Dive! Dive! Dive!

I was going back through the posts and I realized that I have been HORRIBLY remiss in updating our diving progress. Matt and I have done some serious diving in the last half-year and the pictures/stories on the blog don't really reflect that.  We recently passed our goal of spending 24 hours under water and that hasn't all been shore-diving at Electric Beach.  Since the last dive blog, we've gone to 4 different wrecks:

1. The Sea Tiger

This ship is about 165 ft long and 40 ft wide, sitting upright on the ocean floor at around 100-115ft deep.  Apparently it was a Chinese-owned vessel involved in "illegal activities".  After a run-in with the coast guard, it was purchased for $1 by a Hawaiian submarine tours company and purposely sank as an artificial reef.

This was our 15th dive, and it was more than just our first wreck dive- it was our first time diving below 60ft AND our first night dive!  Go big or go home, right?  The "night" dive part was supposed to be more of a "twilight" dive.  We'd need our dive lights (read: expensive flashlights), but there'd still be some light trickling down from the surface.  Due to boat issues at Dive Oahu and some other frustrating time-draining issues, we did a true night dive.  It was pitch-black.  It was also free (as opposed to $120) so that was good.  We took a video, but it's very dizzying... so here are a few stills from the video.

93 ft below at 1m46s



Big Moray greeted us...his head diameter is probably 7-8in.  Don't mess with this guy.

This is a pretty cool shot of how you can only see what's in the beam of the flashlight...also of some of the ship itself.

Very expensive glorified flashlight.  If you look closely you can see the ship looming out of the darkness.

In all, I would describe this dive as spooky and disorienting.  It's really trippy being completely surrounded by vast, utter darkness.  Oh and, by the way, you're 100 ft below the surface.  I enjoyed it.  It was a completely new experience, the ship was like a haunted house under water, and it was really fun to move the light into the darkness and see schools of fish scatter at the sudden light.

2. YO-257 and San Pedro

The YO was a Navy refueling vessel that served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  It could hold 20,000 gallons of fuel and is about 165ft long.  Like the Sea Tiger, it was intentionally sunk by a tourism company to form an artificial reef at around 100ft deep.

The San Pedro was a commercial fishing vessel, built by the Japanese, that caught fire and was also purposefully sunk.  I included these together because, if the conditions are right (and they were for us), the ships are near enough that you are able to swim a short distance under water from the YO to check out the San Pedro.

This dive was great!  We went with AquaDan and some other good diving friends - Mike and his 2 kids.  Here are some highlights:

On our way to the site, we were escorted by Spinner Dolphins.  This picture does not do justice to how many there were/how cool it was.  It DOES show our building in the background, though :)

As we were descending down the line, we ran into a school of fish.  The vast quantity of fish in the school was enough to be impressive, but what was equally impressive was how they were swimming in a wall-like formation.

The wall was about 2 ft thick and extended down farther than I could see.  Really bizarre!!

Awesome fish face.  Rah!

Looking down on the YO

Mike's kids and me.  Am I asking someone to fight me?

Inside the San Pedro.  So many fish!

Black Triggerfish

Turtle at the San Pedro.  We saw SO MANY turtles on this dive.

There are two turtles in this picture, the second one is to the left of the first, resting on the deck.

There are 3 turtles in this image.  The guy to the right must have a shell of at least 3 ft.

 

Going into the YO

This seaweed lined the walls and ceilings

In the ship - so much life!  Dense schools of red fish...

Tile floor of the YO

close-up

Looking down into the YO

Yes, I still take squint-eye pictures underwater.

This little millet butterfly fish escorted us back up.

3. The Corsair

This is one of my favorite dives we have done.  Not all the wrecks we've dived have been shipwrecks....The Corsair is a plane-wreck.  A 33'-long WWII-era Corsair crashed in 1946 while on a routine training mission.  The pilot survived and swam to shore (a looong swim).  The plane rests in 110ft of water, surprisingly preserved. 

On our way! The boat left out of Hawaii Kai

We descended to the plane resting on a lunar-like landscape.  It was incredible.  Surrounding the plane, about 20 feet from it in all directions and stretching as far as I could see, was what looked like seaweed.  However, as I swam closer, the seaweed would sink lower and lower into the sand.  What it actually was was a field of garden eels:

eeeeeeels

They are about as thick as my little finger and face into the current, eating small creatures that flow with the current.  So. Cool.

