On Saturday, February 23, 2008, I dove again with Andre' from Reef Trekkers. We did two dives, the San Pedro/YO-257, a 90 foot deep dive on two ships that were intentionally sunk as artificial reefs, and the Kewalo Basin Pipe, a 60 foot deep dive on a shallow coral reef and an old outflow pipe off of Ward Center.
I got in, immediately submerged and grabbed the anchor line and waited for Andre. He submerged as soon as he hit the water, so I just followed him.
Dropped down to nearly the bottom alongside the San Pedro (90') following a Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle and then swam back up to the deck level. We did a swim through of the cargo hold and then up to the deck and swam around for a little bit and then followed Andre over the side and we swam over to the YO-257.
Swam through the oiling equipment on the deck. All throughout, there was a pretty strong current running that made staying clear challenging. Also, there was lots of crud in the water. It almost looked like a snow storm. Took a bunch of photos, but they all were not too good.
There was a White Spotted Eagle Ray just off the side of the YO as we were about to start back. I managed to get a photo as we swam back over to the San Pedro. We swam over the top of the wreck to the mooring line and began our ascent. Just before getting to the mooring line, we passed over another White Spotted Eagle Ray and I got a photo of it as well.
Did a three minute safety stop and then went up and boarded the boat.
Even though I had cleaned the o-ring on my watch after the last dives in January, it flooded again on this dive, but was still functioning. My depth gauge never went below 70 feet and stuck on 60 feet coming back up. I talked to Andre about it and his response was, "You are with me and I will keep you safe." I decided then that either I would get my own gear or not dive with Andre' again. I like him a lot, but it is not worth risking so much.
For the second dive we dropped down to the pipe at between 40 and 45 feet. Andre and I swam slowly out to the end of the pipe and then back in a large circle around the reef. Saw and took photos of various reef fish and one little moray eel.
The circle brought us back to the mooring line where we slowly ascended and did a three minute safety stop. Finished the ascent and boarded the boat.
Even though my watch is flooded, it worked until the end of the dive and died just as I was getting out of the water. It is now toast.
2 years ago
