April 24, 2011

4-24-11

Went fishing yesterday with Rich Bauer. We passed by VV buoy around 6:am and hooked a spunky striped marlin that put on a great jumping display. Rich brought the fish up to the boat in about 15 minutes and we let it swim free. About an hour later we made it to C buoy passing spotted dolphins, beaked and pilot whales along the way. At C buoy we started catching 4-8# skip jack and yellowfin tunas for live baits. The first bait attracted a large bronze whaler shark that gave Rich something to tug on for awhile. Once the shark was free we resumed live baiting but started getting harrassed by a group of rough toothed dolphins. The pesky critters wouldnt leave us alone so we eventually gave up and started trolling plastics. Near VV we had a hook up that came off right away but we circled back and found a hungry spearfish that even made a few jumps. Rich had the spearfish to the back of the boat in five minutes and the fish unhooked itself.

3 days ago we had a similar trip and Rich caught a Blue marlin under 100#'s

April 23, 2011

Suck 'Em Up and Kaiwi Point. The South swell has been big enough to keep us out of these sites for the last couple weeks. It was nice to visit them again. Visibility was phenomenal! As good as it gets! There was a huge antler coral demolished right by the Suck 'Em Up mooring... couldn't tell if it was from the recent swell or an anchor drop.

Exploring the lava tubes was fun. We saw a White Tip Reef Shark, a variety of Moray Eels, Hawaiian Octopus and loads of fish at Kaiwi Point. Fun day!

April 22, 2011

Fishing trip today... So fun! We hooked a Pacific Blue Marlin almost right off the bat, and released him. He probably weighed in at around 100 lbs. We headed Southward and found a huge pod of Spotted Dolphins where we caught a few small Yellow Fin Tuna. (they were delicious, we later had them as sashimi) We then found a pod of Short Finned Pilot Whales. We also got one more special treat... a pod of Melon Head Whales come all around the boat.... CLOSE. It was amazing!!!

April 21, 2011

Kaloko Canyons and Turtle Haven. Today's dive highlights: Mating Hawaiian Octopus that couldn't care less about us. We hung out with them watching them change color and texture again and again. Too cool. We had a close encounter with a large Manta Ray. We saw a Spotted Eagle Ray, a couple Green Sea Turtles, more Hawaiian Octopus and a variety of moray eels

April 19, 2011

Pyramid Pinnacle and Nai'a Bay. Great vis today! Today's dive highlights: Spotted Eagle Rays, Great Barracuda, Green Sea Turtle, Leaf Scorpion Fish, Hawaiian Octopus, Snowflake Moray Eel.

April 15, 2011

Aloha All! Check out our new Facebook page! Been diving with us in the past? Please share photos, video or stories on our new page. ENJOY!

March 15, 2011

Whale Shark!!

What a great moment for all of our open water students. We were conducting Open Water Dive 1, for the PADI program. We were all just off the boat and headed up to the mooring line to begin our descent when we look over and see a Whale Shark! It was a young male, only about 15 feet long. He was so beautiful. He hung our with us for about 5 minutes and was scratching his back and belly against the mooring line. Then he slowly swam off into the blue. We all took a moment to compose ourselves and the continued on with these lucky individual's FIRST DIVE EVER!

I can't remember what we saw on that dive!