Maui, 1999
Author: Ellen

Had a great flight over here on Hawaiian Airlines. For once in my life, I got to sit next to a passenger who was fun to talk to. The flight went by quickly and we arranged to touch base with each other back in Portland.
Had a slight snafu at the airport, Hawaiian Diver was supposed to meet me at the gate, but he was nowhere to be found. I just headed on over to the baggage claim and before long, a man approached me and asked "Excuse me, but are you Ellen?" Yet another Board member who I can safely say is a real live human being.

Headed on over to my Bed and Breakfast and checked in. It's a beautiful peaceful place to stay. They don't even have locks on the doors! Room keys? Not here!
The owners are super people who make me feel right at home and can't do enough for me. My trip is off to a great start.

Hawaiian diver picks me up at 5:45 AM on Thursday morning and we head on out to the Kihei boat ramp to meet Mike Severns for a three tank dive. All of the boats leave not later than 6:30 AM to avoid the tradewinds which blow strongly each day starting about noon. We get checked in, sign the forms, and head on out to Molokini. Pauline does her pre dive briefing, which is the BEST I have ever had in my short diving career. She describes in detail all of the marine life we may see on the dive. Complete with pictures, too, so we know what we are looking for. She also gives a detailed description of the egg laying habits, feeding habits, cleaning station activities, etc. She welcomes questions and gives informative answers. It is obvious that they greatly enjoy what they do and want everyone to have a have fun diving and learning about Hawaii's marine life. The first dive is planned to go to 130 feet. Although I'd never been that deep before I was not scared. I felt I was diving with some very competent people.
The only thing that Pauline was in error about was my weight. I told her about 10-12 lbs would probably be fine, but as I was diving with a new 3/2 wetsuit I wasn't really sure. Believe it or not, a friend of mine who recently had a baby dropped it off on my doorstep one day. Her scuba diving days were over, and I was the happy beneficiary of this chain of events. At any rate, Pauline looks at me and says, oh you'll be fine with 10. Well, 10 didn't even begin to get me down. We added weight finally stopping at 13. She exclaimed, "You're just a very buoyant person!" The beginning of the dive did not go well as my mask kept flooding. I kept clearing it, but it repeatedly flooded each time I cleared it. Finally, Pauline came over and fixed my strap which was not positioned correctly. I finally started to enjoy the dive. We saw several reef sharks, two fairy nudibranchs, a banded lobster under a ledge and black spotted pufferfish. The banded lobster is only found in Hawaii, which was the case with lots of marine life that we saw. About 30% of the fish are endemic to Hawaii and aren't found anywhere else. My buddy, Hawaiian Diver, takes lots of pictures with his camera. My depth was 139 feet, bottom time was 37 minutes. Normally I come up with lots of air, so I was really surprised how quickly I depleted my air supply. For the first dive, I wore my aeroskin and my 3/2 mil gift wetsuit. I wasn't cold, water temp was about 78 degrees.

Our next dive was the Back Wall of Molokini. I was really looking forward to this dive, having heard how great it's supposed to be. I went to 91 feet on this dive, didn't record my bottom time yet in my log book, so can't say how long I stayed down. I saw a parrotfish eating and then spitting stuff out of its mouth. Later, on the boat, I was told that it spits out white sand and that the white sand beaches consist partly of parrotfish "spit". Very weird to watch the fish spit the stuff out of its mouth. I was getting a bit cold on this dive, so Pauline offered several styles of hoods for me to wear. I picked the "baseball cap" hood. It was an unusual looking hood, but very stylish and kept my mask on better than on the first dive.

