6.29.08 - Return to "Hog Heaven" and "The Caves" Reef

Hello everyone.

Sunday, June 29th finds the Video Dude and Scuba Goddess Terri back aboard the "American Dream II" heading out for "Hog Heaven" and "The Caves" Reef. I have been to both sites quite a bit lately, and really wanted to bring Terri to "Hog Heaven" because of the great penetration spots I had discovered on my previous visits. Today we have Captain Todd and Divemaster Rebecca and Divemaster Brian as crew, and they get us out to our dive site with their usual skill and speed.

After the dive briefing, Terri and I jump in and head for the bottom. We spend a little time looking around the Pacific Reef Lighthouse tower, then I lead her over to "Hog Heaven" to start checking out the wreck and the penetration points. We saw so many cool places to swim through, investigate and just look at. We both agreed it would make a cool night dive too! Terri found a nice Tube Anenome, and we found several nice Cowrie shells. Sadly, we had to head back up to the boat - but we're definitely coming back!

Back onboard, we change over our gear and get ready to drift on "The Caves" Reef. We went REALLY slow on this dive and just checked out everything we could see. Looked at lots of small stuff like Banded Shrimp, Gobys and found more shells. I found a Flamingo Tongue shell! We also saw a Sea Star, Lobster and a Spotted Eel. Terri went into some of the swim-thrus on the reef and, after an hour's bottom time, we both realized we had enough air to stay down another 30-40 minutes if we wanted to. Only problem was the boat wanted us back on board after an hour, so sadly we had to return.

Awesome diving with an excellent buddy in Paradise!

The Video Dude