjoyed before: Sea Fan Grotto. There’s a great little “nook” in the rocky slope at about 35 feet, where gorgonians grow on the wall in the shade. It’s about as coral-like as it gets out here. I got directions from the boat captain (“that way, in about 40 feet”) and we headed off.

We swam for a while along the edge of the rocks and kelp. And swam. And swam and swam and swam. After quite a lot of swimming, we were still in the rock-rubble area; I knew we had to pass to the sheer-rock area before we were even close. But we definitely hadn’t passed it, so we kept on swimming.

Finally, our persistence paid off – sea fans!

A little too murky for good photographs, but it was still a lovely sight. We poked around the gorgonians for a while, and I shone my light back into a cave that I briefly considered going into, but opted not to stir up all the silt that would no doubt result.

Our last dive of the day was the murkiest, and the underwater topography was pretty darned dull. However, we lucked out when it came to critters. First, we spotted a big sheep crab hunkered down behind a rock; I think he was eating something, because when he finally started moving he had what looked like a sea cucumber stabbed with his front claw. Here he is menacing the camera:

They’re slow, but strong. Jeff finally let it wander off before it decided to take apart the housing.

Next, I found an octopus poking its head and tentacles in and out of holes under rocks. At first, it was alarmed by us and hid in a hole. We stayed put for a while, and it eventually started to crawl back out again – only to retreat again every time we got too close or made too much noise. Finally, I started waggling my fingers near the exit of its hole like a possible snack, which enticed it to at least come out a bit more. Once or twice it flashed white and poofed up all “big” to try to scare us off, but eventually it stopped paying attention to us and just went on with its hunt.

Back in Avalon, we wrapped up the evening with dinner at our favorite Catalina restaurant: Channel House. And of course, dessert (including the box of Godiva truffles that Jeff is obliged to buy me for every holiday and occasion, which had unfortunately merged into several SuperTruffles while in the trunk of his car in Florida).

Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed a bit before 8 to make the hike over to Casino Point for a couple of dives. As it turned out, we only did one; the tide was low and the entry/exit slightly tricky, the steps in and out were crowded with students, and we had such a nice, long, fun dive the first time out that we didn’t feel the need to give it another go.

This was Jeff’s first outing with the macro lens, and he tried his best to get me a goby.

I also spotted him a few friendly scorpionfish.

The most memorable part of diving this weekend, for me anyway, was all the garibaldi action. Jeff spent quite a bit of time on both days photographing grown and juvenile garibaldi, and got some interesting shots. On Sunday, we encountered a few very territorial males, who would swim at our faces to try to scare us away. For the first time, I actually heard the thump/click sound they make to try to startle their opponents! It startles the heck out of me every time they swim at me, because I’ve heard Jeff’s biting-garibaldi story many, many times. And yet, I’m totally addicted to the comedy of it. They get so upset with you, especially if you start wiggling fingers – and they look so silly trying to be scary! (I will not stress out the wildlife, I will not stress out the wildlife…)

One male actually had a female in his nest at the time, laying eggs. It would have been a great video subject, or even wide angle – sadly, it was not something that Jeff could capture with a macro lens!

We topped off the day with a little shopping trip: some Catalina tile to use in a coffee table we intend to build sometime. They’re too reflective to photograph with a flash, so this is the best I could do on short notice – what do you think?

Go here for links to each day of blog entries, dive logs, galleries, etc:

Kona Classic ’05 Trip Report

We decided to have a mostly-lazy day: slept in, breakfasted at Bubba’s, did a little shopping for Hawaiian shirts. Jeff was determined to find a decent Hawaiian shirt with a fish motif, and we finally found a good one: reefs along the bottom, fish everywhere, and a turtle being cleaned by tangs in the middle of the shirt – just like the photo he submitted for wide angle. I also got my first Hawaiian-print shirt (ladies sleeveless), so we were all prepared to gussie ourselves up for the Awards Banquet tonight.

Everyone began milling around the hosted bar around 6pm, and we snagged a table for our boat, plus divemaster Elaine. We were also joined by Rob, one of the Kona Aggressor captains and a friend of Tee and Dave’s from previous years, along with his girlfriend.

The first awards given were for the Reef Check categories: Reef Check had special categories (with prizes, but not the fancy blue dolphin statuette trophies) for Best Invertebrate, Best Vertebrate, and Best Reef Check Diver. Jeff won that last one! I was thrilled that we wouldn’t be going home empty-handed (even though Jeff really only came to learn and improve, I could tell he really wanted to at least place in some of the categories).