The third dive was the best one of the day for me. It was at 68 feet, with 59 minutes of bottom time. By the time the third dive came around, I realized I needed a head covering more substantial than the baseball cap hood if I was to stay comfortable. I sheepishly went with a full hood, complete with bib. Shades of my Pacific Northwest diving in Puget Sound!! Heck, at least I was warm and toasty. We saw a frogfish just sitting there on the bottom. It hardly looks like a fish. I examined it in great detail and finally located its small eyes. But they are hard to find on its body. I stayed with the frogfish indicating to Hawaiian Diver to come closer and take a picture. I wanted one of me and the frogfish! Happily, he complied and I now have some good pics of me and the frogfish. His body even had stuff growing on it! Saw a slate pencil sea urchin. They are red and are neat to see. There were some white mouth eels, too. The inside of their mouths are completely white, in sharp contrast to
their body. I'd previously only seen the moray eel and a viper eel (in the Sea of Cortez). In my later dives with Mike Severns, I ended up seeing a number of them. Every nice needs a dramatic ending, right? The powers above decided to comply and we were all treated to a HUGE Manta Ray cruising around. He was being cleaned by the cleaner fish. Our group was fixated on him, and he swam around slowly for us, bless his heart. A command performance! The grand finale! When he came close, he opened up his mouth. It was HUGE as was the rest of him. My rough guess would be that he was 15 to 20 feet across. Hawaiian Diver, if you are reading this post, do you agree with my guesstimate on his size?

We'd had some fine fine diving and I was happy I was coming back to dive with Mike Severns on Sunday. Pauline, Jennifer and Bo were just great. Hawaiian Diver got some great pics, and I was just thrilled. The viz was at least 100 feet and could well have been more than that. On the back wall, looking down into the bottomless blue pit was the most amazing thing. I highly recommend this dive to everyone.

I will report on Day Two tomorrow and will try to include a little on our topside activities, too.

On Day Two, we went with Lahaina Divers (sorry, Lydia!) for the trip out to Lanai to do Cathedrals I and II. The boat ride out to Lanai is considerably longer than the boat ride to Molokini, but was well worth it IMHO. I did not like diving with Lahaina Divers as much as with Mike Severns. Lahaina Divers are much less environmentally oriented. They didn't have jackets or hoods on board like Mike Severns does on his boats. Because it was going to be a three tank dive, I was concerned that I might get cold. The videographer on board overheard me talking and kindly offered me his vest (thanks, John!). He also had a hooded vest at his house that he offered to sell me for $20. I took him up on his offer. Hawaiian Diver and I drove by his house after the dive and bought it from him. I ended up using it on Day Three of diving with Mike Severns and it really came in handy. The diving-

After the dive briefing which did cover marine life, to be honest, but which wasn't nearly as thorough as Pauline's, we entered Cathedrals II. It is basically a series of lava tubes which provide swim throughs and large rooms. The most remarkable thing for me was to shine my light on what seemed like hundreds of fish in a room and seeing a skeleton...Yes, you read that right...a skeleton! Not, not a real one, but nonetheless a skeleton. I kept shining my light on it at first thinking, "What the heck is that?" then shining my light on it some more and finally coming to the realization that it was indeed a skeleton. Complete with a hat! Back on the boat, I was told that it had been there for only two weeks and just in time for Halloween. One small note-the fish did not seem to be afraid of the skeleton...LOL. The depth on this dive was 69 ft. and the total bottom time was 39 minutes for the dive. The viz was quite a bit less than the dives at Molokini, but still quite good.

The next dive was at Cathedrals I and we got a chance to experience something they call the "Toilet Bowl". It is a kind of swim through where there is a heavy surge. You grab a hold of the handles, wait for just the right moment and swish..you are propelled into another room! Lots of fun to go thru the Toilet Bowl. Another item of note on this dive was seeing a black bandit angel fish. The DM got excited and kept pointing to this fish. Apparently it is pretty rare to see one of these. Hawaiian diver got a pic of it, fortunately. One major problem with these dives for me was not realizing that two lbs of weight from Mike Severns was still in my BC pocket. I had forgotten the weight was there, and consequently became severely overweighted!! Like I couldn't get off the bottom!! Only after I came up did I realize the problem and was able to correct it. This second dive was at a depth of 65 ft. with total bottom time of 54 minutes.

