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.

Lanai Scuba Diving

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.     

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.

Scuba Diving Molokai, Hawaii