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SCUBA Diving
2002 was an interesting year to say the least!!
In January, we both got laided off within 2 days of each other, celebrated our 30th Anniverary learning to SCUBA dive, and started a Furniture Medic franchise. We spent 2 weeks in Kailua-Kona ("Kona") on the "big island of Hawaii to learn to SCUBA dive.
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At 30' on our 30th Anniversary
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Sea turtle getting cleaned
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This is fun!!
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Diving Trips
To celebrate our 30th Anniversary and the start of new careers, we took 2 weeks and went to Kailua-Kona ("Kona") on the "big island of Hawaii to learn to SCUBA dive. We did the self-study materials prior to going and completed the Open Water Certification during the first week. We took several days off and then started the Advanced Open Water Diving certification as well as sightseeing diving. The highlight of the trip was a night Manta Ray dive.
We got into the
water as the sun set. We had one exercise to complete an Adanced Open Water excercise. While the others went to setup the "Manta circle", we and our instructor when one direction. By the time we completed the excerise, the Mantas had shown up so we swam toward the group with the bright lights shining towards the surface, the divers in a semi-circle and the Mantas diving through the light eating the plankton - what a sight!! The
divemasters had us put on 10 extra pounds to keep us solidly on the bottom. That didn't work too well with the 10 Mantas diving into the "group". The warned us not to touch that Mantas so we wouldn't hurt their skin; they forgot to tell the Mantas as more than one mask and snorkel got hit. What away to end a fabulous trip!!
Our friends Peter and Kathy invited us to dive and stay with them in their timeshare. For the first couple of days, Catherine and I did dove with Eco-Adventures, who did our original certifcation) to refresh ourselves and complete the Advanced certficiate The remaining days Kathy and Peter introduced us to Dive Makai - Kendra, Tom, Lisa, and the gang. A very much "see the underwater life and geography" operation. We had
at least 2, if not 3, divemasters in the water for most of the dives with were 8 or 10 customers. We dove Driftwood, Coral Dome, Kaine,Turtle Pinnacles, Arch of the Pyramids, Au'au Canyon (lava ridges on the South Coast), Pinnacles of Illusion, and Garden Eel. One day was an Adventure dive which was billed as a 3 tank dive depending on the "critters" found along the way. The general plan is met at the boat a the regular time and head South along the coast toward Au'au Canyon. We encounter several pods of spinner dolphins both going and coming. The dolphin really enjoyed swiming and playing in the wake of the boat. Long day and alot of fun new sights to see. Great experience and set a very high standard for other other dive operators to meet!
Work and our motocycle trip got in the way of diving until September 2005. We'd so much fun with Dive Makai that we went back for more. When we arrived at the boat the first day, we learned that Tom and Lisa where in the process selling the business to Mike and Kimberly. So we got to dive with some of the "original" gang as well as Mike and others that were joining him. In addition to many of the same sites from the previous trip, we dove the Golden Arches, Eel Cove, Sand Shoot, Manta Bay, and High Arches. Another great time was had!!!
Lynn and Jim (Catherine's sister and brother-in-law) invited us to join them on their trip to Kihei and their condo. This trip was a combination of sightseeing and diving. The first day was a single tank shore dive off Kamaole III Park. The next 4 dives were with Scuba Shack - 2 dives at Molokini volcano, off shore Kamaole III Park and Shrimp Boat wreck. Scuba Shack had a newer large jet boat, "brand new" rental gear, "larger" group of divers,
and more "go go" than previous operators - a good time was had. For our last 2 dives, Jim had heard of Mike Severns Diving on previous trips but had not used them. The weather did not cooperate to go to Molokini so we dove both dives along the Kihei coast at Landing Craft and Red Hill. Mike Severns Diving was very much like Dive Makai - take is slow, see the fishes, and waterscape, good briefing before each dive on what you're likely
to see.
So what shall we do for Roy's 60th? - let's go diving.
