Scuba Diving
Nov 23rd, 2006 by billb
I went diving a few days ago with Lane Mead, the caretaker for Ponohouse, and Geoff Barth, a friend of Lane’s who is an avid diver. If you are an experienced diver and you stay at Ponhouse you might want to look up Lane and see if he wants to go diving. He’s generally game for it. Lane lives in the caretaker cottage underneath the suite that’s across the bridge. He’s the soul of discretion, and you won’t see him unless you want to, but he’s a good guy to know if you’re into water activities. He’s an expert surfer, windsurfer, commercial pilot, and a beginning diver.
If you’re inexperienced you might want to stick to the guided dives. I’m an experienced diver, with advanced and rescue certifications, and many hundreds of logged dives (and who knows how many unlogged). When I’m here in Maui I dive frequently, but generally in odd places that most people don’t go to because the entry is difficult or the water is challenging (big waves, currents, etc.). I’m not looking for challenges, just relatively unmolested terrain. For that reason I’m not going to recommend my favorite dives–you probably wouldn’t want to go there.
This dive was at the easiest and one of the most popular spots of all: Ahihi Bay in Makena. Ahihi is a refuge–no fishing of any kind and no powered craft–so it’s full of fish and other sea life. The water entry is the easiest you’ll find, a sloping beach with a flat rock about ten feet from shore that you can stand on and get your fins on. Our profile for this dive was no deeper than forty feet. Here’s some pictures from the dive:
That’s kind of a lame picture of a Moray, but by the time I got my camera ready it was tucked in a hole.
That triggerfish looks like he’s rocket powered, but that’s just ground up coral coming out of his gills as he swims away.
Turtles are pretty common in Ahihi, you’ll see them snorkeling if you go far enough out. These were at a cleaning station getting spruced up by some fish. While we were watching another came down from the surface and nearly centerpunched me in the chest–he must not have been paying attention. I can relate.
Schools of fish are fun to see underwater–makes you realize why they act as they do, they look like a big animal. the little threadfin butterflies in the third picture are common, but they’re one of my favorite fish.
