Spiny Lobster

Yesterday was originally going to be our last day diving on this trip, but after getting skunked at Molokini Crater earlier in the week, Charmaine scheduled us to hit the crater this morning. We were pretty excited for that after seeing how amazing the visibility was out there yesterday. We checked in at the shop and walked our stuff down to the dock where Captain Levi was directing traffic. The boat going to Molokini was packed full and the boat going to Lanai for a drift dive was half empty. Levi suggested we would have a better time doing the Lanai drift than going to Molokini again. The crater is very popular and crowded for a reason. But he said the Lanai drift dive is special. We looked around and saw the old dude that puked all over the place was on the boat to Molokini and saw how much room there was on the Lanai boat and saw that the dive crew going to Lanai were all people we already liked (and Captain Dave was going to be diving with one of the groups today), so we had Captain Levi call the shop and switch us over. We’ll always be glad we made that switch. At the time there was a bit of joking about us being the good luck charm that got the manta, the dolphins, and the whale the day before. We even suggested Mitch switch boats as a joke… he had to work the Molokini charter because they needed as many crew as they could get with a boat that full. ...

It’s a holiday weekend. All the boats are packed. Ours was no exception. We had 20 divers, 4 dive masters, and even a couple snorkelers on board. We were among the first to board and we got the premium seats close to the back. We also managed to get the best guide on the boat. If only I remembered his name so I could write it here. Unfortunately, I am terrible with names and his is now lost. But he had a plan to make sure we were the first group in the water at each dive location and it worked. There were a ton of boats at each location, so our dive master took us in a slightly different direction than all the other groups and it made all the difference. ...

When we woke up this morning conditions looked epic. The trees and flags were still. The water was as flat as you can reasonably expect the ocean to get. We were worried if we let our excitement show that we might jinx it. Both dive spots this morning were on Molasses Reef, which is a fairly shallow reef, so I hoped the calm water and shallow depths would lead to some good pictures. When we arrived at Spanish Anchor, it wasn’t as clear as I thought it would be, but it was as calm as anywhere I’ve been diving. ...