The Rafu Shimpo - L.A. Japanese Daily News

Under the Sea
By GWEN MURANAKA
Rafu English Editor
Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006

A diving newbie learns how to scuba aboard a live-aboard ship in Kona, Hawaii.

Photos by TAT WONG
DEEP WATER: The author takes a lesson at 115 feet below the surface with diving instructor Ross Martin as part of a one-week vacation on the Kona Aggressor II, a live-aboard dive boat off of Kona, Hawaii.

Scuba

A school of bluestripe snapper, a non-native fish found commonly in Hawaii's waters, swim along the reef.

What did I get myself into? I started to think to myself as the eel wound its way around the bank of high density lights and cruised directly towards me, its mouth open in a yearning expression that seemed to say: "Feed me."

It was nighttime in Kona. I tried to look casual, even as I felt a little panicky, floating some 40 feet below the dark waters off of the Kona coast, holding a flashlight above my head like some waterlogged Statue of Liberty.

Just a little over a month prior to that I had started to learn how to scuba dive. Nancy Kikuchi, of Little Tokyo Service Center, and I began by signing up for lessons at Ocean Safari, a scuba shop out of San Gabriel. After buying some of the basic gear (mask, snorkel, wet suit), we joined a class that met for three-hour sessions at the pool at East L.A. Community College.

Slowly, we started picking up the skills that are necessary to breathe and function underwater. Before this, the most swimming I had done was in a pool. Two weeks of lessons and two dives aboard a diving boat off of Anacapa in the Channel Islands had all come to this. I was one of 14 passengers and the only diving newbie aboard the Kona Aggressor II, a live-aboard yacht that takes divers out for an intensive week of diving around the reefs off of the Big Island.

The ship is one of a fleet of live-aboard yachts that service some of the world's most noted dive spots including Fiji, Palau, the Galapagos Islands and Belize. The term "live aboard" is exactly what it implies. The 80-foot catamaran becomes your home for the week as you dive up to five times a day. Departing from Kailua-Kona Bay, the Aggressor moved along the western coast of the Big Island, going as far as the southern point to dive spots with names such as "Aquarium," "Rob's Reef" "Turtle Pinnacle" and "Mantaville," the home of the majestic manta rays, whose sightings are prized by divers.

As I held my flashlight, I was part of a group looking for mantas, whose wingspan are said to reach 23 feet. For the night dive, the divemaster, Ross, had set out the lights and dropped glow sticks for us to follow like a trail of bread crumbs down to where the mantas, attracted by the light, were supposed to appear. The luminsence brought a school of hungry jacks that circled over our heads and the aforementioned eels, but no mantas.

It was only a mild disappointment to me, since every experience as a new diver seemed at once strange and exhilirating.

On the first day, I finished two dives to attain my diving certification card, a license which documents that you are competent to dive. It is one thing to strap on a tank of air, squeeze into a wet suit, mask and fins and jump into the controlled setting of a chlorinated swimming pool. It's something entirely different to jump into the warm waters of Hawaii and witness firsthand the multitude of the island's colorful reef life: bright yellow tangs and butterfly fish tooling around the coral, pufferfish comically bouncing with the current, moray eels staring out from crevices. The grace and ease of the sea life surrounding me was in opposition to how I felt initially as I flailed around with all the grace of a beached manatee.

The Aggressor's six-man crew and my new dive buddies did everything to make me feel at ease. The ship's cook served three meals a day, plus snacks after dives. As a Japanese American, I was sort of hoping for some local-style foods like Portugeuse sausage or saimin, but the fare, tailored for a more general audience, was excellent. A meal might consist of salad, stuffed pork tenderloin, rack of lamb and an array of side dishes, and of course, dessert. All meals and drinks are included in the package. You can drink as much beer and wine as you want, but if you drink any alcohol, you are through with diving for the rest of the day.

By the second or third day, we had fallen into a comfortable rhythm: wake up, dive, eat a snack, dive again, eat lunch, dive, eat dinner, dive. The close quarters also helped add to the camaraderie. The group I joined are folks from L.A., Connecticut, Arizona, and Texas, many have been diving together for years and they welcomed me, often sharing humorous stories of previous adventures. It turns out that getting seasick is just an inevitable part of diving.

As the week went on I felt more at ease underwater, learning how to equalize my ears so the pressure doesn't build up, how to breathe more efficiently and control my bouyancy. Hovering near 15 feet, I watched as an octopus crawled around a rock, changing colors from gray to dark scarlet to match its environment. On another dive, Ross guided us into a lava tube where a white tip shark was sleeping. I tried to remain calm as the shark circled back and forth within feet of me, looking a little annoyed that we had disturbed its slumber.

By the end of the week, the boat made its way back to the port at Kona and we stepped on solid ground again, still feeling as if we were being swayed by ocean currents. At a final get-together, the group already talked about plans for next year; perhaps, Roatan in Honduras, where they said the waters are even warmer and the sea life more abundant.

I found the live-aboard trip an intense way to first experience diving. There is little to do but dive, which makes it easier to improve your diving skills. If you're the sort who likes to try a variety of things when you're on vacation, live-aboards are probably not the way to go. It's also possible to join a charter from a local dive shop for a day trip. Kona has a number of shops that will take you out for two dives; one even claimed that they could "guarantee" there would be manta rays.
We went out on two night dives and struck out both times on mantas. Some speculated that the recent earthquake had upset the local ecosystem. But those are the chances you take when entering an unfamiliar, natural habitat. I found the variability to be intriguing, or as our dive master said: "This isn't a zoo." It is the wildness of the whole endeavor that made it worthwhile.

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