Diving Molokini and Wailea Point

Well, while Connie and Karen went uphill to a winery, I slipped back down into the water again.

On the way out to Molokini our dive boat had to stop for a group of humpback whales breaching, tail slapping, and sparring with each other. One of the males tried a particularly high tail slap only to be "nudged" from underneath by a much larger male. As a result, he ended up doing a complete flip, with only his nose failing to clear the water. It was to be the best part of the trip for me, though I didn't know that yet.

Molokini was to be a disappointment, unfortunately. First, no back wall -- there were too few experienced divers to fill a boat. Second, the 18 lbs of weight turned out to be too light to keep me down. Third, there was a strong current, so the divemaster had to turn back early and we were swept farther from the boat than he intended. While trying to follow the others back, under-weighted and against the current, I burned over 1500 psi of air in under 3 minutes. :( When I realized what was happening, I signaled the divemaster I was low on air and going up. Staying down and heading toward the boat, I realized I would run out of air before I got to the line we were supposed to use, but I could reach the mooring line on the other side. I made that line with 550psi left in the tank, did my 3 minute safety stop, and crawled backwards up the line to the surface with less than 250 psi of air left. Another gentleman, in a similar situation, skipped his safety stop and bobbled to the surface completely out of air right behind me. Fortunately, there was almost no current at the surface as the others found themselves surfacing a good distance away from the boat and had to swim to it. however, most of them did manage to enjoy 40+ minutes in the water to my 25.

The second dive was at Wailea Point and I scored another 2 lbs. to make sure I stayed down, but I ended up with a shorter dive again. I was able to eke about 40 minutes out of this tank, but it was still less than the others. We saw the usual schools of colorful fish, coral nudibranchs, other odd forms, but it was spoiled for me. The only thing I can think of is that maybe the cold water was causing me to respirate faster and burn air. Scott, the divemaster for both trips, was wearing two 3mm suits plus a hood and gloves. The others were all wearing rental wet suits at least the 5mm thick. If I do another boat dive, I may rent a 5mm suit just to have some reasonable dive times.