Kerry's Travels: February 7, 2009 Dives - Airplane Ledge, Shallow LCU & Shallow LCU

On Saturday, February 7, 2009, I dove with Mike Darrah and Jo (divemaster) from Ocean Concepts. We did three dives, Airplane Ledge, a 110 foot deep dive on an airplane that was intentionally sunk as an artificial reef and two dives on the Shallow LCU, a 90 foot deep dive on a Landing Craft that was sunk as an artificial reef.

I dove with Mike on the first dive and with Jo on the other two. Jo was the divemaster for our group. Three of the divers had cameras. There were 10 divers and two "guides." Three of the divers were divemaster candidates. Mike was one of them.

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. The site consists of a deep coral reef at about 80 feet. It forms a ledge, hence the name, and falls off to about 105 feet where the airplane wreck, or what is left of it rests. It has been dragged out to deeper water several times by big storms and they have gone and found it and drug it back. All that is left is the wings and they are in pretty bad shape.

The mooring line is anchored to the edge of the reef ledge, so we congregated there and then headed over to the wreck. The wing was full of Hawaiian Squirrelfish and a couple of Yellowstripe Squirrelfish. I tried to get a photo of the Yellowstripes, but couldn't get them to hold still long enough.

Hawaiian Squirrelfish

There was a large Yellowmargin Moray Eel in a hole in the wing and a big Day Octopus under the edge of the wing.

Yellowmargin Moray Eel

Day Octopus

We swam over to the ledge and found a Decoy Scorpionfish in a little hole and a small Whitemouth Moray Eel.

Decoy Scorpionfish

Whitemouth Moray Eel

As we were heading back to the mooring line, we came across a Kangaroo Nudibranch and Jo discovered an enormous Ridgeback Slipper Lobster that was at least two feet long under a ledge.

Kangaroo Nudibranch

Ridgeback Slipper Lobster

We also came across a couple of Leaf Scorpionfish.

Leaf Scorpionfish

It was pretty chilly during the surface intervals tonight. The wind was blowing a little and the temps were lower. I was glad to have a jacket. Since we are doing three deep dives, we lengthened out the safety stop to 5 minutes and then took long surface intervals.

The second and third dives were on the Shallow LCU, the same dive that I flooded my camera on back in September on a three-tank night dive. Mike was finishing up his divemaster training with Carlos, so I was buddied up with Jo.

We swam around the wreck and saw lots of nudibranchs, even a couple that I have never seen before. I got photos of a Desirable Nudibranch, a cluster of Imperial Nudibranchs, a Trembling Nudibranch, a Varicose Phyllidia, and several Bluedragon Nudibranchs.

Desirable Nudibranch

Imperial Nudibranchs

Trembling Nudibranch

Varicose Phyllidia

We also saw two Commerson's Frogfish. One was bright red and the other was larger and brown.

Commerson's Frogfish

I ended the dive with the best photo I have gotten so far of a Hawaiian Dascyllus.

Hawaiian Dascyllus

It was even colder on the boat after the second dive. We were all shivering, even with jackets and towels. After the surface interval, we giant strided into the water off the boat and headed for the bottom. I got a couple more shots of the Red Commerson's Frogfish.

Commerson's Frogfish

I spotted a Cusk Eel and while I was trying to get the camera ready to take a photo, it ducked into a passageway on the boat and just then an emormous Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle came out of the same passage. I managed to snap a photo of its head and right front flipper.