Then they got down to the serious awards. Each of the categories went by, and Jeff didn’t even get any Honorable Mentions. I could tell he was starting to be bummed, and trying not to be (since really, he didn’t expect to win anything this year).

Dave took the video contest, as usual, with a cute video set to the Beatles’ “Help” showing Dave deciding to take up scuba diving, and then totally panicking in the water. In between panic shots were all kinds of great critter shots; I hope my camera work is just HALF that steady.

The Locals Only video was won by the owner of Jack’s Diving Locker, who put together a real crowd-pleaser centered around those fancy bubble-rings that all tropical divemasters seem to be good at. He had all kinds of great bubble footage, including really fancy ones with multiple bubbles interacting with each other, and spinning off into little vortices. There were some great shots of turtles on the surface framed by a bubble ring as it rose up, and of freedivers swimming through the rings. Amazing stuff!

Incidentally, we were at the winning table – Rob had 4 trophies in front of him by now, from Macro, Wide Angle, Creative, and Topside (all fabulous photos), and John won Diver Portrait with a gorgeous shot of his wife Linda over the sailboat wreck, which was outlined by snappers hanging out in its shade. Elaine won in one of the Locals Only categories, so we had 6 blue dolphin sculptures weighing down our table – plus a pile of certificates for honorable mentions, 2nd and 3rd places, and Jeff’s Reef Check award.

Finally – drumroll please – it was time for the Best Overall categories. Jan (Jack’s divemaster) took it in the Locals Only with a fabulous cleaner-wrasse shot; we were thrilled because we adore her and her work. Kathy announced that the prize for Best Overall in the open category included a trip for two to Tahiti – and I leaned over to Jeff and whispered that he should definitely try to win next year!

Then the pros got up to introduce the winning photograph. They said that the photographer had made real improvements all week; every day, he or she had come to talk to the pros about their photos from the day, and come up with what to work on the next day. And the next day, they’d see the results of that conversation in the work, until by the end of the week the pictures had dramatically improved. (At this point, I started to hope it might be Jeff, even though I knew it was a long shot – he’d spent a lot of time working with the pros every evening.)

Marty Snyderman mentioned that it was ironic that he hadn’t seen a single turtle on this trip – and now I really started to think it might be Jeff, because the shot he submitted that all the pros had liked the most was a turtle shot. We had now reached the point where we would be disappointed if it wasn’t Jeff, even though it probably wasn’t.

But it was!

Open Category – Best Overall Image, Jeff Laity

We celebrated into the wee hours (well, midnight, when they close the bars) with Dave and Tee. Dave won a new video housing – I’m hoping I can talk him into selling one of his old ones, so I can shoot some video in Tahiti! The dratted trip will probably cost us more than it saves us, between airfare (not included) and all the photo equipment we’ll want to buy for it. It should be well worth it, though!

I sent Jeff home this morning with his pretty blue dolphin trophy (sculpted by Wyland, the guy who does all those calendar-worthy underwater paintings). He also got quite a pile of prizes donated by Body Glove, Pelican, Deep Outdoors, and others.

And as if all that wasn’t reward enough – all the first place winners will have their photos printed in the fall photo spread of Sport Diver magazine!We are very happy Laitys today.Yesterday we were about 90% sure we’d be heading back to the Kona Classic next year – now I’d say it’s a complete certainty! I hope we have as wonderful a group of boat buddies as this year, not to mention the pros who donated their time to helping everyone out. This is a truly fantastic event, and Jeff and I both had a blast. (And next year, Dave had better watch out – I plan to give him some competition in the video category!)

Check out the lucky shirt:

The last dive day of a vacation is always sort of sad. There’s such pressure on it to be a good day of diving, and in this case even more so because of the pressure to get good photographs. Jeff has been trying really hard to apply all the advice he gets from the pros at the end of each day, and has come back with better and better photos.

We piled onto the Na Pali Kai 2 for the last time with our group of buddies: Dave and Tee Husted (who loaned me the housing); Judy Bennett from New Orleans; her travel buddy Jim Squires, who teaches diving in Vermont; and John and Linda (John’s the UW photographer, but Linda foots the bill with a successful dental practice in a nice bit of gender role reversal – John used to be her office manager).

We started with a bonus dive. Some people really wanted to dive the Naked Lady again, but others didn’t want to trade in one of their long dives for it. So Jack’s gave us the option of an extra dive for $25. Easy decision. We didn’t see anything that spectacular this time around, but it was a pretty dive. I followed a big conch around on the sand for a while, and saw the bicolor anthias again. On the way down and up, Jeff practiced taking pictures of silhouettes and sunbursts.

