Steven from Brookings SD

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#449

Back from our Hawaii trip. It was very rainy there over the last two weeks of December. Shore diving was poor, and boat diving was good.

We dove with Seasport Divers out of Kauai for our boat dives and we dove with Scuba Steve for our shore dives. Seasport is a large dive shop with multiple stores on Kauai. They were great to work with. Very professional staff in the stores, running the boats, and guiding the dives. My son and I give them 5 stars. We ended up canceling our afternoon deep dive with them due to family pressure to attend other activities on the islands. My next trip back will be in the summer and it will be a dive trip to the Forbidden Island or Niihau. Seasport was planing and dive trip to the Island while we were there if they could fill the boat which they did. I was with the in spirit.

There is a publication title Hawaii Skin Diver. I discovered this on my way back to the mainlands. They have a web site that details more about them.

I believe there is much much more to the Hawaiian dive world than we see as visitors. My next trip will also include much more dive research and some unique diving further off shore.

Scuba Steve was fun to dive with. Steve has been on Kauai for 11 years and he has carved a place for himself in the shore dive industry. His BC’s are weight integrated and his divers are color coded so he can tell us apart from other divers in the water. Steve is also very knowledgeable. At Steve’s own request one of my dives was canceled as a result of poor water conditions. Steve could have taken my money and we could have dived but Steve knew I was there to see sea life and not for technical dive training so he canceled. We did meet at the dive site to discuss the conditions prior to canceling. Subsequently, my son and I dove with Scuba Steve and we had a great time.

Our plans to dive the Yucatan area next summer may be changing to the San Clemente Islands. I will start to pen in those plans in April.

Matt and I also have plenty of training lined up for 2011 as well. Our goal is two major certifications by this time next year, DAN Dive Emergency Specialists, and SSI Master Divers. We just paid the down payment for Diver Stress and Rescue which will be April 2 (theory) April 9th (pool) and May 14th (open water).

Our 2011 dive plans tentatively include:

Carma De Playa or San Clemente

Monterey Bay

Lake Oahe

Lake Okoboji