Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

From Brandon: Well, we hit our first port: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This is my 2nd time there, and it was great to have gone again! I didn't do too terribly much there this time, but I did the one thing that I really wanted to do there: DIVE! Our last day there I got up really early before sunrise and caught a bus from the base to downtown Waikiki where the dive shop was that I had arranged to dive with. Luckily it turned out that only 1 other person was diving that morning in my group so it was me, him, the Dive Master, and the Boat Captain. The first dive spot was about 15 minutes out to sea, just outside the bay. We jumped in and used a pre-installed line that went to the ocean floor to pull ourselves down to a depth of 110 feet (the deepest that I've ever been!) -- the visibility was right around 100 feet!!! After we were just a bit descended, the object of the dive began to come into view: an old WWII Corsair fighter plane... apparently the pilot had run out of fuel and had to crash it into the harbor... it sank there and is still in great shape considering it has been sitting in salt water for so long... you could still see pieces of the engine, the compass is still mounted in the cockpit, the propeller is still intact... it was very kewl! We spent about 15 minutes on the bottom examing the plane... there wasn't much sea life around other than schools of about 4 different kinds of fish that had obviously made the Corsair their home. I realized that wreck dives aren't really my thing though. It was interesting though b/c at depths greater than 90 feet people are said to start suffering from "Narcosis" which is a natural event that occurs because your body builds up too much Nitrogen at deep depths, and it is similar to being high or drunk but without all the adverse side-effects. I wasn't sure I was feeling anything, until I picked up my camera to take a photo and it took a minute to register whether I was looking at the front or the back of the camera... so i think that perhaps I felt the effects of Narcosis jsut a bit...The second dive of the day took us to only 40 ft. --we were down for a little over 30 minutes. It was a sea cave... after descending to about 30 feet, we swam toward the shore where there is a rocky outcropping on the surface but under the surface there is a huge hold... swimming through it and just a short distance brought us to a cave that had a skylight with sunlight puring in... NOW THIS WAS MY KIND OF DIVE!!! We saw 2 or 3 4-1/2 foot white-tip sharks (within maybe 6 feet outside of my reach!), several "medium"-sized sea turtles chilling in corners sleeping, several Moray Eels sticking out of rocks hissing at us, a *HUGE* crab stuck to the ceiling... that thing was BIG, his body had to be atleast as big as my head! After exploring in there, we swam out of the cave and along the coast, and we spotted this "medium"-sized (to me, it was GIANT, but the Dive Master said "no, that's medium for us") sea turtle just sitting on the ocean floor chillin' and looking at us... I went down to a boulder he was sitting next too and just watched him watching me... it was very kewl... I could have easily reached out and petted him, that's how close I was... his body was very big... maybe 2-4 times the size of my torso! We also heard whales nearby and on the way back to the boat another sea turtle swam up to me within about 8 feelt and swam with me for about a minute or so... IT WAS AWESOME!!! I have photos that I will post here as soon as I am able to get them developed. Unfortunately I burned most of my film on the Corsair and by the time I got 3 or 4 shots of the sharks, I ran out of film... :(







Santa in Hawaii




A very kewl tree




Waikiki Beach




Waikiki Beach at sunrise

[- 5JANUARY05 UPDATE: THE DIVING PIX!!! -]



Descending on the Corsair fighter plane


Side profile of the Corsair fighter plane


As you can see, the plane is in such great condition, the prop is even distinguishable still!


An aft perspective of the plane


A huge school of Angelfish (I think that's what they are, someone please correct me if I am wrong!) that live in and around the plane... it was awesome swimming THROUGH them... they just parted and came back together like I was parting the Red Sea!


These fish are sooooo kewl! I have no idea what they are, but I *LOVE* their huge eyes!


Another school o' Fish


The Ocean Cave in Oahu... this was the object of my second dive... unfortunately I had burned up almost all of my film on the Corsair dive, and the pix I got inside the cave didn't turn out too well... but, as I described, we descended to about 40 feet, swam through this opening and then once inside it opens back up to an actual skylight... though we never sufaced b/c that would have been dangerous due to the pounding surf inside... it was in here that we saw the sharks and the napping turtles, as well as the Crab and Moray Eel... *EXTREMELY* kewl dive spot... probably the *BEST* one I've ever been on!!! Just wish I had pix... :(