Next we moored at Rabbi’s. We dropped down and headed towards High Rock, where a big frogfish reportedly hangs out. Apparently Jeff and I missed all the cool stuff on this dive, because everyone else came up with tales of amazing critters. We tooled around several ridges and arches, and I shot some more group-hunting action, a cute pair of tobies, and a trumpetfish. At the end of the dive, someone found an enormous moray hanging out under a ledge. It seemed to be awake, but wasn’t moving around or opening its mouth at all, so it made kind of a boring subject.After lunch, we headed back to one of our favorites for the last dive of the trip: Eel Cove. Jeff and I poked around the shallows for a while in search of the dragon moray, but didn’t find it. Both Jeff and I got shots of a rockmover wrasse in action, and I also saw some yellowtail coris wrasses shoving rocks around. We went around the corner to where the raccoon butterflies pester the sargent majors, and encountered a scene of incredible fishiness! I saw sargent majors courting, spawning dascyllus, and lots of damsels chasing away other fish. There were cleaning stations galore, and I spotted some fish I hadn’t seen yet on the trip hovering in the water column, including several pairs of pyramid butterflies. The raccoons soon materialized, and we were enveloped in clouds of ravenous butterflyfish and angry sargent majors.

Swarm of hungry Raccoon Butterflyfish:
We eventually turned around and headed back to the cove, where we still didn’t find the dragon eel, but we found a few small whitemouth morays. Jeff ran low on air and headed up, while I continued to putter around for a while in the shallows (plenty of other folks always in sight), just fish-watching and trying to film some bubbles.Now everyone settles in for an evening of touching up their photos and deciding which ones to submit to which categories, or for all-nighters putting together video. Not me; I’m definitely going to just take my time back at home this year. But maybe next year I’ll give Dave some competition!

This was just a great day of diving. Or at least, half a day of great diving. We started the morning at Turtle Pinnacle in search of turtles (what else?), and were happy to see a cloudless sky for once. Nothing beats sunshine for wide angle underwater photography!

This dive kicked serious, serious ass. Along with David Fleetham, Jeff and I were the first ones down, and we followed him right to the turtle cleaning station. One turtle was hanging out on the ground, and another was hovering in mid-water to be cleaned on all sides at once. I was drifting towards that one when I suddenly realized I was right next to another one on the ground beside me. Turtles galore! Sometimes one would be startled by all the photographers (go figure) and head for the surface – and then everyone would scramble to get silhouette shots. David was very helpful, indicating when it seemed safer to inch closer, and when I should slow down or back off. He’s got no shortage of turtle shots under his professional belt!

I spotted several peacock groupers hovering over coral heads, and began looking for their eel partner, who soon materialized. I got lots of footage as I followed him and his buddies out and over the reef, and eventually Jeff caught on and came along. I was distracted looking at a second eel when Jeff caught the first eel striking at an octopus in a hole – but I turned around in time to catch him tying himself in knots to crush the octopus, and swimming away with it while the peacock groupers tried to grab some scraps.

An ass-kicking dive indeed!

On our surface interval, we headed out to sea in search of big stuff. Instead, we found small stuff. The boat came to a halt by a red bucket floating in the water, and a different Jeff (one of the owners of Jack’s Diving Locker) jumped out to take a look. He reported back that the bucket was home to a triggerfish and dozens of juvenile something-or-others, possibly amber jacks. Everyone hopped in for a snorkel, remembering that last year’s macro winner was a picture of a frogfish on some floating trash. The triggerfish bolted, but it was fun to watch all the little fish that had made their home on the barnacle-encrusted bucket.

For our second dive, we moored by the Old Airport. We checked out this site in hopes of finding some macro critters: scorpionfish or frogfish. Apparently conditions don’t usually allow diving here, but today was calm so we checked it out. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything very spectacular. Lots of small fish action: juvenile yellowtail coris wrasses and a juvenile rockmover. We saw several cleaning stations, and more hunting eels, but none as photogenic as on the last site. Still, we burned up all our air tooling around on the bottom. I’m loving these hour-plus dives!

We finished off our Thursday evening at the Kona Classic pizza party over at the Kona Brewery. Divers can eat; I don’t think the pizzas were ever out on the table for more than a few minutes before every scrap was picked clean. We sat with four other divers from our boat, and swapped stories about dives, pets and jobs. The evening ended with a raffle; I walked away with a PADI backpack (hey, an extra carry-on!), and Jeff snagged one of the Sport Diver baseball caps he’d been drooling over.