AOW and other dives in Kauai

[fisheater]

I just got back from Kauai, where I got in 8 dives, including enough for my AOW and Boat Diver certs.

I had a fantastic time and feel like I really grew as a diver. The dive operation I used, Fathom Five, showed why they have been so highly rated. Their DM/Instructors are very nice and quite knowledgeable and they run small "6 pack" boats, so you never feel lost in a crowd. Also, they allow each diver to ascend when they need/want to, so us airhog types don't ruin anyone else's dive experience. I wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone wishing to dive on Kauai.

The dives:

Monday: Two shores dives at Koloa Landing. (UW Naturalist and UW Navigation.) I was paired up with DM/Inst. Juli, who was a delight. Koloa Landing is like a mini-Stillwater Cove, with the remains of a concrete ramp where they used to pull whales ashore. There are no facilities here, other than a rutted, dirt road, so there are no tourists and no crowds, just divers.

We saw (and ID'd) turtles, convict sturgeon, racoon butterflyfish, cleaner wrasse, spotted boxfish, sidespot and manybar goatfish, urchins (rock boring, collector, red pencil & long span), white mouth moray, spotted pufferfish, four spot butterflyfish, crown of thorns starfish, pied brittle star, parrotfish, orangebanded sturgeonfish, yellow tang and nudibrachs.

It was neat being able to stroll into the water like a human, rather than like Frankenstein's Monster. Carrying a whole lot less weight made the entries/exits much easier.

Tuesday: So many firsts! My first boat dives, my first deep dive, most dives in a day.

Deep Dive. We dove at Beach House Arch, which has a sizable lava arch at 86 fsw just off of the Beach House Restaurant. (Hence, the name.) I'd never dove off of a boat before, or beyond 40 fsw, so this was a whole lots of new. As a kid, I always marveled at the coolness of Cousteau's Calypso divers as they backrolled into the ocean. Now, these many years later, I did it too! What a blast, rolling in negative and swimming right to the anchor line. I had none of the problems that I anticipated in equalizing and getting deep. My 5 mm full wetsuit, no hood, was just fine for the 75 degree water. Viz was very good at 50-60'. The highlight, though, was the swim through at 86 fsw. I thought that I might have an issue with that, but I felt quite comfortable. There were turtles and lots of various fishes, including many pairs of Moorish Idols.

The downside of the dive was my big guy/newbie airhogish ways, and I was first to have to surface by many minutes. The way Fathom Five works their boat dives is that the DM is "everyone's buddy." All divers signal the DM at 2K psi and at 1K psi. The DM times it so that the group is near the anchor line when each diver gets low on air. The DM points to the anchor line and when the low-on-air diver acknowledges with an "OK," the DM waves goodbye and released the diver for the ascent, while the remaining divers continue their tour of the area.

I only had a 21 minute dive with a short-filled AL 80, max. depth 86 fsw. (Compressor problem that was fixed by the afternoon dives.)

Boat Dive. Second dive of the day was Turtle Town. As you would guess, the goal of the dive was to see turtles. The dive site consists of three pinnacles, each of which is traditionally a turtle cleaning station. While two stations were empty, the third had a rather large turtle being cleaned. So cool! We saw numerous other turtles, either resting on the bottom or swimming up with us.

My personal highlight of that dive was when DM/Inst. Debbie signalled to see if I was at 1K psi. I shook that off and signaled that I still had 1300 psi, which earned me some respect and a smile and clapping. I was still the first one to ascend, but I had two other dives behind me by a minute or two. 32 minutes, 60 fsw.

Fun Dives. The afternoon dives were outside the course and with a colleague of my wife's, Dr. Paul Johnson (who happens to be a PADI Inst.) I had graduated from being in the "port 3" position, or last person in the water, to being in the "port 1" position, the first person in the water.

We dove at Sheraton Caverns, three lava tubes off shore from the Sheraton Resort. What great fun! I got to do three, rather extended swimthroughs. With my morning experience, I was calm and confident during the dive, much more so than I would have expected.

I also brought my camera along, another first. Some of the photos didn't suck too badly. Here's my favorite.

http://presslab.us/ncd/forum/album_picm.php?pic_id=310


I was still the first to ascend, but I did better with 37 minutes with a max depth of 56 fsw.

The last dive of the day was at Harbor Ledges. (You'd be correct if you guessed that it was a series of ledges near the harbor.) By that fourth dive, I was getting tired, but my grin was permanent. More turtles, more fish, more cool stuff.

I doubled my safety stop, upon advise from the DM and Capt., it being my fourth dive of the day and seeing as how my computer was showing that I was one step below the warning level for nitrogen loading. I also appreciated that the Capt. idled between the afternoon dive sites, so that I would have a 1:15 surface interval. Fathom Five wouldn't baby you, but they did watch out for you.

After a great dinner with Jr. Johnson and our wives at an open-aired restaurant called Casablanca, I went right off to sleep with that grin.