After a surface interval and snacks, we proceeded to our third dive site, Sgt. Major. I saw lots of cool stuff on this dive. The ornate wrasse intrigued me as it was so beautiful. Really fell in love with it and tried to remember the coloration of the fish so I could ID it later on in the boat. Saw a few trumpetfish as well as the juvenile yellow tail wrasse. This fish looks like a clownfish in the juvenile stage, but is not related to the clownfish at all. There seemed to be more fish at Sgt Major than at Molokini. But the best part of this dive was the octopus. The DM indicated for me to come on over to the crowd. I wondered what they were seeing, and then saw the octopus all over her. Hawaiian Diver had to get into the act, too, and we got a nice pic of him with the octopus all over his mask and face. I touched the octopus and was amazed by the stickiness of his suction cups. They stick like glue! The last dive of the day was at 50 feet with total bottom time of 60 minutes.

I was planning on going into topside stuff on this trip report but it will have to wait until the next time as I am doing the sunrise tomorrow morning and need to get up in the middle of the night (curse you, Lydia!!). Suffice it to say that the restaurants we ate at in Laihain were Longhi's and Kimo's. Both were great restaurants. As I was "ordered" to do, I tried the Blue Hawaiian drink at Longhi's. Yum, Yum, I highly recommend it to everyone.

I am now sufficiently recovered from my travels to write the requested trip report for Day Three. Hawaiian Diver has posted below some very true superlatives about diving with Mike Severns. I second everything he had to say about this dive op. They just seem to go the extra mile for everyone. Their main mission seems to be to share their love and enthusiasm for the marine life with every other diver in the world. It's really awesome. I would also like to add that, while other dive ops limit you as to time and want you to return to the boat within those limits, Mike Severns is clearly in NO HURRY to get you back to the boat. They encourage everyone to stay down as long as their air supply permits. They stress that if your buddy runs out of air to feel free to join the other divemasters for additional bottom time.

The diving-

Our first dive was the Back Wall of Molokini. I was eager to get back to it as I'd enjoyed it so much. I was especially eager to have a second chance as a fair amount of time was spent on my first dive fixing my mask and acclimating myself to tropical diving again, which I hadn't done since the Coz trip last Thanksgiving. Feeling much more confident of myself and more comfortable diving with Hawaiian diver, I entered the water. This first dive was to a depth of 94 feet, considerably less than the 139 feet on my first dive there. The total bottom time was 56 minutes. One of the first things I saw upon entering the water was a huge school of Butterfly Fish. They had large amounts of white in the middle (looking like a white circle) with yellow heads and tails. I made a mental note to ask Jennifer when I surfaced about this fish. She told me when we were back on the boat that they were Pyramid Butterfly fish. She explained that the white in the middle of the body is shaped like a pyramid. With my baby boomer eyes and from a distance it had looked like a circle in the middle but a book picturing the fish showed it clearly to be a pyramid. I might add that Pauline and Jennifer make it clear to all the divers that if they see something they want to ask about later to give them the "remember" sign, which is crossed fingers near your head. This adds a lot to enjoyment of the dive because all you have to do is cross your fingers when you see something especially memorable and they will discuss it with you back on the boat. I then saw a couple of fish that were very very blue, almost an electric blue with white lines around the edges of the body. I kept staring at these fish as they were so beautiful. Jennifer told me back on the boat that it was a Black Durgeon. Very pretty fish. Hawaiian Diver and I then saw a white tipped reef shark hiding under a ledge. He got several photographs of this guy. At first we could only see his tail as he was hiding his head toward the back underneath the ledge. But then he did us a favor and decided to come out and swim around a bit. More photo opportunities for Hawaiian Diver and he did make the most of every photo opportunity. On this dive I wore my familiar purple aeroskin underneath and my 3/2 wetsuit over it. But this time I made a change and wore the $20 5 mil hooded vest I'd just purchased the day before (from the videographer on the other boat) in between my aeroskin and my 3/2 wetsuit. It clearly made the difference for me and kept me nice and toasty. It's no fun having that chilled feeling on a dive. Being comfortable is lots better!

