I am exhausted in the very best way. Today was the big adventure dive day. Hammerhead Dive!
The bumpy hour long boat ride brought us here. These two rocks are just off the coast of Molokai, the island to the right in our view from our lanai. This dive is only for advanced divers since it’s a drift dive. On many boat dives the boat anchors in place and you jump in the water, scuba around and return to the boat. On a drift dive a group of divers jump into the water simultaneously and then the current takes them on a bit of a ride underwater. The boat follows the divers’ bubbles and the current and picks the divers up when they surface. The synchronous diving in is more tricky than it sounds. Getting out onto the boat is even more challenging since the swells are 5-6’. Climbing up a ladder with 50 pounds of scuba gear on your back while the boat is going up and down 5-6’ at a time is tricky. Fortunately, I did well and the crew was very efficient and helpful.
The dive itself was beautiful. We saw 8-10 scalloped hammerhead sharks, a grey reef shark, barracuda and lots and lots of fish. There was even a bait ball of sardines with a couple of larger fish hunting in it. I’ve never seen that before. (I’ll edit some of the video I took and post it in tomorrow’s blog. It’s too late and I’m too tired to do it tonight.)
We spotted a few whales on the ride back to Lahaina and Mike took some video of our dive boat as it passed the condo as I was taking video of the condo. Very meta.
While I was diving Mike was on the beach under an umbrella relaxing. We met back up at the condo and watched a baby sea turtle and a large sea turtle ride the waves in front of the condo.
Nap time. I’ve been up at 5am the last 3 days and that, along with the nitrogen in my blood from two days of diving caught up with me. We slept for nearly 2 hours.
The sunset looked promising but the clouds weren’t just right for the big boom of color that sometimes happens. Still, not too bad.
By this time we were hungry. We decided to head into Lahaina for dinner and went to Down The Hatch.
This was quite possibly the best meal we’ve ever had on Maui. Each and every bite was a flavor explosion in our mouths. I hope we eat here again before we leave.
Now I am way past my bedtime. I’m really glad I don’t have any reason to get up early tomorrow. I’m looking forward to sleeping in until 7? 7:30? We’ll see.
Thanks for following along.
Art’s Travel Adventures 