Wednesday. This was the "off" day of my wife's medical conference. (She was there for the conference. I was there for the diving.) I'd promised her that I wouldn't dive during her time away from the conference. But, when we signed up for a catamaran snorkel trip to the Na Pali Coast, she allowed me to sign up for the scuba option, which was only $35 more.

The ride up the Na Pali Coast was breathtaking. Off of Barking Sands Beach, a pod of dolphins swam along between the hulls at the bow, right where we were standing. They even managed to scare a school of flying fish into "flight" before our eyes. Plus, there were numerous whales spouting and sounding about 100 yds. off the port side.

At the beach, the dive group consisted of two divers and Dallon, the DM. I was worried that I was going to have a very short dive, when I saw that we only had AL63s. Determined to overcome my airhoggish ways, I managed to squeeze 32 minutes out of that mini-tank, max depth was 35 fsw. This included a few swim through lava tubes. One of them was very tight. I descended at a 45 degree angle into a tank-scraping tube that had two different exits, both rising back up at a 45 degree angle, neither of which were very large. I had to chose which to take, based upon upon what I could see from the base. (I went left and didn't get stuck.) The important part was that, with the previous day's experience, I wasn't freaked, I didn't panic and I didn't even get very anxious. I just worked through the problem calmly. A week earlier, I wouldn't have even dreamed of trying it.

On the ride back to Port Allen, we stopped to watch a whale calf tailslap up a storm. After a few minutes, momma whale rose up next to the calf and spy hopped fairly close to us. Then, the calf and momma took turns spy hopping. What a great trip! (Blue Dolphin Charters had a fine operation, with good food and all-you-can-drink Mai Tais after you get out of the water.)

Thursday. Now that I was a total hard-core, addicted, diving fool, I had to take the morning off, because all the dives were booked up. I had to wait for the night, for my next adventure and first.

Night Dive. Four divers and DM Anthony dove at Fast Lanes, offshore from Po'i'pu. This was only the fourth time that Fathom Five had done this as a night dive. This was my biggest dive challenge to date. Night and deep.

Was "starboard one" and into the water first. My "new to me" UK Light Cannon wouldn't light, so I had to hand it up to the Capt. and get another loaner primary. Problem number one. Viz was good, but not great, especially as the plankton in the water reflected much of the light from the primaries. Problem number two. To top things off, my mask continued to leak, no matter how many times I cleared and futzed with it Problem number three. Nonetheless, I had a great time. We descended to 80 fsw and explored a series of lava ledges. We saw a very large moray out on the prowl, along with many fish and a huge number of lobster. (We'd been told during the pre-dive briefing that we couldn't bring any aboard. )

My low point / high point of the trip was when I swam off on a given heading and was to return on the reciprocal. With my leaking mask, I had trouble seeing my compass, as if being at night weren't enough. Then, I saw a large lava ledge in my path, so I had to ascend over it and descend on the other side. So, there I was at 80 fsw with a leaking mask and burning eyes, trying to read my compass in the dark. Not only was I determined not to cheat on finding the reciprocal course by following the group's lights, but as they were on the other side of the ridge, I couldn't see a damned thing anyway. The low point was that I was in that position. The high point, was that I just thought through the problem. I didn't give up and I didn't bolt to the surface. I shifted the water around my mask and squinted hard enough to read the compass and followed it up and over the ridge, right back to the group and the anchor line.

The dive was 32 minutes with max depth of 80 fsw.

That dive earned me the AOW certification and a day off of diving before flying home.

[frogman159]

Fathom Five is a great outfit. I did a two tank discover scuba program pretty sure it was at Koloa Landing. Since I was an uncertified diver at the time they paired me with an instructor and DM all to myself. Very friendly folks as well.

Sounds like you had an awesome trip.

[scubasamurai]

sounds like you had fun despite some bottom time issues.

[yankeefan21]

A. I hate you.
B. Okay, that's just jealousy talking!

My first dive ever was during one of those Na Pali coast cruises [Blue Dolphin?]. Needless to say, it was instant love. How beautiful is that island??

We actually did Sheraton Caverns when we were there and also did Turtle Alley. We were there in early February so I guess it was turtle mating season? There were TONS of Honu everywhere we looked. Actually, one of our favorite parts of that particular dive outing was watching the spinner dolphins flipping and twisting out of the water as they followed our dive boat between sites. That made for one heck of a surface interval...

We're heading back to Kauai this September. With a little luck and - dare I say "hard work" - I'll be putting my fins in the water as a newly appointed DM this time around!

PS.
Did you have a chance to enjoy a Puka Dog?

[fisheater]

No Puka Dog. Nor did I and my wife try all of the "best" or "world famous" Mai Tais.

Gotta have a good reason to go back, right?

[frogman159]

Originally Posted by fisheater

No Puka Dog. Nor did I and my wife try all of the "best" or "world famous" Mai Tais.

Gotta have a good reason to go back, right?

The Puka dog is reason enough to go back, They are awesome.