The second dive was after the usual surface interval where we consumed hot chocolate, snacks, juice, bottled water and all the traditional yummies that taste so good after a dive. We went to a site called Bu'uola ( I hope I spelled it right!). This dive was both bad and good. Before I get into the detail, it was at a depth of 44 feet with total bottom time of one hour and ten minutes. I was the last diver back on the boat this time. The viz was pretty awful especially compared to what we'd had on the Back Wall of Molokini. At the Back Wall, it was 100 feet minimum and at this site it was less than 50 feet. The other bad thing was that I got lost on the dive, which was a first time experience for me. Actually it was good training for me. I didn't panic, but figured that I'd see either Hawaiian Diver or the DM and the rest of my group pretty soon. The DM had warned me prior to the dive to avoid using my tank banger unless it was an emergency. Well, in my inexperienced mind, I figured being lost out there in that ocean was an emergency. So I banged the tank again and again until eventually I saw them. I got royally chewed out by the DM and the other divers were apparently pretty disgusted with me as they'd had to swim against the current to get to where I was. Like I say, it was a good learning experience for me. Nothing really terribly bad came of it, and I learned a lot. Looking back I think that I should have surfaced after one minute instead of using my tank banger. I was happy, though, that I had the confidence not to panic, which I might well have done if it were earlier in my dive career. The sights that made this dive spectacular in its own way were numerous. We saw several white mouth eels. Apparently they are fairly common. You can recognize them when they open up their mouth and you can see how white it is. There is no mistaking this guy for something else! One of the divers in the group found another frogfish. I had seen one on a earlier dive but he is still so unusual that I had to stop and examine him. I clapped my hands to indicate to the other diver, Hey good job! Then I finally saw the Hawaiian turkeyfish. He was much much smaller than I'd expected him to be. But you can see why they give him his name. Looks kind of like a turkey. Duh! We were treated to a special sight when we viewed the cleaner shrimp on the DM's beard and mouth. The DM took out his regulator so the cleaner shrimp could "clean" his face. The cleaner shrimp went to work on him right away. It was quite a sight to see him at work on a beard and mouth rather than on cleaning a fish, his usual job. We witnessed several turtles on this dive, including one underneath a ledge. Again, Hawaiian diver got the shot! The DM also found a female octopus hiding in a small cave. The DM carefully put the rock at the entrance to the cave back after we had all had a chance to view her. He may have been able to see her eggs, but I couldn't see any. For this dive I added two lbs due to the addition of the 5 mil hooded vest. I'd worn 14 without it, and 16 seemed to work great with it. The dive was over before too much longer and we headed back to the boat ramp. I can't stress enough that diving with Mike Severns is not to be missed next time you are in Maui.

Topside activities, which I promised I'd include in this final report-

The first night Hawaiian Diver and I ate at Longhi's in Lahaina, which was one of Lydia's recommendations. As he posted earlier, it was a great dining experience. It was here that I tried the Blue Hawaiian, a most satisfactory drink :-). We also went to Kimos in Lahaina, thanks Lydia for this one, too! Nice atmosphere and right on the water where you can see all of the boats while you eat. Hawaiian Diver bought me a beautiful flowered lei which had so much fragrance in the flowers that my new Mike Severns T shirt is now peculiarly permanently perfumed (How's that for alliteration?) On a day when we decided to eat more quickly in Kihei, we ate a a delicious Thai restaurant that was very reasonably priced. I cannot end this report without adding two things. One was the bed and breakfast where I stayed in Kihei. It's called Annuhea Bed and Breakfast and it is the best place I have stayed in a very long time. The owners are Russ and Cherie with Sondra helping out. They are super people and helped make my stay in Maui a most enjoyable one. Also got a chance on my last day in Maui to view the sunrise at Haleakala Crater. A "must do", it was well worth it. Darn near freezing up there, but if you dress warmly you will be OK.

On the final day, something I saw in the car rental van that takes you back to the airport caught my eye. It was a broom with a sign on it, "Yankee sweep". Yankee fans are everywhere, even on Maui!

Thanks for allowing me to share with everyone my wonderful trip, it was truly one of the best trips I have ever taken. Thanks again to Hawaiian Diver for making it truly memorable.

DSAO, especially in Maui

Ellen

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