Yesterday was a very good day. John was actually home for the weekend so that was pleasant. A few weeks ago we went to the Submarine Officer's Wive Charity Auction for the Dolphin Scholarship. It's a mouthful! We won one thing and that was a two person two-tank, two location dive during the silent auction. Basically we bought the dive we wanted for around half the price. This is a one day boat dive that takes you to two places.
Yesterday we cashed out on the dives and it was a great day. We went with Ocean Concepts on Sunday morning at 8am. Since we pay for the dive, they take our stuff to the boat and set up the BCDs, tanks, and regulators for us. The first location we went to is called Twin Caves and we had a guide to show us around since we're newbies and also don't know the dive site.
Twin Caves
It was a wonderful dive. I saw many fish, but unfortunately I can never remember which ones I saw by the time I get to my book! I've seen to many in different places. We definitely saw three 6-8ft long White Tipped Reef Sharks underneath a cave. It was very cool. I learned that when I see sharks I get excited instead of scared, so that's always good. Of course we must always exercise caution and not provoke them, but we're not stupid. When in doubt, just calmed swim away. They were neat. Someone took a picture of them using a flash and one got scared and swam away.
I also saw a Moray eel, I think it was the honeycomb eel but I'm not positive. Once I get to my book, I can't remember the specifics! He was white and brown spotty though and swimming around in circles through a coral.
After that dive we were given lunch and took the boat to the second location. On the way there we saw about our humpback whales swimming by! That was really exciting! They didn't do tricks but we saw their humps and there was a fin slap. They were pretty close. It was great getting more for our buck! Now we don't need to go on a whale watch! haha.
The second dive was 29 Down which (the link will explain better) is a man made wreck dive. However, contrary to the picture in that link, it's in many pieces. During one of the hurricanes it was torn to pieces so now they're scattered about the ocean floor. It was still neat to look inside various coves and swim about. We saw another Porcupine fish! They're so adorable.
Besides a large amount of fish, some not in either of my books, this dive didn't have anything too exciting but it was still a lot of fun and I loved being down there. I only wish it could have been longer, but because of the pressure, the deeper you go the more quickly you go through the air. We went about 85 ft down for the first dive/tank and about 70 the next one.
I love diving.
Unfortunately John got all excited about seeing the Sharks that he talked about no longer wanting to do cage diving. Well, it's simpler than that. It's a plexiglass surrounded cage that you go in to see sharks. See : www.hawaiisharkencounters.com : Well that is what I had planned for his birthday and to do next weekend. So I told him and thus the surprise is ruined but after feeling like a jerk and realizing that we could see more and see them closer, he still wants to do it.
So next week, we swim with sharks!
I love diving.
Oh, P.S.
Those pictures are not mine. Since we don't have a camera that can go that deep, I found these on Google to help portray what I saw. :-)
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