Turtle Canyon, Oahu

We commuted over to Kewalo Basin to do some diving yesterday. Martin loaded up the BCDs, regulators, fins and wetsuits in his panniers. There's a big NW swell coming in right now so the boat ride was pretty rough but we had some good wildlife sightings.

I'm happy to see all the turtles in Hawai'i. In French Polynesia, Tonga and Fiji, they are not protected and still on the menu, so to speak. All the turtles here have migrated from the French Frigate Shoals, hundreds of miles to the west. We're starting to get the boat ready for one more big passage and are planning for a May crossing to San Francisco. One more month of work (and the occasional turtle fly by) and then we're off.

Concrete rhapsody

We went out last weekend with the Mitchell family who are visiting Oahu from Bozeman.  We anchored in some calm water with Diamond Head in the background.

There wasn't much wind but we made up for it with cannonballs.

Visitors!

We're delighted this week to have visitors Jeff Ward & Shashi Ajmani hailing from Boise, ID. We made it out for an afternoon sail last weekend and had great conditions along with a distant whale sighting.

We all went diving and first off was a wreck called the Sea Tiger, sitting in about 120' of water. 

Many Pacific sea turtles were seen on our subsequent dives. This one was hiding out under a shelf of coral.

This mature adult is hanging out at a cleaning station. The little reef fish are cleaning off the algae from the turtle's shell.

This cephalopod was a real treat and came out to play for a bit. Its skin was so soft in my hand it felt like a puppy's belly. Octopus is definitely off the menu! 

This is a unique photo of Jeff & Martin because they are clearly not skiing or biking. I think they're still having fun.

Jeff & Shashi with a moorish idol.

Out for a rip

The marina we're in is right by Waikiki and all the good shopping spots in Honolulu. It's a 5 minute walk to the Apple Store which is pretty fun but definitely hard on the wallet....

We went out for a day sail yesterday. Sunny skies, and conditions looked pretty benign, but it was blowing hard when we got out of the lee of the buildings downtown.

20+ knots of wind gusting to 30 kts- all reefed up and nowhere to go

This is called getting hosed

And back to the protection of the bay and the city. Fun sailing!

The Pali Loop, Oahu

We found a road loop on Strava that looked interesting so we headed out on the bikes this morning to check it out. There were some urban antics getting out of town be we made it to the north coast and had some good views.

We rode out to a marine research facility. Inside a big garage were a couple really techie looking submersibles. Someone's got a great job on Oahu.

The traffic here isn't terrible but it is relentless.

There were a couple quiet stretches through tropical forest that made for pretty fun carves going downhill.

The canopy crossed the road several times.

It just makes me want to go sailing!

Arrived Waikiki Yacht Club!

Back on track

Good news from Kona this morning. The 'lil Swede has indeed been fully resuscitated and is running well. The crew is delighted. Leaving port this morning bound for Honolulu- 150 nm to the NW.  It should take about 24 hours depending on the wind in the lee of the island chain.

The buck toothed critter in the last photo is a barred filefish, he followed us around on a dive last week, probably wondering what's taking so long to get your engine fixed?

Lexi