Had an awesome time on this trip. Will definitely miss Honolulu, the weather and the wide variety of possible activities once I get back to the Bay area. Also met some great people along the way that I’ll be keeping in touch with. Can never have too many good friends

Hit Hanauma Bay yesterday with Shaun and Faraaz for some last minute snorkeling and then later on in the evening managed to squeeze in a night dive off magic island and saw a sleeping turtle and lots of other sleeping marine life. Was my first night dive and I was a bit nervous at first..felt weird being out in the ocean in the darkness, but once inside the water all the usual training/thought processes kick in and just feels like another dive. Felt like I was diving inside a cave because of the lack of sunlight from above…was an awesome feeling.  Will post a pic of the sleeping turtle once my divemaster/instructor emails me the pic. Until then here’s some pics from some older dives on the YO-257 shipwreck and horseshoe reef

This pic was taken at the point where the mooring line of the boat was attacked to the buoy of the shipwreck. You can see a chain in the background that we used to guide ourselves down to the wreck. Site was full of schools of yellow butterfly fish as well as other fish. Was my first shipwreck dive so I felt like a lil kid experiencing something out of this world for the first time.

In this pic I’m checking my depth gage. Maximum depth on this dive was 100 feet.

Side view of part of the YO-257 shipwreck

As you can see in the pic above, the YO-257 is thriving as an artificial reef. The ship was bought by the Atlantis Submarine company about 20 years ago for $30,000 and then the company spent around $300,000 making it suitable to use as a artificial reef. Now the site is popular among divers, tourists who visit the site on the Atlantis submarine tour and tons of marine life. In the last 20 years, the Atlantis submarine company has sunk a few more ships (one of these ships is the Seatiger ship I mentioned in a previous post that I also got to dive down to) and aircraft to create more artificial reefs and has worked with groups in Japan and the University of Hawaii on additional artificial reef projects.

Picture above was taken by me on the submarine tour of the same shipwreck that I had dived down to the previous day.

Looks like its time for me to check out and head to the airport. Will post more pics soon and write a bit more. Happy new years everyone!