Diving Puako

The Puako, End of Road, dive site was busy. A Sunday morning had vehicles parking in any available spot amongst the trees, every one belonging to a local diver. Five guys from Keck, our usual group. But also a lot of other familiar faces... local biologist, Linda Preskitt, led a group of six other women. Another small group was just getting out as we geared up.

This Sunday I was without my usual dive partner. I left Deb in bed to throw the gear in the car and meet the guys. She is still recovering from a cold, a virus no doubt bequested upon her by one of her students at the school. Most of the symptoms gone, but sinuses not clear enough for the pressures of diving.

It was a very nice dive. I spent the entire time moving slowly, poking into small caves and looking under every overhang. Anyone who dives with me will attest to my preferred modis operendi... I am a slowpoke. This day I was indulging myself. I was rewarded by finding some odd things, some new things, and obtained more than a few nice photos.

The camera and external flash was working well, I have become accustomed to the new gear configuration and can more reliably get the photo. The external flash often works wonders, getting photos I simply could not have gotten before. With the light source to the side the turbidity of the water is far less important, a critical feature when I am poking my way through caves and confined spots where the silt is so easily stirred up. Not to say it performed perfectly, but I am well up the learning curve.

The dive featured the usual whale song soundtrack. The humpbacks quite active and not very far off the reef. As we talked on the beach after the dive a mother and calf took turns breaching just outside the cove, almost on top of where we had been diving. Everyone cheered as the huge mother executed a perfect breach, almost fully out of the water.

Going slow and shallow also results in a long dive, eighty-eight minutes according to the dive computer. My max depth was 42ft, but really spent much of the time at 20-30ft in the canyons just off the north end of the cove. At the end I was tired, but felt great, properly enjoying a Sunday morning in Kohala.

I have another set of great photos posted and scheduled to appear here over the next few weeks, lots of bubbly goodness to keep the pages of Darker View interesting.