This would be our first outside of Hawaii and first trip to Mexico. We searched the web and talked with a number of friends about dive operators but didn't get strong recommendation. We were staying at the Cabo Azul Resort (San Jose del Cabo) so we talked and exchanged emails with Leon, one of the concierges. Turns out he is a diver too. He recommended Land's End Divers in Cabo San Lucas. Great choice - Balentine (boat captian) and Lorena (tour guide and divemaster) were fantastic. It was great that we had the boat to ourselves
for all but 2 of the 9 dives.
We arrived late Friday afternoon and had far too many margaritas with dinner. As it turned out Saturday was our day of rest, we checked out the resort and then drove into San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas to check them out and get our bearings. It's about 30 KM from the Resort to downtown Cabo San Lucas and the harbor. We did two dives on Sunday at Lands End and Pelican Rock. We dove with the sea lions and saw lots of big fish, schools of bait fish, humpback parrot fish,
octupus, scorpion stone fish and porcupine fish. All the dive sites we went to in Cabo are 10 to 15 minutes from the dock, so our surface interval was back at the dock. Every day we dove in Cabo there were 2 or 3 cruise ships in so it was interesting watching the peddlers trying to sell their wares to the cruise ship passengers while purging the nitrogen.
On Monday at the recommendation of several concierges, we went to Cabo Pumo which is a Mexician National Marine Park which is approximately 2 hours Northeast of San Jose del Cabo and the last 20 KM were a rough packed dirt road. The taxi picked us up at 7:15 and we arrived at about 9:30. Since it is in a Marine Park, there are no docks or moorings so the gear was loading into the boat at the surf's edge. We climbed in and a pickup pushed the
boat with us aboard into the incoming surf. The surface
interval between the two dives was out in the bay since launch and recovery was a surf one. There was a strong current running northward and a southerly wind blowing which limited us to two dive sites. This was our first real drift dives. We were drifting fast enough that we cover the first planned dive site and half of the second. So for the second dive, the divemaster had the boat captain drop us off in the middle of the first dive site and we drifted through it and the second site. We saw coral,
big fish, a school of bat rays, swimming eels, and several groups of garden eels. The dives were nice, Vicki (the divemaster) was good, and lunch was good; but boat captain appeared and acted "annoyed" that we'd shown up and was less than helpful. The boats have no sun shade - I would not want to be doing a surface interval during the summer or with light or no wind.... A 2 tank dive was $150 (plus 10% if you us a credit card) which included transportation to and Cabo Pumo, lunch, and gear. We can understand a cost
difference between Cabo Pumu and Cabo San Lucas; but for us on this day, it was not worth the differential.
Monday evening when we got back to the Resort and booked the next 2 days with Land's End Divers. We dove Lands End, Pilican Rock again and added Neptune's finger and Middle wall. Tuesday we did 3 dives and Wednesday 2 dives. 2 of the dives were wall dives at about 90' which was great. One had an active sandfall - a continuous flow of sand cascading over the rocks and sliding down a 50' plus chute. Our last dive of the trip was great. The sea lions where out playing with each other
and "playing" with several schools of bait fish. At one point, we were "hanging" at 40' in 60' of water with the school of bait fish between us and the sea lions. The bait fish would swim away from the sea lions and we were in their way so they's swing back toward the sea lions to then turn back towards us - great fun for us if not them!
The water temperature was 82 degrees whether we were at 10' or 100' and visibility was 100' plus.
Did I say we had a great time? Lorena and Balentine were great! Except for 2 dives, we had the boat and Lorena to ourselves.
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A view from the pool bar towards the resort. Two infinite horizon pools
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A view towards the Pacific Ocean / Gulf of California. The third infinite horizon pool
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Us with Balentine (boat captain) and Lorena our great dive master and tour guide
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The Cabo San Lucas harbor
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Cabo Pumo Dive Center, resturant, and resort
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Looking towards the North from the resturant
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Looking towards the South from the resturant.
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It's a new day, Damn we're leaving
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