Eastside Ulua

Winds finally backed off after what seems like months of strong trades and with the small surf you know what that means!  Go-DIVE!  We packed the Red Sea boat, woke up early and decided to go east and check my favorite spots.  The reef action was fun but the highlight was finding an ulua house which seemed like a hotel.  The occupancy rate was full with 40 white uluas packed in this huge cave.  I wish I had my video camera with me to document the action but only had a small still camera rated for 30 ft.  Kris Tyler from Westside Dive and Tackle was with me and he went down first while I guarded the rear door of the cave.  He surfaced without pulling his trigger so I went down on the back door and crept over the ledge.  About a dozen smaller whites came up to me than swam back down, so I followed them down to spot the big boys in the 50-80 lb. range deep in the cave about 80 ft down.  I only had my 90 euro riffe with no tag line so I had to try and get a good shot.  The larger fish were out of range but one came in and I was ready to go for the ride, bend my shaft, and lose my gun.  I pulled the trigger and bam!  The fish rolled over stone cold!  Yeah! It weighed in about 45 lbs.

After a few pictures I tested the fish for ciguatera and it passed so my dad started cleaning the fish for dinner.  And guess what we found inside the stomach?  A decomposed "Uhu" looking about 4 lbs.  I heard they eat tako, moanas, eels, but uhus? I don't think we will be eating that uhu tonight.

Red Sea Goes Etec

Like many others, I am always looking, researching, craiglisting, for the best deals in town. Especially during this tough economy it's important to do your homework in making those big decisions.  When it came down to finding a new motor for putting us on the spot, there was no question...
  

A big mahalo to our new sponsor, Bayside Marine Service for repowering our Red Sea Boat with the fuel efficient Envirude E-tec outboard motor.  After over 30+ years of sucking gas and having a empty pocket at the end of the day we are looking forward to using the hottest engine on the market today!  If you are interested in the Evinrude E-tech motors, call Paul at 247-1202 and he will hook you up!  

 

Hammerhead Spearguns Dive

    

Saint Patrick's Day was pretty productive as Kevin Sakuda of Hammerhead Spearguns invited Kurt Chambers, James Oshiro, and myself for a day trip to Molokai.  The winds were variable and no swells in sight so we made the 2 hour ride over pretty easy.  Reef action was the call with a mix bag of goats, uhus, mus, jacks, and even a few bugs.  The water was a little dirty for filming but got a few shots anyways.  Weather looking a little windy with small surf for the remaining half of the week into next week so I better start working on some trips.

KGMB9 Dive

The world has seen the Navy ship run a ground about a month ago but no one has seen the impact to the ocean floor until today.  Kirby Fukunaga made the top story on KGMB 9 News as he shared his views on what he saw on his last dive.  Tagging along was Ryo Kubota from Surfrider Foundation and myself.  Check out the full story on http://kgmb9.com/main/content/view/15031/40/

Later we decided to go deep and look for dinner.  Not even 2 minutes into my first dive I spotted this Kumu in this hole.  I took a second look at the fish thinking it was a mirage until I focused through my tinted lens of my sporasub mask and noticed this was not imaginary.  I speared it with my 90 cm. Riffe Eurogun and the rest was history.  It weighed in about 3.8 lbs.  and tonight my family is eating good:)

Bad hair day

Having a bad hair day?  Check out this wave crashing on the wall at Nawiliwili Harbor on Kauai.  It seems like every march we get these windy days and on this day it was howling.  This picture almost looks a flame or buckwheats hair?

There are a few good spots that can hold a good Northeast swell and this secret spot on Kauai is one of them.  If you don't make the drop be ready to pay your dues and hopefully not get slammed into the cliff.  Do you know where this is?  Red Sea forecast calls for another week week of wind, wind, and more wind.  So that means it's a good time to work while there is work.  Remember glassy days will come again...

Living the Dream

Wow February is here and going fast!  Winter swells are on the way and Ono season is finally here!  Been so busy playing catch up and one of our travelers Renee Vento sent us a few samples shots of our last Indo trip.  This was a "perfect day" in paradise as Kirby Fukunaga and I met up with Al Ah Nee in the line up.  That's right! Just us 3 musketeers with waves like this going off the hook!  I can vividly remember how glassy this day was and perfect the barrels were.  Here Kirby is living the dream!  Hope you can join us on our next Red Sea Ocean Adventure!

Baitball

Happy New Year everyone!  Hope your dreams all come through in 2009!  Check out some of the incredible "baitball" footage we got on the west side of Oahu on the next episode of Hawaii Skin Diver TV airing all month of January.  It's not very often, in fact once in a lifetime we will ever see something like this anywhere in the world and we were fortunate to capture this amazing kodak moment for a handful of local divers.