Osric
Contributor
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I've been meaning to post a brief trip report from diving in Oahu two weeks ago, so here it is. Except it turned out long rather than brief 
Two line summary:
- I really enjoyed diving with Kaimana Divers and would recommend them!
- Oahu diving was more about creatures and wrecks than about coral; some interesting Oahu sites seemed beyond my abilities or better for locals
Long version:
I had only one constraint, that in the middle of my trip I wanted to dive with the group I was traveling with and the organizers had selected Sea Breeze for that dive (on the Thursday). I myself chose to dive with Kaimana and Gabe was very responsive over many emails helping me plan out what I could do and when; a morning dive on the same day as the Sea Breeze dive wasn't going to work out logistics wise so I planned two dives before and one dive after that day.
Bad weather in the northeast meant I chose to fly out to Oahu a day early; so I scheduled extra dives for Wednesday with Gabe. As luck would have it, my flight was many hours late so by the time I was confirming with Gabe (10:30PM) it was too late to be sure that first day of diving would work out; we agreed that I'd meet the divers at the marina and see if there was space for me on the boat. Gabe (and other operators on Oahu, it seemed to me) buy space on the various captain's boats so that multiple groups can dive from a single charter, so there was no way to be sure in advance of the capacity and it was too late to call.
I got lucky and very few people were on the boat that day; I'd be diving with Drew and another diver diving her 150th dive that day. Myself being on only my 15th dive I was worried about cutting short her dive, and the first dive of the day was to the Sea Tiger, a wreck sitting on the bottom at about 120' with a planned dive down to a maximum depth of 100'. I dove above the others to help my air last and we had a leisurely tour of the wreck and heard whalesong. Dive time 32m, 101'.
The second dive that day was Kewalo Pipe, an old drainage pipe that's overgrown with coral. We spent 49m @ 52' and saw some small leaf scorpionfish and, if memory serves, at least one eel.
Drew was thoroughly professional and both dives were lots of fun. I don't recall making any mistakes that first day, and I spent the balance of the day snorkeling near Lanikai beach.
The second day was the group dive with sea breeze. I really wanted to dive with my group, but there were 40 of us on the boat which made even simple things like counting heads a multi-DM, multi-attempt effort. There were about 10 certified divers on the boat of whom I was the only one who had dived in the last year. The DMs did their best to split us up into groups by experience. Unfortunately my DM said he'd hand me my camera but there was a mixup with my gear and by the time I sorted that out he'd descended to the bottom; assuming he had it with him I joined the group to discover no camera (wish I'd just kept my hands on it - not the last time this trip I wished I had kept my hands on my gear). We saw several eels and turtles and had a fun dive at Koko Craters for 45m @ 39' but it's rare that I feel that my form is amongst the best in the group and on this dive everyone's rust was very evident. One of the guides went and caught an octopus for the group to play with, which turns out to be something of a routine on Oahu; I'd never been up close like this and it was pretty cool. See http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/369767-does-human-touch-harm-octopi.html for debate.
Overall I feel the sea breeze DMs and instructors did the best they could with what they had: 40 inexperienced divers is a big crowd to organize and dive a single site even given the best guides in the world. But it was a relief to go back to diving with smaller groups (even counting the other DMs/divers on the Kaimana charters).
Thursday I was to dive 1-1 with Anna. Our first dive was another wreck - the YO 257 and its sister wreck. Being a macro photographer, she was an awesome guide. She spotted a mantis shrimp from 20' away ... I swam right up next to her and still couldn't figure out what she was photographing without looking at the LCD on her camera. She also picked out several colorful nudis. This first dive was short ... I hadn't realized my regulator was freeflowing when inverted and had lost a lot of air by the time I figured it out, so we spent 25m @ 89'.
Second dive that day was at Turtle Canyons - I believe this is Koko Craters by another name, and a different mooring - and this time one of the other DMs knew where a harlequin shrimp was so we set out to follow him for that first and then do our own thing. I used my backup regulator to avoid the freeflow. The big excitement for me was spotting an octopus in open water, but everyone else missed it and I didn't want to fall behind the group. We got some great pictures of the shrimp as well as more nudis. At the end of this dive we caught up with an octopus - perhaps the same one I'd seen earlier - and it crawled all over my camera enclosure. I'd run out of battery but Anna is sending me pictures.
Also, I think this was also on the second dive, Anna surprised a yellow-headed eel out in the open and it swam right under me! I was so still as it raced by that she thought I hadn't even seen it. It was pretty cool, I have never seen an eel move that fast. Total dive time 47m @ 38'.
For the last day, I changed my dive plan because several newbies from my group wanted to go on a second 'discover scuba' type dive, and one certified diver hadn't got to dive yet. Gabe himself was the instructor and the plan was for me and the other certified diver to buddy up and Gabe teach the class.
Unfortunately two of the newbies were late which may have gotten us off to a bad start. Gabe had to hurry to get the boat loaded up while we loafed around; a case of wanting to help but knowing we'd just be in the way. I put my gear on and in one of Gabe's dive bags, not listening too carefully when he asked me to not put it in the bag. In retrospect I should have hung onto it myself, as we'll see.
