Copyright (c) 2009 Scubapost.net All rights reserved. http://www.lahainadivers.com/steve en-us Thu, 17 May 2012 09:44:01 GMT 60 http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/12/spring-in-the-air http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/12/spring-in-the-air Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT With the arrival oif spring we have noticed many changes.  One of the most noticable is that our winter guests, the Humpback whales, have all but gone for the summer. There are just a few stragglers left but the majority have headed for their feeding grounds in Alaska.  On a positive note we have seen increased numbers of some of the other creatures we have an opportunity to interact with year round.  We are definitly seeing more Mantas on our Manta point charters which are Mondays at 9:00AM and our Thursday Evening Twilight/ night dive at 3:30 PM.  It seems that it is mating season and we have seen multiple animals on our trips in recent weeks, our divers have also observed several Manta mating trains this spring.   On our Moku Ho' Oniki Rock trips to Molokai we have been seen more Hammerhead sharks  than in previous weeks, I don't know that we can attribute the increase in activity to mating season but we sure do like to see the sharks.We continue to enjoy great diving conditions on the Island of Lanai this spring and to help us enjoy that to the best of our ability we have started a new charter offering of a Lanai drift charter.  Our Lanai drift charter allows us to do dive sites that are not already established with a mooring, so if you have already done Lanai and been to several of the established dive sites this is an oppertunity to see other area's in a different way. So if you are heading out this way check us out we have a lot going on.           http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/11/great-lanai-diving http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/11/great-lanai-diving Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT       We are right in the middle of another great Humpback whale season this year, and we are having many encounters with the Whales on our way to and from our dive destinations.  We have also had some great diving condition's on the Island of Lanai in recent days. I was over on a charter the 17th of March and we Dove 1st Cathedral and a site called Noname-Paradise and on both of the dives, especially Noname -Paradise the visibility was as good as I have ever seen. I'm sure that the visibility was a solid 150'.  The water was so blue that It really made me take notice.  Everything seemed so vibrant and alive.  It was like all the enhabitants of the reef were dressed in there Sunday best and out for a day on the town. Even for me , someone who has been fortunate enough to do many dives on that same site, this day I am not likely to forget soon.     http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/10/creatures-abound http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/10/creatures-abound Fri, 4 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT In the last few weeks we have had a lot of great encounters with wildlife. On our charters ot Moku Ho'Oniki rock off the Island of Molokai we have had continuing success with the hammerhead Sharks.  Several of our divers as well as the Dive guides have reported having great encounters with several sharks. We also had one of our charters to Lanai encounter a pod of False Killer whales during there trip over from Maui. On our last charter to the Back wall of Molokini we had a group of Manta rays com in and entertain the divers, so everyone including the rays had a great time. Here on Maui we are also seeing more and more of our visiting Humpback whales, so if you are planning a trip this way come in and see us. http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/9/and-dolphins-too http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/9/and-dolphins-too Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT The several trips to Moku Ho'Oniki Rock have been great from the standpoint of serface conditions, meaning we have had moderate wind and sea's for our dive's. We ave also noticed a smaller nomber of hammerheads on our dives but or diver's have reported seeing some more of the other sharks, such as Galopagos and Gray Reef shsrks.  Also two weeks ago I was remarking to our group that we used to see a lot of Spinner Dolphins in this area but that I hadn't seen them in a while.  On that very dive we had several hundred Spinners show up and hang out with the divers. That is what is going on for now I look forward to seeing or hearing from all of you and we are all excited for our winter season with some potential special Ops. trips as well as the return of the Whales. http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/8/great-fall-season http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/8/great-fall-season Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT Over the last few weeks we have had great weather for our diving adventures. Our Trips to Mohu Ho'Oniki Rock off the Island of Molokai have been filled with plentiful sightings of the Scalloped Hammerhead sharks that frequent the area. On this weeks trip we had John, Gwen and Rebecca leading dive teams and all of there divers experienced sharks in numbers ranging from 10 to 30 animals. Needless to say everyone was very excited about there dives. That is always the best part for me, when I see and listen to the divers returning to the boat after there dive with the Hammerheads and all the tales start flying.   One other noteworthy report I wanted to share was that on one of our trips to Lanai The boat witnessed a group of False killer whales playing with a Mahi Mahi like a volleyball. I was unable to see it personally but everyone on the charter said that it was quit a spectacle. I guess it just goes to show that you never know what you will see out on the ocean. http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/7/back-in-the-saddle http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/7/back-in-the-saddle Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT I went on a trip off island for a week so I didn't run the Molokai charter as usual but Mike filled in for me as Captain and his brother John and sister in law Gwen handled the guiding duties on that charter.  They told me that there was once again plenty of Hammerhead shark action on the dives. Beside our regularly scheduled Tuesdays, we have been running some additional charters to Moku HO'Oniki Rock on other days in response to  customer request, at the moment most of those tend to be on Saturday or Sunday. I guess what I hope you will all get from that last statement is that for not only this specific charter but all of our charters there is a curtain amount of flexablity if you contact us in advance we can usually accomodate your needs if we can generate enough interest in that charter. We also had some setbacks in recent weeks, we had to postpone one charter to Moku Ho'Oniki Rock due to what was at the time Tropical Storm Filicia.  I think it is important to pass along that a Tropicl storm in the vacinity of Hawaii is not always a bad thing.  It can have a calming effect on the trade winds here in the days leading up to and following the Storm.  Additionally it often will increase the level of marine life activity due to pressure changes and the introduction of food into the ocean from rain runoff. Many time we have seen some of our most spectaular diving before, during  and after the passing of a Tropical storm near the Hawaiian Island chain.   Yesterday was my first Moku Ho'Oniki run since my return and we had a great trip. I had Mike , Rebecca and Shannon working as the crew.  We had great weather thanks in part to another Tropical Depression , that  knocked down the trades to a to comfortable NNE @ 10 knot wind. We did have some swell  around 6-9 feet but that doesn't have much of an effect on our diving operations at that site. On the first dive one of the dive teams saw 5-7 Hammerheads, the other saw two grey reef sharks.  On the second both dive both of the dive teams said that they saw somewhere in the vacinity of 25 to 35 Hammerheads as well as a large school of small bait fish. We don't believe that the bait fish were the cause for the larger number of sharks on the second dive but they were sure cool to see.  I will say that we do seem to have better luck on the second dive for the Hammerheads. I usually tell people that It takes a while for the word to get around the shark community that the divers are there.      http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/6/hammertime http://www.lahainadivers.com/maui_scuba_blog/steve/6/hammertime Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT We went to Moku Ho'Oniki Rock on our weakly charter to see the Scalloped Hammerhead Sharks. The weather forecast for the dive site was for east winds 20 to 25 knots with seas of up to 11 feet. What we found when we got there was substantially nicer weather we had maybe 15 knots of wind with 6 foot sea's which made for some nice diving. We had great shark encounters on both of the dives, with numbers of sharks ranging from 10 to 20. John was able to get some great HD video and his brother Mike secured some nice still photography for our divers because some of the shark's came in nice and close to get a good. We had a great group of Diver's for the trip everyone seemed to have a lot in common so there were many stories to be exchanged, we even had some of our friends from Australia on the trip that made for great entertainment.