We are only able to spend about 20 minutes at the plane because of the depth and nitrogen loading, but we got some great pictures:

Favorite Picture.  So amazing, seeing a plane under water..

I am examining a very pointy shell.  Good back-up weapon.  You know, just in case.

Matt about to hop in and fly this baby

No, that fish is not photoshopped onto my face.  That little jerk timed it perfectly to ruin our picture.

Attempt #2 - floating away with the current

The cockpit.  We were warned that a moray likes to hang out there, so we didn't go all the way in.

Matt poking the altimeter.  AquaDan in the background being awesome.

These are some of AquaDan's pictures from the dive:

Crocodile eel - they can grow to almost 3 ft long, but most of that is usually buried in the sand, ready to ambush some prey..crocodile style

This looks like some of the craziest photoshop ever, but that is Matt perfectly positioned in the cockpit.  Very psychedelic.

If you look closely, you can see us taking pictures of the plane in the background.

That recaps our wreck experience here on Oahu.  There is so much more to show and tell you..hopefully I can keep up with my catching up.

The admiral decided against buying a new hat because he was afraid of cap sizing.

The Visit Diaries: Chapter 3

Well that was quite the delay.  Be prepared for many catch-up posts...

Richie's arrival on Cinco de Mayo Saturday was symbolic of the crazy and celebratory week we had.  After picking up Richie, we got lunch at Nico's.  You can't go wrong with fresh Fish and Chips and a Lava Flow. 

 

We welcomed Richie to our aparment with.... Tequilla!





Richie is clearly excited



We are classy folks here at Chez Corserossi.

After settling in at the apartment, we made our way to the Hale Koa for a welcome-to-Hawaii Mai Tai.  The drinks were delicious, but the music was horrible!!  Bad music played at an annoyingly loud volume eventually drove us to Moose's where we enjoyed a couple more drinks and played some very intense foosball. 

Edited to keep up the appearance of responsibility...

 

 

Did I mention that Moose's has an ongoing happy hour?  Well, we worked up an appetite, then walked to Gyu Kaku for a late dinner. 

Gyu Kaku is a Japanese-style restaurant where you order plates of thinly sliced raw meat or seafood, grill them on a small grill set into your table, and dip them in one of the 3 sauces provided.  One of our surprise favorite plates? The beef tongue.  At dinner, Richie's flight started to catch up with him, so we crashed shortly after dinner. (Does that count as a pun?)

The next day, Matt, Richie, started the day with some snorkeling at Electric Beach, then drove up to the North Shore.  E-beach was great (as usual).  We were welcomed by a turtle, and we played with a collector urchin and pincushion seastar before heading up to the North Shore.

Monday, Rich and I spent the day at the Ala Moana beach.  It was relaxing and lazy...and hot.  Matt made it home in time for us to enjoy Power Hour at Dave and Busters.  We played some serious games and I won all of them.  (I'm banking on Matt not reading this before I post it...)  Matt, Richie and I also managed to sneak in a showing of The Avengers before we went to go pick up Mare at the airport.  A note about seeing high-profile movies in Hawaii: people are NUTS.  They camp out days ahead of time for tickets, and then hours before the showing of the movie so that they get good seats.  It's a little different from Holiday Cinemas at home where you may end up watching a movie with only 5 other people...

Mare's pick-up went smoothly considering she had a nightmare of a flight experience.  She was warmly welcomed with...tequilla!  Her favorite!  All things considered, we kept it fairly sane and Mariann was a champ after her day(s) of traveling.


For Mare's first day, we started with a 3-mile run around Ala Moana!  Hooray!  Richie and I dressed to impress:

Then, we walked with all of our stuff to the beach outside of the Hale Koa.  We enjoyed a lazy beach day:



When in Rome...

...and had lunch at an outdoor restaurant on the beach by the Hilton Hawaiian - Tropics. 

Matt picked us up from the beach after work and then we.... actually cant remember anything else from this night. I'm sure it was an evening full of responsible decisions and G-rated behavior.

Wednesday, we continued our lazy beach day pattern and spent it at Ala Moana.  For lunch, we finally tried the burrito place a block from us - El Burrito. 

It. Was. Delicious.  Family-run, fresh, tasty food.  After lunch, we changed and went to the Mai Tai bar to wait for Matt to come home with Johanna and Melissa!  If you time it right, the Mai Tai bar is perfect for afforadle drinks and live music.

