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Seasport Divers Rated #1 on Kauai – AGAIN! Scuba Diving Magazine – October 2006 Scores Readers say: “The dives were well-briefed and the divemasters took special pride in pointing out underwater sights (especially frogfish). This is the third time I have dived with Seasport and on each occasion, I’ve had a positive experience.” R.E., Granger, Ind. See the October 2006 issue of Scuba Diving Magazine for Reader Ratings of the other Hawaiian Islands dive operators.
Sport Diver Magazine - April 2006 The Garden Maze - Seasport Divers, Kauai By Ty Sawyer So far this dive, I’ve moved a grand total of about 20 feet. I’m hovering under a volcanic arch at Kauai’s Sheraton Caverns. Under a ledge in front of me a green sea turtle naps, completely oblivious to my presence. The reason I haven’t felt compelled to move is that in the 20 minutes I’ve been in the water, I’ve watched a parade of green seas turtles descending from the surface, rising and cruising under the arch like stunt planes in a movie. None of them seems the least bit bothered by me. If fact, they barely give me a sideways glance unless I make a sudden move. They slip past me, head into one of the many passages, lava tubes and overhangs and settle in. Like the Sheraton hotel that watches from the beach (and lends the site its name), Sheraton Caverns is the place to crash, rest, catch a few Z’s and then carry on with the business of life – if you’re a turtle. While green sea turtles are a big draw along the south coast of Kauai, near the beachside town of Poipu, they’re just the gatekeepers at most of the sites. After a few more moments of sea turtle reverie at Sheraton, I decide to fin around a bit just to be sure the divemaster from Seaport Divers doesn’t think I’ve fallen asleep. I ease into one of the many lava tubes, a school of bluestriped snapper polarizing as I pass, and I take a stab in the dark with my dive light. The shadowy walls pop to life. Loads of eyes reflect back from the walls as several species of shrimp retreat into crevices. A massive tiger cowrie sits between rocks on the seafloor with its leathery-looking mantle wrapped around its spotted shell. About that time, a slipper lobster reveals itself and confirms my explorer fantasy. But then everything about Kauai seems to exist in an ether of fantasy. With the surreal folds of the Na Pali Coast, waterfalls by the dozen and Waimea Canyon all nearby, it’s hard to know where to begin to fill your topside time. But I make my choice. Between dives, I sneak off and explore the nearby National Tropical Botanical Garden, one of Kauai’s many topside diversions. This place is rife with things I’d like to spirit away to my own backyard. I particularly covert a massive angel’s trumpet plant, tiny orange blaze epindendrums and bright-yellow cassia fistulas. And I’m always mesmerized by the fleshy and gothic-looking Dutchman’s pipe flowering vine with it’s delicate heart-shaped leaves and two-foot-long purple blooms that fill the air with the unexpected scent of lemons. I come back to sea under the influence of my botanical interlude. It gives me a fresh appreciation as I explore the volcanic fingers of Fast Lanes, with it’s black coral trees that hide 7-11 crabs, spiny lobsters and zebra and snowflake morays. Redfin and ornate butterfly fish flit through the growth like their terrestrial namesakes and slate pencil urchins and pincushion sea stars look like flowers against the dark substrate. Later, I roam the aisles of General Store; there’s a cleaning station for more green seas turtles, where their shells get a wash and wax by yellow and Achilles tangs. It seems a fitting silent moment of bliss in a place where fantasy is so much a part of reality. Sport Diver Magazine Sport Diver Magazine – March 2006 Waiting on Niihau, By Yvette Cardozo The monk seal mom and pup are on the beach, nuzzling one another as surfers catch waves in the distance. I can see them sort of, through the fencing the authorities have strung up to keep us from disturbing this unbelievably rare scene on Kauai’s Poipu Beach. There are about 1,300 monk seals left in the world, and most of them are west of here, swimming, mating and giving birth in protected waters off Niihau. Even here on the south end of Kauai we can’t really get close. A guy from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is in a tent, explaining everything to curious folks like me. Mostly, though, he’s keeping us away from the nursery. Mom gave birth a month ago and will be here for a week or so more. Junior, meanwhile, is gaining five pounds a day, ballooning from 30 pounds to nearly 200. I feel like I’ve been standing on this beach watching the wee one gain every pound while I gaze, longingly, across the 17 mile passage that separates me from Niihau, the “forbidden” island. I’ve telephoned folks. I’ve signed up for a dive trip. I’ve gone by the dive shop dutifully every morning I’ve been here. Problem is, nobody gets to just walk around Niihau as a tourist, so a land trip is out of the question. And the dive trip keeps getting put off until “tomorrow” because with the dawn of each day’s light upon the waters, the sea keeps roiling. But the consolation prize hasn’t been too bad. I’m staying on Kauai, perhaps the most romantic and some would say, most breathtaking of the Hawaiian Islands. I never get over the fact that this place really does look primeval; tropical palms, ferns nonstop green covering jagged mountains. No wonder they shoot all those jungle adventure movies – Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, etc. – on what has become a living back lot for Hollywood. Kauai also offers some seriously