A classic Kewalo Basin Harbor two-tanker. On Dive #1, explore the depths of the Sea Tiger, an intentionally sunk Chinese trading vessel sitting at 33 meters/110 feet of water. Check out some of the exciting history on the ships interior or maybe run into a reef shark or eagle ray, as you keep an eye on your air and your No Deco time. For dive #2, hit the Kewalo Pipe, an old drainage pipe now covered in coral and teeming with marine life. Hard to beat this much excitement wrapped up in this little 4 hour adventure.
At the beginning of the week, my roommate and I had planned that on Saturday we would hike Mount Olympus, a hike I'd been wanting to do for some time. On Thursday, he tells me that some of his friends from work bought a Groupon and he would be diving with Aloha Scuba Divers instead. The dives would be the Sea Tiger wreck and the Kewalo Pipe. Instead of making it a solo hike, I decided to be social and join the group. It was a nice reminder that hiking isn't the only awesome activity this island has to offer.
Our first dive was the deeper of the two dives, the Sea Tiger Wreck. Apparently, this was an old Chinese trading vessel that was confiscated and sunk after it was later discovered that the ship was being used to traffic undocumented immigrants. There's my history lesson. Down we go into the abyss.
The visibility was good, but not perfect. We had to get somewhat close to it before it came into view. But when we did finally see it, it was magnificent. I had always wanted to do a wreck dive and this first one certainly did not disappoint.
I decided to take a look to see how far the surface looked from 90 feet down. I managed to snag this shot of some of the other divers descending, each diver progressively higher above me. To this day, this is still one of my favorite dive photos. It really captures the feeling of a deep dive, where the both color and life on the surface fade as you enter this underwater world.
Now it was time to explore the wreck. Since it was a group charter dive, we didn't get the opportunity to penetrate the wreck (although there are some companies that are little more liberally about this..). But the exterior was still plenty cool nonetheless.
A shot as we moved aft along the port side of the wreck.
Navy scuba diver Quent flashing me the okay, clearly enjoying this dive as much as me.
We even saw a little bit of marine life on this dive. That spotted thing at the top of the picture is a Moray eel. This wreck is also known for spotted eagle rays and even reef sharks so keep your eyes peeled!
Low on air, it was time to for our ascent to get ready for dive two.
Next up was the Kewalo Pipe, a 50 foot dive which would give us about 45 minutes of bottom time.
The reef growing on top of the pipe was pretty impressive and brought with it a myriad of colors and marine life.
After some considerable physical exertion on our part, we reached the end of the pipe. There were some fish inside the pipe, but nothing crazy. I was just happy we were heading back to the boat, I was tired!
Squad en route back to the boat, all of us ready for a beer.
But not before Quent and I snagged one shaka selfie. I mean it's Hawaii, it had to be done.
Check out my video of this underwater adventure!
Have you taken the plunge to the Sea Tiger Wreck or Kewalo Pipe Reef? Share your story below!
Also Check Out:
- Scuba Board's history of the Sea Tiger
- Oahu Shipwreck's information about the Sea Tiger
- Shore Diving's explanation about how to do the Kewalo Pipe Reef dive as a shore dive
