Jeremy Jackson: How we wrecked the ocean

Kea'au Caverns

A full day of diving, three tanks, at our "new" favorite site on the west side. This rare sighting, a kangaroo nudibranch, was spotted on one of the cavern walls.

YO-257

Nothing out of the ordinary today, just another terrific dive on the YO-257.  This Hawaiian cleaner wrasse posed nicely for me, framed by the round hold of a structure on the deck of the ship.

Great dive on the YO-257 wreck

A pleasant surprise today...renting tanks from the dive shop: "We only have Nitrox in a steel 120...is that ok ?" Perfect for this dive...no weight belt needed, plus extended bottom time! Sights today included trembling, snow-goddess, and noumea flava nudibranchs, schools of Heller's barracuda, a pair of spotted eagle rays, and of course, lots of snoozing turtles, like this one.

Exploring new territory

We headed out of Ko'Olina boat harbor with the intention of diving the Mahi wreck...but found that other dive boats were already on the moorings. Our typical fallback plan is to visit Makaha caverns...but I had been itching for an opportunity to go back to Kea'au Corners for quite some time -- we had dived it two years ago on three occasions. So I suggested it to capt. Chuck, and he obliged. What a great decision -- although we didn't nail the exact dive site on the first try, we explored the entire reef with the next two tanks...located the mooring ball, and encountered many cool critters along the way -- nudibranchs, frogfish, lobsters, and crabs. The structure of the caverns and archways make for a spectacular backdrop. I think we have a new favorite dive site!