September 27, 2008 Dives - Shallow LCU, Land of Oz, and Land of Oz

So many things went wrong with my dive day on Saturday, September 27, 2008, that I should have just cancelled. About 10 minutes after I left the hotel I realized I had forgotten my new gloves. I was too late to go back and get them so I just went on. When I got on the boat and was getting all my gear ready, I realized my computer was back at the hotel in my briefcase. Without my computer, and with no tables and no depth guage, I was in a pickle for sure. Jen came to my rescue and loaned me her spare computer. That worked OK for the dives, but not for logging.

I dove with Jennifer (divemaster) from Ocean Concepts and John Braddock. We did three dives, Shallow LCU, an 85 foot deep landing craft wreck and two dives at Land of Oz, a 60 foot deep coral reef. I dove with John. I had a camera and a few others on the boat did as well. There were 19 divers and three "guides", so they paired up all the divers and the three guides each took a group.

Our group was the first in this time, and I was the first in the water. We congregated at the mooring line until all of our group was there and then descended.

DISASTER STRIKES!!

At 60 feet, I looked at my camera and there were a few air bubbles in the housing floating on sea water that was destroying the camera before my eyes. It was too late to do anything about it so, I just went ahead with the dive. The camera and the batteries (rechargable) are a total loss. Too soon to tell whether the card can be salvaged. By the end of the dive, the sea water in the housing looked like brown sludge! It was sickening to watch.

Commerson's Frogfish

I finished descending to the LCU and we went on a little tour around it looking in and under all the Z-blocks that are scattered around it for critters. Sometimes there are baby Whitetip Reef Sharks there, but not so on Saturday. For some reason, I had a hard time focusing on the dive - it was like being in a dream and just watching it all happen in slow motion. I looked at the stuff others pointed out, but wasn't really an active participant. My heart was just not in it.

Commerson's Frogfish

We saw several Commerson's Frogfish and several little tiny yellow flatworms or nudibranchs. No one really knows what they are - they just started showing up over the past two weeks and they are not in any of the books. When we all got down to about 900-1000 psi, we ascended and did a safety stop and then got out of the water.

Imperial Nudibranch

Yellow Noumea Nudibranch

As soon as I got on the boat, I opened the camera housing and removed the SD card. I rinsed it quickly in fresh water and then looked the camera over well. It is amazing how fast the corrosion process went. It is a total loss. I didn't think to remove the batteries until later, and probably could not have salvaged them anyway. The entire inside of the housing is covered with a brownish scum. Yuck!

When everyone was on-board again, we went back to the dock and traded the empty tanks from the first dive for full ones and then went to Land of Oz for the second and third dives.

Land of Oz is sort of like a muck dive. There are coral reef areas, but much of the bottom is just coral rubble and sand and there are lots of critters hanging out there. In addition to the ones that live in the muck, there are lots and lots of baby reef fish, so you see all these miniature versions of what you normally see. Since I didn't have a camera, I pulled out my backup light (it was still somewhat light since this was a twilight dive) and started looking for things in nooks and crannies and under rubble and coral heads, etc., and pointing them out to the other divers, especially those with cameras.

Dwarf Moray Eel

I saw lots of Banded Coral Shrimp and early in the dive came upon a little hole that had two small Banded Coral Shrimp hanging from the top of the hole and two little White-Stripe Cleaner Shrimp (they are the ones to get for an aquarium) in the bottom of the hole. I settled down close to the opening to watch for a minute and suddenly the two cleaner shrimp came jetting out of the hole to clean my mask and face! I held my hand out and one landed right on it and started trying to find loose bits of flesh with its pinchers. It was so cool.

Flameback Coral Shrimp & White-Stripe Cleaner Shrimp

I saw the first angelfish I have come across. It was a Potter's Angelfish. There were lots of Redspotted Sandperch, a Redstripe Pipefish, a Light-Spotted Sea Cucumber, and a Crowned Toby - all firsts. There were so many little tiny fish that it was hard to remember them all. Some look just like miniature versions of the adults, such as the Triggerfish, but some don't look like anything in any of the books I have seen. Right at the end of the dive there was a Decoy Scorpionfish, really red under light, but nearly transparaent and invisible without light.

Redspotted Sandperch

Unknown Eel

Hawaiian Red Lionfish (Turkeyfish)

With about 700 psi left, I ascended and did my three minute safety stop before getting out. We hung out on the boat for about an hour waiting for the surface interval and talked about the first two dives, and football, and living in Hawaii.

When John and I got in for the last dive, it was fully dark. This was his second night dive ever and really his first real night dive since the other one was for his Advanced Open Water certification and was similar to ours. We hung out at the bow of the boat for quite a while waiting for the rest of our group to get ready and join us. There was so much bioluminescence in the water! We turned our lights off and put snorkels on and just watched as we held the mooring line and kicked. It looked like we were kicking hot coals with white "sparks" shooting off our legs and fins.

When we got back down to the bottom, it was much like the twilight dive, except most of the baby reef fish were gone and the night fish - Hawaiian Squirrelfish and Iridescent Cardinalfish were everywhere. I saw a large Peacock Grouper hanging out in a cave in the coral along with several large lobsters. All I could see of them was their eyes glowing bright gold, so I don't know what kind they were.

Jen found a Spanish Dancer Nudibranch and poked it until it let go of the reef and started dancing in the water. We followed it for quite a while by keeping it in the beams of our lights. Most nudibranchs are tiny, about an inch or less long. This one was about six inches long and two inches wide and brilliant scarlet red. I also found a Red Dendrodoris Nudibranch which is the opposite extreme, less than an inch long. Before I knew it, our 45 minutes of bottom time was up and even though I still had lots of air, it was time to surface.

After a three minute safety stop, I still had 1200 psi left. I am getting much better at air usage.