Afternoon dive with Eli G.

After not diving with Eli for a looooong time, we finally were able to do another afternoon dive outside of ML.  He took me to the left and the grounds were pretty dead.  I had been to that spot a few times previously and on each account the grounds were also pretty dead.  haha.

We got to the parking lot and started to talk and catch up.  We made our way down to the beach and there was quite a bit of people/tourists staring at the two weird full wetsuited divers with spearguns.
The water was nice but on the murky side.  As we got in Eli swam towards me holding up one busted band.  I laughed and he was like oh well one band is better than none....haha  I could have sworn those were the same bands he used on our last dive and they were really buss up!  We swam around the left side point and saw.....nothing!  The uhus were also scarce! haha

Eli and I took turns taking blind drops and dusting as we were trying to find the elusive Mu pile.  After only seeing bubbles and coral eggs we decided to swim farther left.  We came across a big opelu kala which eli took a shot on but due to the lack of speargun rubbers it dodged he shaft and swam away.
Eli started to reload and I watched as the opelu kala came back and hid under a rock right below us.  I signaled eli to go down as I wanted to give him the sweet taste of redemption.

He drops down and is looking in the totally opposite direction that I signaled to him where the fish was hiding.  He turns to the left and sees it!  It spooks a little and Eli chases it down and gets a nice shot off!  the one bandit Eli strikes again! haha

We keep swimming farther down and I take a drop on an uhu but miss.  We start to head back and work the coast line as the sun is getting lower.  We come across a nice cave and check it but nothing inside....

On the other side however is an abundance of fish.  Uhus, joes and toaus.  Its a perfect picture window to snipe and we take turns dropping down.  The fish would come in but it was hard to line up as the current would rush through and push us in and out of the vagina hole.

Eli finally gets a shot off on a nice whiptail but it rips off.

We head back as its nearing the witching hour.  We come across two more opelu kalas and I keep signaling Eli to spear one.  (My friend wanted a bunch to make fish patties)  Eli finally caves in and takes my gun and drops and gets a good holding shot on a big opelu kala.

The other one is still around and I dive down and take a shot with Elis riffe and get a good holding shot.  The fish both start to go nuts and during the whole ordeal I am trying to stop my uncontrollable laughter.  I forgot to note that just previous to this we saw a white tip shark (5 footer).

Eli looks up and me and pops his head outta the water and yells "Shark frenzy!  Lets get the fuck outta here!!!"  I laugh and am trying to subdue my fish but due to my uncontrollable laughter my mask keeps leaking.  I finally string up my fish and wait for Eli to do the same.

We start to swim and I feel a strong pull on my daisy chain.  I look up and see the water splashing from the shark thrashing as he taxes part of an opelu kala.  I drop the anchor and rush towards the float.  The shark is circling and rushing the fish.  I dive down and try to keep the shark at bay.  I look at Eli and after we both try to keep the shark away from our prizzzzed catch, he grabs the anchor and starts to swim in.

I stay in the back and keep the shark at bay.  It constantly comes back circles and rushes in to get the fish.  It took about another 20 minutes of swimming with the shark constantly at my heels.  The murkiness of the water also didnt help as most times I could not see him coming.

At one time I kept swimming in and he swam right up to me from behind me.  I finally give the shark a nice poke and he goes away.  Such determination!  Eli and I both beach and are laughing.  We carry the fish up to the shower just in time to see the security guard coming.  Eli tells him the story and we carry everything back to the truck.

Another epic dive at ML.  I hope those fish patties come out good because I almost got chomped!

The End.

Midmorning dive 1

Back in action with T.C. hammah hammah!

Hamakua started to look nice as friday strolled in.  I called Tyson with excitement since it was over a month since we last dove.  The air was filled with vog due to Kona winds, but the water looked glassy as ever.  We got in the water around 11am.  What a late start!   We first arrived at obake point around 10 but spend some time watching the water due to some swell intervals.  Our usually in/out was surgy and we decided to hike to the right to a point where we last did a night dive.

The in/out there was much better due to the swell energy being broken up by 2 points ahead.  We jumped in and the water was clear and warm.  79 degrees F.  The tide was dropping and upon swimming out I told Tyson I was in search of some uhus and palanis for my Hilo friends.

Tyson dove down on the first green whiptail and took a shot which connected in the guts.  The magic stick (120SV) was on and ready.  We continued to swim out and the water was surprising really nice with very mild current.  We did some drops at around 60ft and dusted but didnt see any fish of interest.

