8 Feb 2022
Turns out, that alarm I set the night before was totally unnecessary- even though yesterday was a long day of travel and I went to bed late, I’m still on Central time, so I woke up slightly before 4:30am. Oof. I tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use.
As soon as stores opened, I grabbed groceries and dropped them at the condo, packed all my dive gear into the trunk of my car and headed into town.
I stopped at one of my dive shops to pick up my dive computer, which I had sent down a few weeks prior for its battery change, then visited my other dive shop to see if there had been any cancellations- I planned this trip a bit differently that usual. While I tend to pack in as many dives as possible, this time I only booked 2-3 per day and left the weekend open so I could do some shore diving. I did, however, plan the dates of this trip around being able to do as many Blackwater dives as possible. Unfortunately, one of the boats was full so I was placed on the standby list, and while it was still full when I checked in at the shop, I was able to get onto their morning boat (which I was also on standby for), so I crossed my fingers and hoped I’d get lucky again.
Even after running those errands, I still had a good 6 hours to kill before I needed to be at the harbor for my Blackwater dive, so I parked the car back in the shade of the condo parking garage and wandered the shops of Ali’i Drive, picking up gifts for family back home, but 6 hours is a lot of time to kill and I ran out of things to do, so I went back to the condo to see what sort of work they were doing only to find all the workers were gone. Huh. Maybe the note meant Monday and Tuesday of next week? That would be seriously inconvenient as I always run home between boat trips to swap out batteries on my camera. Guess we’ll find out later.
I did snap a few shots of my place:
There’s a nice corner of counter space in the kitchen that’ll work well for prepping my camera and it has a convenient outlet for recharging batteries and lights, as well as some bright lights overhead so I can check o-rings before sealing up my housing.
The lanai overlooks a little walkway, and there were lots of birds singing from those trees, which should make for fun bird-watching on my afternoons off.
Dive #1 – Open Ocean!
I noticed that one of my dive shops offers a Blackwater specialty class and since this is pretty much my favorite dive, I thought it might be a fun chance to learn a bit more about all the weird critters we see on this dive, unfortunately, the class really wasn’t what I expected- it was more about how to do this dive, and would be way more useful if you hadn’t done a Blackwater dive before. This will be my 4th time, so I didn’t really learn anything. Bummer. Maybe day 2 (it’s a two-dive course) will be more in-depth?
Fortunately, it wasn’t a long class, so we could get right into the fun part- DIVING!
I feel like I’ve finally got my settings dialed in for this dive, and while macro is totally not my camera’s forte, usually something big enough comes along, like this beautiful comb jelly!
looking back at my previous pictures, the backscatter is still there (I think I need a second strobe to minimize that, or Photoshop 🙂 )…
but you can see more of the gelatinous structure
The first of many Venus girdles this evening- I saw at least a dozen ranging in size from about 3″ (like this guy) to over 2 feet:
Not a great shot, but this is a larval flounder!
He was not a fan of the lights and high-tailed it back down to the depths, so I’m happy to have even gotten this picture of him.
Siphonophores (net-casters) are super-common- I think this guy is a Sulculeolaria sp.
Another siphonophore, a Forskalia sp. I believe, with his net retracted:
This poor comb jelly ran into my tether line- it’s kinda hard to see, but that green-ish stuff coming out of him? Pretty sure that’s blood, or the jelly equivalent. 🙁 Poor guy!
And no Blackwater dive would be complete without at least one salp 🙂
Not the greatest Blackwater dive in terms of seeing cool things, and I only wore my 5mm (instead of layering up like I’ve been doing lately) so I froze (the water is about 77*), but I’ve got 3 (maybe 4) more chances this trip!