We met Matt and the girls back at the apartment and enjoyed a beer and some photo ops before dinner.

For dinner, we decided to go to Duke's.  The walk along the beach is beautiful, the wait for a table is usually long, but the drinks and company while you wait are always fun:



Look at those good-lookin folks!

 

We started off very tame and well-behaved.

 

Then things started to get out of hand. I'm pretty sure it was all Mariann's doing...

 



Richie is really selling that Mai Tai



...although Joh is way less creepy about it



True love



totally restaurant-appropriate

After dinner, we walked through the city to show Rich and the girls around and saw a guy posing people for pictures with two parrots!  (Hey, nice alliteration!) (Thanks!)  So, naturally, us ladies jumped in:



The bird kept messing with Joh's hair and biting it.  It was a real jerk.

the birds did NOT like Johanna and me.  If we look a little wary, it's because we've already been bitten by then.

This was Mariann's state the next day:

Despite Mariann's pain, Thursday was a busy day.  We woke up, spent about an hour at the pool, then got ready for SCUBA! 



Somehow, Richie avoided this picture. I'm not happy about that.

Rich and the girls were all champs about trying discover scuba.  Mike was their instructor and, as usual, was attentive and patient and incredibly knowledgable.  Joh and Mel had some trouble adjusting at first.  It's definitely scary when you first descend and your brain starts rebelling at the fact that you're breathing underwater.  However, they persevered and did great on their second dive!  Mare and Rich were naturals.  Every now and then Mariann would do the Mikko and start floating away, but I'd reach up and pull her down.  As for Richie, it was like he'd been diving as long as us.  A request: can you guys get certified so we can go on diving adventures together??



Unfortunately, the underwater camera battery died after this single photo.  The good news is, everyone is in it!

The boat docked and we had 45 minutes to make it to the Hale Koa Luau.  We all did super-quick changes in the parking lot of the harbor with some serious Houdini-like moves.  Then, the four girls squished into the backseat to finish getting ready on our way into Waikiki.  I don't know about Mare, Joh, and Mel, but with the time crunch and physical seat crunch, I felt like I was in some reality show competition. (America's Next Top Model anyone?)

Well, we made it to the luau with perfect timing and looked pretty darn good:

What a movie stah

The luau was SO much better than the Hilton Hawaiian. It was also SO much cheaper! Instead of being herded to a rooftop by generally unhappy folk, the Hale Koa hosts a coctail hour where you can wander around the luau garden. There's live music, tree-climbing, hula demonstrations, lei-making, the pig roasting in the pit, and you are greeted with a mai tai or fruit punch as you walk in. It was a really relaxed, happy atmosphere. 

Cousin Dennis demonstrating how to climb a coconut tree

The men calling everyone to dinner with the conch shells

Taking the pig out of the pit

mmmmm

At our table, ready for some food and entertainment

The food was also way better than the Hilton Hawaiian.  It came plated so everyone was served at about the same time without having to wait in a buffet line. 

The talent?  Very impressive.  This luau's performers included Mare, Mel, and Joh for a number or two:

Can you see them? Back row, on the right

 

Look at those moves!

Close-up of the "real" talent

All in all, GREAT experience.

The next morning, Rich, Mare, Joh, Mel, and I went to do the Mikko H special! (Diamond Head followed by Hanauma Bay).  Well, Diamond Head was closed!  Crazy, right?  Instead, I took everyone to Makapu'u point.  We hiked up to the lighthouse, then explored further by taking some smaller trails to some of the pillboxes.  Not a bad consolation hike.

Looking back on Koko Head and Hanauma Bay

Hiking Heroes 1

Hiking Heroes 2

Following the trail to the pillbox

beautiful views

Then, we made our way to Hanauma...but the lot was full!  Not to be deterred, we went on a short drive and explored some of the coastline and stopped at the Blowhole lookout.  By the time we turned back, Hanauma was open.  Talk about good timing.  Snorkeling here was great!  We saw a ton of fish, took some lovely pictures:

Tried for a group shot...much harder than expected

Joh, Mel, Richie

...and Mariann found a couple of white tip reef sharks!  We were about to turn back to leave when Mariann gave us the "wait one minute" finger.  She was looking through a small break in the reef and saw two sharks sleeping on the sand.  If you looked at the right angle, you could see through the break to the sharks, but you had to get pretty close to the reef to get the right angle.  I scared the crap out of Johanna when I pulled her forward to get a better look.  Sorry, Joh! :)

After Hanauma, we had lunch at Kona.  As usual, the beer was cold and the food was great. 