Upon swimming towards the left, we wanted to check 2 houses for any action.  Tyson spotted a nice kali and took a drop down.  The kali runs away but he follows it to the ledge and shoots a nice omilu....stoned!  Hammah hammah hammah!

I spot a small uku that comes around as Tyson starts to reload and start to palu the uhu guts.  He sticks around and I take a drop and start to dust.  He starts to come in but is a little wary of my presence.  I ascend with no shot and we continue on.

We continue to swim towards the houses and check the first small one.  I peek inside but dont see anything.  We swim out towards the bigger house and I drop on the outside.  I peek in and dont see any jacks but spot a nice toau and kumu.  I try to wait for the kumu but he spooks and I go back up.

I drop back down and shoot the toau.  Swimming the fish back to the float, I see TC Hammah with another toau as well.  We follow the structure in and I tell TC to take a shot at a pualu.  It digs after a miss and we follow the ledge in.  Theres a nice aggregation of fish on the inside and I take a palani.

I drop again to the top of the ledge and see a nice joe start to come in.  I swim after him and shoot....but miss.  Tyson spots a nice kumu and takes a shot but it rips off.  We start to head back and he spots another omilu and connects with the 120SV!

We swim in and get out safely.   We hike back to the ladder and climb up.  Another good dive at Obake point!

The Dark Knight Rises (Jesse P)

After about a year and a half time past, I was excited to get a green light from my old dive partner J.P.!
Being a family man means little time for diving!  Jesse stopped by on Saturday and I told him the reaccount of Jarricks 1st Ulua.  Hearing his story got him amped and we planned a drift dive from Kolekole beach park to Hakalau.  I was excited because I had heard of a nice ulua house and was hoping to find it so that J.P. could get a crack at scoring his first ulua.  Two first uluas in one weekend I thought....now that would be epic!

I woke up excited and started driving to Hakalau.  I reached there and the water looked murky with a bit of swell.  Jesse reached there a little after me and we loaded up in my car and drove to kolekole.
Upon reaching there we saw big swells with surfers.  Not really feeling the green light we decided to just dive out of hakalau and swim right to kolekole.

The right side of the bay was protected the most but there was a little surge.  We suited up and got an early start at around 10am haha!  We reach the right side point and the water finally starts to clear.  There is nice structure but not too much fish.  Jesse takes a few shots but misses.  After all this time he still however is able to hit the depths pretty well.

We swim and swim and swim and no fish!  We come across a few whiptails and I signal Jesse to drop. He drops and swims down and fires at something else.  Coming up im laughing hysterically at his accuracy percentage.  He reports there was a nice kumu down there and tells me the gun lacks power due to the old bands.  I continue to laugh and tell him to try the "mana gun".  My goal of the dive was now to shoot a nice uhu with J.P.s gun, not only for the challenge but to spite him as well.  hahaha.

I come across another whip whos busy feeding and see if I can dive bomb.   I drop 25% and wait.  The uhu continues to feed and does a circle and I go for it.  I get within range and give a few kicks more and pull the trigger of old faithful.  (Omer Cayman Carbon 110cm)  Thud!  Stone shot!  I swim up and look for J.P.  and there is a symphony of bubbles erupting from my mask due to the fact I am laughing up a storm!

We swim some more and I find a nice ledge with a small potential ulua house.  I signal J.P. down and he hits the bottom at 55ft.  He sees some uhus and 2 big joes which he chases and swims through the house.  No fish but he comes up saying "Ho Keenan you pushing my luck today!" haha.  We decide to turn around as its nearly 12:30pm.

I see Jesse bolt and he laters tells me he saw a nice ulua. We continue to swim back and I see JP drop again.  A blue whiptail swims up from the reef and JP is on it.  He connects and another uhu is added to the stringer.  We hit the bay and the water seems to be much clearer and calmer than in the morning.  We both get on shore safely, swap more laughs, stories and rest under a shady tree.

The Dark Knight rises!  Hopefully we can continue to get more dives in!

Jarricks 1st Ulua

After a long hot week of muggy, voggy Hilo weather I was ready to jump into some clean, clear, cool water.  Jarrick Dasalla texted me earlier in the week telling me the water out hamakua was flat with no wind.  He was looking foward to diving Paauilo, where the weekend previously he had lost an Ulua on a big strike.  He wanted to scout more of the underwater structure to form a conclusion of his own of where and how the ulua's pin his pole down far out from the cliff's edge.

