Last Thursday, fate being all quirky and all, Robin, Ron, Carrie, me and my wife Lynn, all converged on the Place of Refuge, a super shore diving spot on the Kona coast. We agreed that if we'd tried to plan a Kona M&G it would never happen, but coincidence ruled and so there we were.
We surveyed the easy two-step entry rock, geared up and headed out over the shallow coral garden, bursting with color and full of fish. We took a heading of 240˚ out and dropped 50 meters from shore in about 15' of water. The plan was roughly to hit the sand patch just to the right of our heading, see the "ALOHA" cinderblock sculpture, and then dip over the wall and go either left to see the magnificent wall of cascading plate coral, or right to follow the coral wall around the bowl-shaped bay until turn pressure.
Dive 1
51 minutes
depth 45 fsw
temp 79˚
vis 100+
Ron and Robin headed off together and Lynn and I went right on the wall until we hit a small sand channel running east/west toward shore. There were a lot of Ornate Butterflies, Yellow tangs, Racoon butterflies, sargent majors, and Trigger fish. On the way back we inspected the wall of plate coral on the south side of the bay. It is a breathtaking structure dropping almost straight to the bottom at about 110'.
Here's Ron at the aloha sculpture
The wall heading north (right)
Plate coral
ornate butterflies
Dive 2
54 minutes
depth 73 fsw
temp 75˚
vis 100+
Ron, Carrie and I took off to the right and explored further around the bay than I'd ever gone. Ron found a small eel poking out of his hole.
Here is a short video from that dive and another I did further north at Kahuwai Bay on a lovely garden reef.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sie-vgH0lE
Later that night both Ron and Robin did the black water dive. I opted to call it a day and was drinking a longboard while those guys were dangling on a 50' tether over 6000 feet of water in the inky blackness.
We surveyed the easy two-step entry rock, geared up and headed out over the shallow coral garden, bursting with color and full of fish. We took a heading of 240˚ out and dropped 50 meters from shore in about 15' of water. The plan was roughly to hit the sand patch just to the right of our heading, see the "ALOHA" cinderblock sculpture, and then dip over the wall and go either left to see the magnificent wall of cascading plate coral, or right to follow the coral wall around the bowl-shaped bay until turn pressure.
Dive 1
51 minutes
depth 45 fsw
temp 79˚
vis 100+
Ron and Robin headed off together and Lynn and I went right on the wall until we hit a small sand channel running east/west toward shore. There were a lot of Ornate Butterflies, Yellow tangs, Racoon butterflies, sargent majors, and Trigger fish. On the way back we inspected the wall of plate coral on the south side of the bay. It is a breathtaking structure dropping almost straight to the bottom at about 110'.
Here's Ron at the aloha sculpture
The wall heading north (right)
Plate coral
ornate butterflies
Dive 2
54 minutes
depth 73 fsw
temp 75˚
vis 100+
Ron, Carrie and I took off to the right and explored further around the bay than I'd ever gone. Ron found a small eel poking out of his hole.
Here is a short video from that dive and another I did further north at Kahuwai Bay on a lovely garden reef.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sie-vgH0lE
Later that night both Ron and Robin did the black water dive. I opted to call it a day and was drinking a longboard while those guys were dangling on a 50' tether over 6000 feet of water in the inky blackness.
