I dive bag was 52 pounds on the scale. Two pounds overweight which meant an extra fee. I stood there with my credit card but the woman checking us in was so dazed from the airport mayhem she didn't notice. Sweet. An extra $50 to put toward umbrella drinks and kava. That also meant that I could take my weighted STA out and put it my carry on for the the ride home and not get charged.
Saturday was my only day to dive on this little jaunt. One of my closest friends from high school works as an instructor and underwater tour guide for Jack's Diving Locker. So he signed me up for a two tank morning boat trip. The weather was even more perfect than usual for diving. A little cloud cover allowed for a little less sun screen. My friend was kind enough to scare up two nearly unused AL80's with DIN valves on them for me. (thanks anyways CaptnJack for the adapter loan). There was much ribbing about the fact I had to be (short bus) special with my special tanks and my special long hose etc. But thankfully that was the only ribbing I took for my rig. Not a stronzo in sight... except for one of the (recently hired) crew who started lecturing me about tech diving agencies. I just played dumb to her insecure scuba ego and vanity.
The first dive spot we hit was Pyramid Pinnacles. My friend was on board to dive with me not as a DM so we weren't limited by the vacation divers on board. Normally they only spend about 45 mins bottom time. We rushed into the water first and spent about an 1:16 goofing off. My digital camera is really my wife's. Just happen to own the housing for it. Once I got under I realized I couldn't figure out how to make the flash come on. It took me the whole dive to find the right combination of buttons to make it happen. I guess I was messing with it so much that even my wife who was snorkeling asked me what was wrong with the camera. She watched me from above swim off pushing buttons. I thank my lucky stars I didn't have to use those tiny buttons with dry gloves.
Since he didn't have any customers or students my friend was able to explore some lava tubes he doesn't normally get to go in. The first one we came upon we found a white tip shark up and about. We were psyched that it wasn't napping as they tend to do during the day. As my buddy went around the other side of the lava tube to get the shark to go past me I found myself crouching behind a rock like I was waiting for a bear or some other woodland creature. It was total instinct as if I was on land. I got a good laugh out of myself. The poor guy had a fish hook stuck in his craw and was trailing some shark leader. No wonder he couldn't sleep.
You can see the insomniac shark just in the entrance of the cave in this photo. The light looks pretty great coming through the top of the lava tube.
Closer.
As he passes by (I haven't mastered the button delay of my camera at all)
And him leaving in a huff.
Lava tubes are fun.
We went into another tube that dead ended that had a hole in the top that even after 100's of dives here he had never gone in before. We were probably in 10 feet of water by the shore and the water was crashing through the hole at the top of this hollow area. You could see just how the water had carved even more of the rock away... and piled stones up in the corner as if my some kind of sorting machine. I tried to take as many photos of the cashing water, bubbles, and the light streaming through. The one of my friend below you can see that it looked like were were inside a bubbly seltzer cave. I dumped all the gas from my wing and laid on my back trying to get interesting pictures.
I'll try not to bore everyone with yet another set of blueish green photo of an angel fish. But I really dig trumpet fish so I'll include a few in spite of the lack of flash.
I'm most disappointed with my flashless photography when I spotted this eel as we were heading back to the upline.
Eli flutter kicking into the big blue.
The second dive was at Pipe Dreams. This is a site right off the Natural Energy Labs. I'm guessing they do some work with seawater cooling and heating and have pipes that go offshore to collect cool water. The test pipe they laid is a popular dive site. It starts at about 40 or so feet and goes down to 110 or so. The pipe was interesting but the eel that lives in the top of the pipe wasn't home that day.
I did watch some fish swim upside-down eating stuff from the bottom of the pipe and I thought that was kinda cool.
A little octo eluded us and hid in some coral. The bugger! I got a couple photos of him all buried in there.
I found a white mouth moray somewhere along the way who was really quite photogenic.
We found a white bucket floating at the surface and inside was a little frogfish.
When we let him out at the end of the dive a bunch of us with cameras started stooging it up. The frogfish came right at me and all my camera could focus on was the other divers with cameras... but it still makes for a funny photo series.
The whole photo set can be found here on flickr.
I can always recommend Jack's to folks who are on the big island. They've got an influx of new DM's I would stay away from. Certainly Keller and Eli are the most fun to dive with. Doug and Grumpy Jim are also second on my list of great dive guides. Everyone else... YMMV. They switch your tanks and rinse your gear for you at the end of the day which is nice for some folks. Sandwiches are served for lunch too. And if you can manage to get Danny as your boat captain he always has a silly story to tell.
The next day we ran down to Place of Refuge to go look at some Hawaiian ruins and do some snorkeling. I did a shore dive here a few years ago and I can safely say that it ruled. The snorkeling here is A freaking plus too.
Nice ass.
Please don't anger the tiki gods.
We saw a few sea turtles basking on the lava. We tried not to get too close to them while they napped but other tourists did. My wife and I tattled on them to the rangers when we left the park.
The tide pools were rich with the fuzzy green grass the turtles like to eat.
All said and done it was a brief but delightful trip to the Big Island. This would have never been possible living on the east coast for sure.
Thanks for making it this far in my boring vacation slide show.
-Eric