quirky adventures. Visitors can go on zipline treks, take rope swings off banyan trees beside movie-gorgeous waterfalls and hike one of the world’s most spectacular shores – the Na Pali Coast. I’m getting familiar with all these activities, but it seems that the Kauai Backcountry Adventures’ tubing trip down the irrigation ditches of the now-inactive Lihue sugar plantation will be a unique experience. The trenches are a dozen feet wide and cut through tunnels, one of them a half-mile long with dog-leg turns in the middle. I’m wondering about how all this is going to work when we climb into huge inner tubes floating in the narrow canal. It looks as calm as a swimming pool, but I’m wearing protective gloves, a helmet and a headlamp, so I feel a bit like I’m heading off to explore a lost world. These irrigation ditches have character: The walls – covered with ferns and looking positively primitive – are three feet high and sometimes squeeze in so close I can almost touch both sides at once. “Lights on! Ankles and elbows in! Watch your heads!” our lead guide yells as we approach the first of five tunnels. Madly spinning, we swoop into the pitch-black maw. “Turn right! Bear left! Quick right turn!” Not that we have any control over our direction; we imply spin while the headlamp throws barely enough light to see a wall just before we bounce into it – talk about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride! BIDING TIME, KAUAI-STYLE I’m diving with PADI dive center Seasport Divers; my buddy is a local high school teacher Debbie Engdahl, who often trades dives for guiding so she can study fish behavior. First, it’s Turtle Bluffs’ cleaning station. “There are probably 30 different kinds of algae and parasites growing on those turtles, and each attracts its own fish”, Debbie has explained. We descend to 50 feet and find a large female green sea turtle hanging motionless. Half a dozen kole, goldring surgeonfish, crowd around, nibbling the turtle’s fins and pecking her back, sucking up algae as fast as their little mouths can go. Longnose butterflyfish clean sleek tangs, which hang defenseless during the process, flashing dark when against the rocks and fading to steel gray as they rise up in the water. Even better, though, is the cross-species hunt. “There’ll be two peacock grouper side by side, quivering,” Debbie had explained while we were still on the boat. “Maybe they’ve just forced an eel into a hole to flush out small fish for them to eat. Or there will be a goatfish and an octopus and the octopus changes color to match the goatfish. Sometimes it even gets the same stripe as the goatfish so it can sneak up on small fish. Of course, there’s more to the morning than watching octos pretend they’re fish and turtles grin in ecstasy. We head for Sheraton Caverns, a series of blown-out lava tubes whose ledges hold dozens of green seas turtles. Some rest in benches in the back, others hover weightlessly in the middle. They’re everywhere. One turtle, seemingly more curious than the rest, follows us, stopping when we stop, swimming when we swim. I wonder if he thinks we’re going to clean his shell of algae. I reach out a hand, stopping two inches from his shell, and he actually backs up into my fingers. A school of bluestripe snapper is hanging at the main mouth of the caverns. Back at my condo, there’s the beach, the pool, the sun and that mother monk seal and her pup. I take a book down to the water’s edge, cool off with an ice pop and watch the seals until its time for the luau. You can’t leave Hawaii without doing at least one. Yeah, they’re a bit campy – the guy on the ukulele at the Smith Family Garden Luau actually plays “Tiny Bubbles”. The luau includes everything from a flaming volcano to frothing waterfalls and, and course, spectacular fire dancers – and the pork steamed in the fire pit is great. There are some things you just gotta do. PATIENCE PAYS OFF Niihau offers the closet thing Hawaii has to a purely native population. The Robinson family bought the entire place in 1864 from Hawaiian King Kamehameha V for $10,000 in order to ranch cattle and sheep, and they’ve protected the island ever since. The 150 locals live without electricity (though their generators do run TV’s and, yes, they have satellite dishes), and they speak Hawaiian as their first language. For decades the locals remained there only if they followed the Robinsons’ rules. The office is a low, simple building off the main south island highway; inside are two unassuming guys dressed in red-dirt-stained denim work clothes. The books I’ve read make the family history sound like something out of a James Michener novel. Great-Great-Grandma Eliza Sinclair got bored with New Zealand in the mid 1800’s and, at the age of 63, packed the whole family off to Vancouver and, eventually, Hawaii. There was a great deal of political intrigue, the upshot of which was the purchase of Niihau. I feel like I’m meeting real-life players in a documentary saga, like I’m stepping into a movie of the week. The brothers are no-nonsense, but we’re all about the same age and get to chatting about . . . well, stuff. And – snap! – the ice melts. When the Robinsons bought the island, Keith says, they also got its people. “Nobody realized it was the last native population in Hawaii that didn’t have resistance to disease. So things puttered along and people were going over there and stepping off the inter-island boats. Then around the 1920’s, measles got loose. It killed 11 kids, and many others were scarred for life”. Keith’s face crumples. “It was horrific!” He continues, “So yes, the family imposed quarantine. It helped spare the island from the polio epidemic of the 1950’s”. By 