We got on the boat and Gabe treated the new divers to a much more thorough 'discover scuba' intro than they'd received previously. This didn't go as well as I might have hoped, with the students not paying thorough attention and skills taking some time to master; at one point I thought Gabe's irritation showed a bit. However on asking the students afterwards they didn't seem to have noticed. When the time came to dive my mask (prescription) was missing ... I knew I'd scanned the dock to make sure all the gear was gone but we concluded it was lost and I dove with a spare from someone else's kit.
Once on the bottom, the other certified diver and I took a few short excursions within sight of the newbies and their instructor. My buddy was having trouble with his bouyancy at first so we made sure to keep a close eye on each other. Then for some reason I thought the instructor was signalling me, pointing at his mask and then pointing variously at things behind me. I grossly misinterpreted this as his telling me to go have a look around, so we went on one more, longer circuit. About halfway, I looked back and realized I could no longer see the groups bubbles; signing my buddy, I found he also didn't know where they'd gone. I wasn't even 100% sure of the bearing of the anchor line, but realized we should head back; a few short kicks in the direction I thought it was and I could see the boat again and we soon could see the line with a group of divers on it.
Remembering that I don't have my mask on, I can hopefully be forgiven for thinking that the group on the line was our group and instructor. Gazing up at them, and knowing I still had plenty of air left, I pondered what to do while some DM banged his tank to get a diver's attention. Eventually it dawned on me that he was trying to get _my_ attention, and it was _my_ guide banging ... I turned around to see poor Gabe holding a slate with WTF? printed on it. He took the time to take us over the ledge to see a nurse shark hiding in the shadows under the ledge, and then we ascended. Dive time 53m @ 41'.
Back on the boat it seemed I'd lost my trim weights; actually I had put them behind the trim pockets instead of in the trim pockets and couldn't see how to secure them. Gabe gave me a well deserved lecture about knowing how my rental gear works or asking more questions.
Luckily for me, by our next dive my mask had been found on the boat. We did another shallow dive with the whole group, for 41m @ 51'; Gabe caught an octopus and I got some great shots of the new divers getting a memorable close encounter.
Overall I'd dive with Gabe and his crew again anytime. Drew, Anna, and Gabe were all great guides/DMs (Gabe might remind me again that he's an INSTRUCTOR, not a DM and that made for a great trip with fun diving in tiny groups (except for the course day, where the group size was my fault for inviting so many friends along).
If I'm ever back in Oahu, I'd dive with Kaimana Divers again.
Osric
Two line summary:
- I really enjoyed diving with Kaimana Divers and would recommend them!
- Oahu diving was more about creatures and wrecks than about coral; some interesting Oahu sites seemed beyond my abilities or better for locals
Long version:
I had only one constraint, that in the middle of my trip I wanted to dive with the group I was traveling with and the organizers had selected Sea Breeze for that dive (on the Thursday). I myself chose to dive with Kaimana and Gabe was very responsive over many emails helping me plan out what I could do and when; a morning dive on the same day as the Sea Breeze dive wasn't going to work out logistics wise so I planned two dives before and one dive after that day.
Bad weather in the northeast meant I chose to fly out to Oahu a day early; so I scheduled extra dives for Wednesday with Gabe. As luck would have it, my flight was many hours late so by the time I was confirming with Gabe (10:30PM) it was too late to be sure that first day of diving would work out; we agreed that I'd meet the divers at the marina and see if there was space for me on the boat. Gabe (and other operators on Oahu, it seemed to me) buy space on the various captain's boats so that multiple groups can dive from a single charter, so there was no way to be sure in advance of the capacity and it was too late to call.
I got lucky and very few people were on the boat that day; I'd be diving with Drew and another diver diving her 150th dive that day. Myself being on only my 15th dive I was worried about cutting short her dive, and the first dive of the day was to the Sea Tiger, a wreck sitting on the bottom at about 120' with a planned dive down to a maximum depth of 100'. I dove above the others to help my air last and we had a leisurely tour of the wreck and heard whalesong. Dive time 32m, 101'.
The second dive that day was Kewalo Pipe, an old drainage pipe that's overgrown with coral. We spent 49m @ 52' and saw some small leaf scorpionfish and, if memory serves, at least one eel.
Drew was thoroughly professional and both dives were lots of fun. I don't recall making any mistakes that first day, and I spent the balance of the day snorkeling near Lanikai beach.
The second day was the group dive with sea breeze. I really wanted to dive with my group, but there were 40 of us on the boat which made even simple things like counting heads a multi-DM, multi-attempt effort. There were about 10 certified divers on the boat of whom I was the only one who had dived in the last year. The DMs did their best to split us up into groups by experience. Unfortunately my DM said he'd hand me my camera but there was a mixup with my gear and by the time I sorted that out he'd descended to the bottom; assuming he had it with him I joined the group to discover no camera (wish I'd just kept my hands on it - not the last time this trip I wished I had kept my hands on my gear). We saw several eels and turtles and had a fun dive at Koko Craters for 45m @ 39' but it's rare that I feel that my form is amongst the best in the group and on this dive everyone's rust was very evident. One of the guides went and caught an octopus for the group to play with, which turns out to be something of a routine on Oahu; I'd never been up close like this and it was pretty cool. See http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/369767-does-human-touch-harm-octopi.html for debate.