I also had told him my ulua story and he was excited and hopefully to just see one.  He met me at my house at 9am and we loaded up and headed out.  We joked about him spearing his first ulua and how he never got to really use the remora reel on his aimrite 120 SV.  We were both surprised when we pulled into the clearing and no fishermen in sight!  We suited up and hiked down to the water.  Jarrick and his friends also did an excellent job of trimming the trail with a pair scissors.

I wanted Jarrick to sample the "mana gun", so I told him to jump in first and try and spear a nenue for palu.  As we both got in the water, the inside was a little surgy and murky but the outside was nice and flat with 0 wind.  Jarrick shot a nice nenue with the "mana gun" and I shot a pualu with his aimrite.

I told him that was enough to start paluing and we swam out to the house.....
Upon reaching there, the current was pulling in the complete opposite direction then it normally does.  Straight inwards towards the landing and back towards Hilo.  The water was also extremely warm at 79F.  We both reached the house and I pointed it out to Jarrick.

"Ho this is deep!" was his reply.  I took a drop down straight to the bottom of the house and peeked inside.  There were two smaller uluas inside swimming in circles and I saw that the cave went all the way through the other side.  My watch read 72ft and I decided to head back up.  Upon ascending a nice 20-25lb ulua comes straight up towards me.  I line up my gun and make a pretend stone shot. (Good mental practice! haha).

As I hit the surface I yell to Jarrick "Did you see that ulua?"  He replies "Ya how come you never shoot?!"  I laugh and reply "All you today!" haha.  We both laugh and keep watching the house below.....

I spot a bigger ulua swimming along the bottom and yell to Jarrick whos a little down current but he didnt see it.  I look back down and cant see it either. :(  I tell Jarrick to stay above the house while I palu the nenue.  I grab the nenue from his back and swim directly up current and start cutting the fish up.  Nothing comes around and I see the smaller uluas in the cave earlier swim along the ledge and out towards the deep.  Thinking they were gone I drop the carcass down till it hits the ledge and drops to the bottom in front of the house.

I talk with Jarrick and tell him I want to try palu further out since it was nice flat and clear.  I grab the palani from the float and swim out till I can't see the bottom.  I start paluing and there is a school of opelu that comes around but nothing else.  I look for Jarrick and see him still above the Ulua house.  I swim to him and he tells me that there is a small ulua swimming around the nenue carcass biting it.

I look down and sure enough a small ulua at the bottom nibbling the little snack I left.  I tell Jarrick that he can make the dive and he should hit the ledge and sneak towards the fish to get a shot off.
He breathes up and goes down.....

He hits the top of the ledge perfect and calmly looks around.  I see him line up on the smaller ulua, then start to track something else.  His gun fires and he starts to head up.  I can't see the fish but can see his reel spinning rapidly.  Upon hitting the surface I grab his arm and tell him to breathe.  He recovers and I tell him his reel is still spinning!  Fish on!  The ulua runs straight into the cave and I tell Jarrick to swim out away from the cave.  His reel is still spinning and he pulls and keeps tension on the line.  He manages to get the ulua out of the cave and starts to pull it up.

I look at him and he signals me to put in the back up shot.  Once the fish was secured we both exchanged high fives and started to buss laugh!  We head in and Jarrick is super stoked.  Ulua weighed in at 19.3lbs using my scale.  Another epic hamakua dive!

81lb Ulua

Haven't written here in a long time.  I will try keep this blog updated more if possible.

Today was the day that I was able to harvest a 81lb ulua.  It started off like any other day.  I was a bit on the tired side from having a long week of work and school, but was itching to hit the water again.
Tyson was excited but was riding 4 wheeler till midnight so I wasnt sure what to expect if we were going earlier the next morning or not.  By 6:30am my eyes were wide open but I stayed in bed.  I was just about to shoot Tyson a text when my phone went off.  "Ho bah. Morning cupcake.  Call me when you up."  We initially planned to hit the 1st horseshoe but I decided to check Pauuilo to see how the water looked.  Upon reaching the cliff I was surprised to see no one there.  It was really windy, with white caps on the outside, but the water looked clear and the in and out didnt look bad.

We both agreed on diving here since the wind looked pretty bad.  We suited up at the truck and started to head down.  Upon, reaching the landing there was trash everywhere!  Looks like a bunch of campers forgot to clean up their opala!  We jumped in and decided to swim left to check a productive ledge where in the past I have seen big kahalas, uhus, nenues, opelus, you name it!  The visibility was excellent and the current was non existent.  I spot two mus who look curious and signal Tyson to take a drop.

He drops and takes a far shot and connects but the mu rips off.  We swim some more and Tyson signals me that the other mu is still around.  I take a drop to 55ft and start throwing some sand.  I look around and see the mu start to come in.  I move my gun a little too fast and the mu spooks leaving me with my still loaded gun as I ascend to the surface.  We continue to swim on and come across the ledge....

