I figured I'd contribute by first blog by recounting my diving experiences while on a recent trip to the Big Island (I live on O'ahu). I was there visiting my parents while they were on vacation. We were busy looking for a house to buy over there, but I managed to get into the water a couple of times. I should mention that I'm not a bubble-blower...I'm a breath-hold freediver and spearfisherman.
The cool thing about the Kona side of the Big Island is that no matter where you are you are probably in close proximity to the ocean. We got to stay at a fellow diver's house down south in Kona Paradise, where just down the hill below is a seldom-visited beach with a substrate of rounded basalt cobbles rather than sand, "
Pebble Beach". The lack of attention to the beach was favorable---it suggested that there was probably little fishing pressure there. My buddies Derek and Mike joined me there for a morning dive early in my trip.
The clarity of the water on the Big Island is refreshing coming from O'ahu. All the typical reef fish were flitting about...Uhus, rois, surgeonfish, etc. I was just looking for something small and sufficient for dinner that night with my parents. Over the course of the relatively short dive (4 hours instead of my usual 8) I was selective and put four nice joes (goatfish) on the kui. These would make for a delightful dinner when steamed Chinese style, which I was eager to prepare for my parents since I was sure they'd never had fish prepared that way.
The next day was Sunday, the day of the week that a small group of Kona-area freedivers gather at
Honaunau to practice deep diving. The group is tight-knit and jovial...The gathering is as much for talking story and potlucking as it is for each individual pushing his limits by freediving to lung-crushing depths (beyond 200ft in the case of most of the divers). I've gotten to train with the crew over the last year whenever I've been on the Big Island, and I attribute much of my advancement in freediving to this training.
We were missing usual attendees Annabel and Jessica because they are currently off in Egypt representing the USA in the World Freediving Championships. It felt weird without them, but we headed out into the ever-calm waters of
Puʻuhonua o Honaunau anyway. Basically we all go through a meditative warm-up routine, then attempt a single "max effort"---a deep dive, perhaps close, equal to, or beyond our personal best. I only planned to dive to ~40m since I've only been spearfishing the majority of this year, which doesn't take me much beyond 30m. Diving deep is something your body has to be trained and adapted for, so it would have been foolish for me to try to dive much deeper than 40m. I would have been risking lung injury due to lack of chest flexibility from having not been that deep in several months. Well, I surprised myself by diving to
55m/181ft and coming up with plenty of oxygen to spare---it really felt easy! That was only about 10ft off of my personal best depth (192ft). I was stoked!
That same day happened to be the eve of lobster season in Hawai'i, which runs from Sept. 1 - Apr. 31. Lobster season is insignificant to most divers on O'ahu, since the lobster population has all but been wiped out there. But I knew there was still the possibility of finding them on the Big Island. That night one of the freedivers, Hiko, came down to my neighborhood and we headed down the hill to Pebble Beach in hopes of finding some bugs. I don't have much night diving experience, but I went ahead and trusted Hiko and my battery-powered dive light as we headed into the inky blackness. My initial apprehension dissolved away as I saw an increasing number of curious nocturnal creatures---some varieties of
soldierfish I was unfamiliar with, as well as some cool bioluminescent plankton. It wasn't long before our beams of light reflected from the tell-tale beady eyes of BUGS! The majority of the ones we saw were undersized, but I managed to grab some
very respectable ones!
My next dive opportunity was with the freediving crew again mid-week. I was confident about diving deeper, and indeed I did, sinking to a depth of
60m/196ft! This was my first time hitting the 60m mark, but I was still a bit short of satisfied because here in America we don't use the metric system! I was still 4ft shy of 200ft! If only I would have looked at my depth gauge down there I wouldn't have hesitated to stretch my eardrums a bit further to make that 4ft.
The new personal best aside, something else really cool happened on that dive. On my way down a friggin'
ONO swam right up to me! A pretty good sized one (40 - 50lbs)! Whenever I am fortunate enough to see one my pulse instantly skyrockets, making it difficult to dive on them. However, I was somehow able to remain calm in the presence of this ono, simply observing it and thinking "
Wow, an ono. What a beautiful creature. OK, on with my target dive." I guess I was in the zone.
I next hooked up with a good dive buddy of mine, Henry, and his brother, Joey. We were going to dive at an out-of-the-way beach that I'd heard of before, but never visited---
Makalawena. 4WD was required to get there.
Before we could target our goal species, we had to harvest some
palu first. Palu is the Hawaiian word for
chum, which is any organic matter used to attract larger fish. We were going to use some "rubbish fish" as palu, i.e., we were going to shoot and collect a bunch of less desirable fish first, only to cut them up and drop their remains back into the water. In an effort to not be wasteful, I'm happy to say that I shot only rois (a.k.a., the "
peacock grouper", an introduced species that is regarded as a competitive pest species detrimental to the native populations) for use as palu.
We were targeting
ukus, which readily come in for palu, but they weren't showing up. On a drop to the sand at 75ft I scanned around me---a silver-colored fish of decent size approached rapidly. It was a ~20lb
ulua! I'll take it! In addition to that nice fish I eventually did catch a small uku, as well as a
weke 'ula.
The last day of my trip happened to fall on a Sunday, so I got to join the freedivers one more time for a deep dive. You should already know what my goal was. Did I make it?
Sure did! With a foot to spare! What a great way to end my vacation on the Big Island.
Next blog I'll make sure to share some underwater photos!
