...To the Bottom of the Sea

While everyone else was getting massages, I, who could never sit still that long, went out for an evening of diving.

The Maui Divers Boat Maka Koa first took us out to the north rim of Molokini, where the crater dips into the water. Just as we were putting our fins on, a whale breached only 50 ft from the boat. Despite a mad scramble to get into the water, none of us managed to get time with the whale in the water. After descending, we worked our way along the crater lip, checking out the many small shelfs and caves along this section. Inside most were white tip sharks.


In one, a small white tip huddled in the back with a 40lb lobster with claws as big as my foot, if not bigger. The white tip made a scramble out of the cave when the lobster shifted to one side and gestured at us with its claws. In a fight between the two, the white tip probably would have lost; the lobster was that big. Molokini is a preserve, so we couldn't take him back to the boat for dinner. There was also a huge cornet fish that was as long as some of our divers.

Dragging my huge video camera through the current, I ended up being the first back again, but I got a special treat during my safety stop. Underneath me, passed a large gray shark with a square nose and a dark gray/black dorsal fin. Upon returning to the boat, there was much discussion about what I saw. It was probably a large gray reef shark whose fin had turned dark with age, or so the "experts" on board eventually concluded. Apparently, grays occasionally slip into the crater for a sunset feed and it certainly wasn't a white tip or a tiger. Unfortunately, it took me too long to get the camera out and I didn't get a picture and it was gone by the end of my safety stop, when others began to arrive at the mushroom weight.


After a dinner of submarine sandwiches and fruit, we moved onto a proper night dive at a location off of Makena Landing known as "Five Caves." It is marked by a rock that sticks up half way between shore and where the boat moored. There are five caves of various sizes filled with turtles, eels, and white tip sharks. I also managed to get some footage of a small squid about the size of my arm and a large brown crab eating an urchin. One of the dive masters spotted a school of barracuda with two sharks working our fringes by turning his light off and letting us get ahead a ways, but he couldn't get me to come back to him with the light in time for filming. Apparently, this is the "trick" they normally use to also locate the rays, but the sharks and barracuda were scaring off the other potential trailers.

While trying to catch up, the crowd suddenly disappeared on me while in the middle of a tidal bowl and I was alone with the trailing dive master. Apparently, they had all swum into the small cave entrance and it opened up/went far enough back that I could not see their lights. I was down to 1000psi at this point and the wave action was starting to pick up. Going into an unknown cave didn't feel right to me. After surfacing with him and finding out where they went, I cruised the bowl and snorkeled it a bit with the trailing divemaster until they came back out.

During the predive, Mike, our dive leader this trip, mentioned that he was going for all five caves and we might need to do some swimming to get back to the boat. After cruising along the bottom a little farther away from the boat, I was down to 400 in 20 feet of water and had to surface. The trailing divemaster stayed with me back to the boat. It was at least 300 yards and the surf was up. There was no opposite reference point to the boat, so I had to swim face first, dragging the camera low in the water along the way. There was a nice 6 foot swell, but I snorkeled it because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of air when it came time to try to get on the boat. That turned out to be a good idea because the swells were even higher by the time we got there. Switching back to scuba, I took my fins off about 20 feet away with the drag line nestled under my arm and hauled my way to the boat, timing it for the mildest swells. My exit ended up fairly easy as a result. The others who followed behind me had a variety of experiences getting back on board. In the end, though, all had a great time on this dive. We didn't see any manta rays, but the experience was well worth it.