NWHI day 17-Gardner Go Pro

We arrived back at Gardner Reef at 0700 and did our routine breakfast at 7 am, safety briefing at 7:30 am, and dive at 8:00 am. We wanted to check a few pinnacles but couldn't find the high spot so it turned into a long boat ride of 2 hours. We headed back to the rock and jumped in to play around with cameras.

I am usually behind the camera so the only way I could get a shot of me was to hold two cameras. One in the right, one in the left. It was fun playing around with my cameras as the divers did their thing.

Check out this wall of nenue, so thick you couldn't see through until the big ulua would pass by.

Hawaii News Now cameraman Oscar Valuenzula was also on board to document a series so he did some interviews with us and our boat man Kevin about our experience. We are heading for our last dive tomorrow in the monument and then make our way home. As our experience comes to and end we are still summarizing our opinions to what we have learned on this once in a lifetime opportunity.

NWHI day 16- Transit Day

Today we are transiting back to Gardner Reef so another day to play catch up, check email, download pictures, take topside interviews, and maybe catch a matinee movie? Every day after our dive we need to get picked up from the mother ship lifting the little "Rubber Ducky" (name of our boat) up to the nest.

I think I've seen enough Uluas for a lifetime. I don't think I can spear one after swimming with them. "Fish are friends"!

The boat crew has opened up their hearts with sunset jam sessions. One of the boat men, Jason Kehn is always game to represent and lift the spirits of the group of divers with some of his tunes.

The sunsets are nice and the stars are even brighter. The Milky way is clear as can be. last night a bunch of divers stayed up late painting under the stars. Tomorrow we dive again all day so got get busy with my "to do" list.

NWHI day 15-Lisianski Wreck

Another day was spent around Lisianski atoll. This is one of two islands in the chain of the Northwest Hawaiian islands. It's about a mile long and a guy name Mr. Lisianski found this island I think in the 1800's. He run aground with his 200 ft ship and had to offload canons to lighten the ship so we went looking for them but no luck.

Lots of birds are here along with seals, and turtles. We got to see them cruzing on shore and one seal came by to say hello!

We did manage to find a shipwreck which was cool. Did a few shots/video, then went out to visit the shark taggers who were 10 miles away but they had no luck. So headed in and ate crab legs and chili for dinner. Sorry no photos taken of the food since I was hungry.

NWHI day 14-Lisianski Go Pro

Life on the ship is awesome! You just go with the flow and you get a automatic rocker to put you to sleep. I got some of the best fish footage ever so wanted to play around today with my go pro camera to take some unique shots. Here I am trying to be creative without going man overboard.

I made this drop only to find out I had company following me again. There were a number of Ulua around 100 lbs but mostly 40-50 lbs. Here we don't look for fish, the fish find you. It feels like you are always being watched by these guardians of the sea. On this drop the Ulua tried to eat my go pro. Sorry, we don't have good internet here so I cannot upload any video. bummers..

The day ended with another good meal and discussion about tomorrow's dive in the dry lab. Dr. Randy Kosaki laid out the game plan for tomorrow and everyone is good to go! The sunset is now on our stern so now everyone is bummed because we are making our way back.

NWHI day 13-Uku mania

Each evening some of the guys hang out on deck to see the sunset and watch the moonrise. The full moon is huge and stars are bright so it makes for a spectacular view.

Today our plan was to follow Dr. Carl Meyer around with some of his researchers as they put tags into sharks and uluas. It was cool to see and I got in the water to get the water shot also. We saw one tiger but it got tangled up and got away.

We headed in and decided to do a blind drop and we were pleasantly surprised to see a few ulua and a few ukus. Then like a parade more ukus came to join us. I felt like Forest Gump running and having more runners joining me. 10 more came, then 20, then 50, then 100 ukus followed. I made a drop and they all circled around. It was the coolest ever and probably never see this again in my life. This picture doesn't do justice to what I saw. I wish I had a panoramic camera but better yet, got it on video!

NWHI-day 12 Pearl Hermes Atoll

Another full day diving, this time at Pearl and Hermes Atoll. The visibility was the clearest so far with over 150 ft vis. Our plan was to visit one of the shipwreck sites that named this atoll. The wreck was located in 15 ft of water and parts of the ship was scattered all over. Here I am on one of the two anchors remaining.

Dr. Randy Kosaki also joined us and he explored parts of the wreck as well. Randy is the Chief scientist on board and a excellent free diver. He enjoys the water and fishing/diving is in his blood. As usual Uluas escorted us everywhere we went as if they were guardians of this atoll, showing us the way.

Archeologist, Kelly Gleason gave us the tour and description of each of the artifacts of the wreck. This here was a canon on board that ship. I shot over 1800 photos today with over 23 gigs so gotta go download my photos. We have another day here so can't wait to see more.

NWHI-day 11 Transit Photos

Today we are transiting to Pearl and Hermes Atoll all day so got a good rest and recovering from the past days of diving. This will give me time to catch up and let my legs recover from all the swimming. We got to see all kinds of species and even a few lobsters. I can't believe how tame these fish are here.

One of our fellow diver and UH student Keo Lopes was hanging out with us the other day observing our filming so I was able to snap a few shots of him enjoying the scenery.

You can feel their curiosity of a stranger in their neighborhood and often sense the reverse rolls of being the prey instead of the predator. These Ulua will swim up to you, and like Mike Tyson in the ring they will stare you down, circle you, and dance around you till you are out of air and need to ascend to the surface.