1978, immunizations were widespread and nobody seems to be getting sick, so the quarantine was lifted. Today, islanders can leave Niihau and return, but it still remains a very private place – you don’t go unless you’re invited. The family wants it this way and so, apparently do the locals. Despite the isolation, change has come to the island. For one thing, the Robinsons have allowed a military facility there. They also take hunters in regularly ($1,650 gets you the right to bag one ram and one pig) and offer helicopter trips ($325 per person) that carefully avoid the village and any contact with the people. “The island is finally in the black,” Keith says with satisfaction. “You should visit the plantation office”, Keith suddenly offers. “I’ll take you.” So off we go, with Keith opening the office door for me then scurrying to open the door of my rental car. Geez, I think, I haven’t had a casual acquaintance open so many doors for me since I was 20 and had hair down to my waist. The office is filled with museum stuff; ancient typewriters, old phones, historic mill gear. Though the place is open to the public for tours, this is no tourist show. There’s a chewed-around-the-edges feel that adds authenticity. It’s the Robinsons’ life. This is when I realize that I’ve been having so much fun all day, I haven’t even stopped to eat – so I’m staved when I find Puka-Dog, a tiny hot-dog stand in the Poipu Shopping Center. Its’ claim to fame is a combo of local sauces and relishes. My choice: Polish sausage with garlic lemon secret sauce, coconut relish and sweet Hawaiian mustard. Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten all day, but it’s the best hot-dog of my life. I also squeeze in a couple of stops at Lappert’s for homegrown ice cream, triple-rich and filled with local goodies. I’m frighteningly addicted to Kauai Pie: coffee ice cream with coconut, macadamia nuts and thick fudge. FORBIDDEN NO MORE The night before our planned dive, the wind kicks up hard. I wake up at down. But by the time I hit the Seasport Divers dive shop, the weather has settled down and the trip is a go. The ride over is smooth enough on following seas. We’re heading for a crescent-shaped chunk of volcanic rock named Lehua Island, just off the north end of Niihau. From the water, Lehua looks like a cliff wall from Utah: beige rock with undulating stripes swirling like a giant abstract sculpture. Beyond the cut we can see a broad, sandy beach along Niihau’s shore – it’s a perfect picnic beach, but we won’t be going there. We can see it, but we can’t touch it. There are seven named dive sites around Lehua, each with its own allure. Niihau Arches is a fantasyland maze of tunnels and tubes formed by the erosion of volcanic rock. Thin arches heave and twist, and I just can’t help threading through them all in a gloriously weightless ballet. In shallow caverns, the ceiling sparkles in my lights with reflected pools of exhaled air. Brilliant red “black” coral extends in fans of thready branches amid multicolored patches of algae and lumps of cup coral. There’s not much in the way of fish, but at the end of the dive I find a tunnel leading to a large cavern. The back is lined with ledges that are totally covered with spiny lobstesr. In places, half a dozen sit in a heading mound of writhing legs and antennae. Pyramid Point, another favorite, is all about layered walls. I’m having fun just wandering through the rock formations, pretending I’m flying weightless around a giant piece of sculpture when I see one of the dive guides waving. He’s found a small red octo. The little critter, maybe the size of a dessert plate, flows across the diver’s hands, then climbs this arm, attaching himself to the guy’s head and neck. It’s like watching living fluid as it oozes across the diver’s forehead and then tries to disappear beneath his tank. I gently offer my fingers, and the next thing I know the octo is attached to my hands, just pulsing and trying to blend in with my skin color. His little suckers stick to my arms like glue. For nearly 10 minutes he just sits there, staring at me as hard as I’m staring at him. I’ve been diving for decades, and this is my first real octo encounter. Even if nothing else happens today, I’m good. There is one more dive to go, though: the signature dive of Niihau. Vertical Awareness is a drop-off on the lee side Lehua. Below the surface, the abstract sculpture of Lehua continues in soft folds. Tiny lionfish and juvenile morays have wedged themselves into crevices, and a titan scorpionfish sits on a rock, so perfectly blended that even the knobs on his back look like waving algae. Then the resident monk seal, Oscar (that’s what the divemasters call him, anyway), appears. I finally get to one up close – no tape, no fence. We spot him backed into a vertical corner where he obviously spends a lot of time wriggling to scratch his back. As he swims out, I can see that the rock has been worn not only smooth, but almost white. The interaction is strictly Oscar’s choice, and he definitely welcomes photographers – he can’t wait to come over and play. He loves dome ports and practically presses him face into one diver’s camera. Talk about real close-ups of wet-nosed whiskers. But even more, Oscar loves female divers. However un-PC this is, he singles them out; today, he’s adopted a Kauai woman named Tracy. He hovers near her, expanding his throat pouch and making growling noises whenever another seal comes near. Eventually it’s time to head back to Kauai. I can hardly believe my luck this week. I finally got to Niihau where I not only had an octo encounter, but also spent nearly an entire dive with one of the world’s few monk seals. Sport Diver Magazine |