I drop my anchor and start to investigate looking on the hilo side.  Tyson spots a pair of omilus down in a deep hole but they dig as soon as he approaches the hole.  We swim back to the ledge and I see tyson diving on something.  There is a unmistakable shape of a big ulua cruising parallel toward the outside of the ledge.  Without breathing up I descend kind of quickly in hopes of cutting the school off.  I kick slower as I approach the bottom of the ledge.  The leader makes it to a big cave while some of the smaller stragglers pass right by me.  I wait and see the smaller uluas make a u-turn in the cave and slowly start to come towards me.  I wait a little longer and see a bigger ulua come out of the cave heading towards me to check me out.

I start to slowly swing my gun in his direction and he veers off a little, so I direct all my attention away from him while still keeping him in sight.  Out of the corner of my eye I can see him coming towards me and I move slowly to point my gun in his direction.  He swims straight up to me and gives me a slightly angled broad side shot.  I take it and hit the fish right behind the left eye.

I can see that my shaft has not penetrated fully through and the fish slowly takes off while stripping line out of my reel.  I start to ascend and am trying not to laugh as I see Tyson swim towards me.  I hit the surface and he yells "Holy shit did it go through?"  I reply "Uh oh" and try to keep a serious face but start to laugh.  The fish is down deep and I can no longer see him, just the yellow spectra which is now getting low on my reel.  I start to follow the general direction of my fish and try to gain back some yardage of spectra on my reel.  The fish keeps pulling and pulling me towards deeper water.  I look up to see tyson sprinting to the far left of me and see that the fish is fighting far from where I am.

The line gets tangled on a coral head but I manage to get it off....only to have it tangle yet again on a deeper coral head. :'(  Tyson dives down and I can see him get within shooting distance and he fires.  The fish fights again and line starts to shoot out of tysons reel.  He is fighting the fish and at this point my shaft comes out but gets tangled around Tyson's shooting line.

The fish starts to come up towards mid water but keeps swimming circles around us.  Tyson yells to me and I tell him to wait and let the fish tire out.  At the same time I am praying that his shaft doesnt come out!  Finally the fish starts to tire out and I dive down to put him to sleep.

We string the ulua up and swim back to our guns.  My line ended up being tangled on a coral head at 80ft.  Once I got that untangled, I was ready to head in. haha.  We dive a little more to the left and tyson hits some uhus but they all rip off.  We decide to call it a day and head in.  Ulua ended up weighing 81lbs according to Tyson scale at Horizon Automotive.  After weighing the fish, the Caitanos convince me to get it printed and I agree.  We drive to Hilo and I get to meet Laron K who ends up printing my fish.   Once the fish was printed we head to kens for a good time.

Pau.

Keauhou dive with Eli

After not being able to shoot a Mu the day before, I was determined to get one. Eli called and said that pine trees was a no go due to a SW swell. We then decided that he was going to check down Keauhou side to see if the water and visibility would be good to dive.

As soon as Eli called back telling me that the water was nice, I started the long drive to Kona town. Reaching there we suited up and jumped in. We swam around the point to the left and worked the coastline.

Most of the reef out there turned out to be barren. We swam along the drop off and didn't see any action. We swam across the harbor and I start scanning the reef and see a nice tako! I drop down and poke him out with my spear. He's in a nice crack but im able to poke him out and grab him.

Swimming back towards shore

Mauna Lani Dive with Josh and Gary

This saturday we decided to do the same dive we did last saturday in hopes of seeing an ulua or shooting some Mu. Josh and Gary showed up at my house and I jumped on with Gary. We drove down to Mauna Lani and saw that there were other divers already in the water to the right of where we were going to jump in.

The water was really murky and we swam to the ulua house, Gary went to check if anyone was home. Seeing that no one was home we decided to try and hunt the infamous Mu pile there. We swam left towards the point and I finally came across a good sized pile. I took a drop behind a coral head and started to throw sand. I see some small ones come in but waited for some of the bigger ones in the back. They refused to come in so we continued on.

Josh then reports that he was able to get a shot off on a nice Mu from the surface due to the murky water and the range of his 125cm. He ends up losing it due to it ripping off. We start to head back and I try to find the ulua house once again in hopes that someone would be home. Just as I get around the G.A. Josh yells to me. He ends up shooting a nice blue whiptail uhu and I give him my knife.

We head in just before dark and wash up. Another good dive at ML!