Overall I feel the sea breeze DMs and instructors did the best they could with what they had: 40 inexperienced divers is a big crowd to organize and dive a single site even given the best guides in the world. But it was a relief to go back to diving with smaller groups (even counting the other DMs/divers on the Kaimana charters).
Thursday I was to dive 1-1 with Anna. Our first dive was another wreck - the YO 257 and its sister wreck. Being a macro photographer, she was an awesome guide. She spotted a mantis shrimp from 20' away ... I swam right up next to her and still couldn't figure out what she was photographing without looking at the LCD on her camera. She also picked out several colorful nudis. This first dive was short ... I hadn't realized my regulator was freeflowing when inverted and had lost a lot of air by the time I figured it out, so we spent 25m @ 89'.
Second dive that day was at Turtle Canyons - I believe this is Koko Craters by another name, and a different mooring - and this time one of the other DMs knew where a harlequin shrimp was so we set out to follow him for that first and then do our own thing. I used my backup regulator to avoid the freeflow. The big excitement for me was spotting an octopus in open water, but everyone else missed it and I didn't want to fall behind the group. We got some great pictures of the shrimp as well as more nudis. At the end of this dive we caught up with an octopus - perhaps the same one I'd seen earlier - and it crawled all over my camera enclosure. I'd run out of battery but Anna is sending me pictures.
Also, I think this was also on the second dive, Anna surprised a yellow-headed eel out in the open and it swam right under me! I was so still as it raced by that she thought I hadn't even seen it. It was pretty cool, I have never seen an eel move that fast. Total dive time 47m @ 38'.
For the last day, I changed my dive plan because several newbies from my group wanted to go on a second 'discover scuba' type dive, and one certified diver hadn't got to dive yet. Gabe himself was the instructor and the plan was for me and the other certified diver to buddy up and Gabe teach the class.
Unfortunately two of the newbies were late which may have gotten us off to a bad start. Gabe had to hurry to get the boat loaded up while we loafed around; a case of wanting to help but knowing we'd just be in the way. I put my gear on and in one of Gabe's dive bags, not listening too carefully when he asked me to not put it in the bag. In retrospect I should have hung onto it myself, as we'll see.
We got on the boat and Gabe treated the new divers to a much more thorough 'discover scuba' intro than they'd received previously. This didn't go as well as I might have hoped, with the students not paying thorough attention and skills taking some time to master; at one point I thought Gabe's irritation showed a bit
. However on asking the students afterwards they didn't seem to have noticed. When the time came to dive my mask (prescription) was missing ... I knew I'd scanned the dock to make sure all the gear was gone but we concluded it was lost and I dove with a spare from someone else's kit.Once on the bottom, the other certified diver and I took a few short excursions within sight of the newbies and their instructor. My buddy was having trouble with his bouyancy at first so we made sure to keep a close eye on each other. Then for some reason I thought the instructor was signalling me, pointing at his mask and then pointing variously at things behind me. I grossly misinterpreted this as his telling me to go have a look around, so we went on one more, longer circuit. About halfway, I looked back and realized I could no longer see the groups bubbles; signing my buddy, I found he also didn't know where they'd gone. I wasn't even 100% sure of the bearing of the anchor line, but realized we should head back; a few short kicks in the direction I thought it was and I could see the boat again and we soon could see the line with a group of divers on it.
Remembering that I don't have my mask on, I can hopefully be forgiven for thinking that the group on the line was our group and instructor. Gazing up at them, and knowing I still had plenty of air left, I pondered what to do while some DM banged his tank to get a diver's attention. Eventually it dawned on me that he was trying to get _my_ attention, and it was _my_ guide banging ... I turned around to see poor Gabe holding a slate with WTF? printed on it. He took the time to take us over the ledge to see a nurse shark hiding in the shadows under the ledge, and then we ascended. Dive time 53m @ 41'.
Back on the boat it seemed I'd lost my trim weights; actually I had put them behind the trim pockets instead of in the trim pockets and couldn't see how to secure them. Gabe gave me a well deserved lecture about knowing how my rental gear works or asking more questions.
Luckily for me, by our next dive my mask had been found on the boat. We did another shallow dive with the whole group, for 41m @ 51'; Gabe caught an octopus and I got some great shots of the new divers getting a memorable close encounter.
Overall I'd dive with Gabe and his crew again anytime. Drew, Anna, and Gabe were all great guides/DMs (Gabe might remind me again that he's an INSTRUCTOR, not a DM
and that made for a great trip with fun diving in tiny groups (except for the course day, where the group size was my fault for inviting so many friends along).If I'm ever back in Oahu, I'd dive with Kaimana Divers again.
Osric
