SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

The dive on the great white wall is as good as we imagined it would be. We did it at the exact right time, when all the soft corals were opened up and feeding. Our divemaster prepared us and led us with a coreography that produced a perfect dive for everyone....those who gobble air and those who hardly breathe. The color and the variety of sea life were optimized by diving when the current was just right. Not too strong to manage and not too weak to attract and expand the sea life (for sea life, current equals food). The picture above shows the complexity of the dive route. There are a couple of lava tubes, one we go down through and one we ascend through. The white wall opens up to the divers view as he emerges from he lava tube. It extends downward to 330 feet. It is tempting to wander down it; that would be as ill advised as can be imagined. We descended down our mooring line and ascended on the same line. This makes the safety stop very easy. The second dive was on Jack's reef, and was a maximum depth of 50 feet with a gradual ascent to 15 feet on the last half of the dive. The fish were everywhere and of every kind. Of particular interest was a field of eels in the sand that look like grass but pull back into the sand as you approach. I'm trying to get some pictures from my dive partners.