We are huge fans of this place

We also had some fun with Mariann-sized glasses:

so tiny!

That night, the mission was Moose McGillycuddy's!  I won't go into too much detail, but: mission accomplished:

"Not sure what to do with my hands..." - Ricky Bobby

 



Intense foosball



Can you spot the Mariann?

Smiling because they were dominating, probably



Their reaction to the question "How do you guys feel about each other?"



Sisterly love...

Saturday was a blast.  We spent the day at the Hale Koa beach and rented some paddle boards and a big raft.  The paddle boards were a lot of fun!  We rented two boards between the 6 of us.  We took turns...and then tried to get as many people on each board as possible, which was a terrible idea.  I'm pretty sure in both of these, Matt is paddling me around.  Life is good.

While we were out on the water being goofy, we were joined by a ton of sea turtles! Huge turtles would surface next to us, check us out, then dive back down.

The raft we rented was a bit more of a challenge, surprisingly. It was really tough to climb on! However, once I was on it, I didn't want to leave. Us ladies took a quick nap and were nice and refreshed and ready...for dinner with AKL.

As usual, AKL spoiled us with way too much amazing food. My favorite part of the meal? Mariann's noodle troubles. Mare was eating some soup noodles with the chopsticks and I looked over as she had her head back with the noodles suspended over her face. Unsurprisingly, they slipped from the chopsticks and fell directly on her face. Somehow Joh and I were the only ones who noticed!!



The tablescape never lasts long enough for an inital picture.

When we were most of the way through the meal (read: completely full, but still trying to stuff our faces) Won showed us a trick.  First she had us try to bend as far backwards as we could.  Then, we tapped our forearms and hands in specific places for specific amounts of time...and we were way more flexible:



tapping away...



the "before"



the "after"

Other highlights? Won took it upon herself to soothe everyone with a sunburn with some of her aloe and a massage. Mare's massage turned into more of a torture session because of her shoulder. 

 

 

After dinner was cleared, we started drinking soju and playing a game with tiles where the person who blindly chooses the highest ranking tile can task someone with a question or a dare.  I won't go into the questions, but the best "dare" was AKL having Rich write his name in the air with his butt.  Not sure exactly what I mean?  Let me show you the video...

 

Sunday, Richie had to leave (booo!) and we spent the rest of the day being lazy and recovering from our crazy night.

Monday, it was back to the whirlwind Oahu tour.  The girls and I spent the morning at the Arizona Memorial:

We then made our way to Kailua to meet my Aunt Maryann for lunch at a small Italian Cafe.  It was great to be able to spend time with Aunt Mare and we even squeezed in a Skype call to Grammy.  After lunch, we did some shopping in Kailua, then drove to Lanikai to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach:



Mare, ready to pounce



Success!

We capped off our busy day with a coctail or two at the Mai Tai bar since Joh and Mel didn't get a chance to try it:



Beautiful, Mel!

For dinner, we got pho and spring rolls from Bac Nam (yum!) and the leftovers from that meal alone fed Matt and me for days after the girls left.

Tuesday was the girls' final day and we made the most of it.  We drove up to the North Shore, enjoyed a coffee and saw a ton of turtles at Lanikea Beach:



Laniakea Beach



mmm coffee and turtles



So many turtles!!



So sleepy..



Some have transmitters attached to their shells to track travel, depth, etc.  They are attached with surfboard resin. So awesome.

...then booked some impromptu surf lessons!  We met our instructor, Bruno and ended up having our lesson back at Lanikea.  Bruno was great!  He is from Brazil and was a pro surfer for a while and now gets to surf all day and teach lessons on his time.  Not a bad gig. 

The picture's a bit awkward because it was really windy

All of us caught waves and it was surprisingly easy and really fun!  Mel especially rocked it...she's a natural-born surfer :)  Now I can cross "surf the North shore" off my bucket list.

After surfing, we had some shrimp (shreemps) at Dat Cajun Guy,



mmmm shreemps

then stopped at Dole for some pineapple ice cream and photo ops:



pineapples!



very hungry fish during a feeding frenzy (gross)



:)



She's a natural

Unfortunately, after Dole, we had to head back so the girls could make their flight.  There's no easy way to end this post given all the awesome that occurred, so I'll leave you with:

Last call at Moose McGillycuddy's was met by a chorus of booze.