Snaps and Flip Flops: Close Encounter with Turtles

Diving with turtles has been on my bucket list for awhile now. I guess that cool surfer dude image in Finding Nemo has stuck with me all this time. I've seen them a few times on the water, but never up close. So near, yet so far, long distance love affair. So I figured diving in Hawaii is my best bet of putting this wish to bed. Fingers crossed. Honestly, seeing a turtle is the one thing that would either make or break this trip. When the divemaster asked us where would we like to go, my definite answer was anywhere where i can swim with turtles. He was pretty confident when he promised me that that's not going to be a problem. Good.

But before that, we went wreck diving. As you can see, i have only one thing, and one thing only in mind (i.e. green creatures with a shell on their back). Apart from that, i have never been into wrecks that much. It's always deep, and dark, and viz is almost always not really good. And i hate immediate deep descents as i always have trouble equalising. Ignoring all that, and the jitters i always get, we proceeded to get our fins wet. Hmmm..my ears are popping on their own. Awesome. 10 meters, 20 meters, 30 meters. Wow, everything was clear. At the bottom of the line, a little more than 30 meters deep, was the Corsair. It's a small airplane that crashed way back in 1946. It was in pretty good condition, and there was plenty of wildlife despite sitting on a sandy area. I was having so much fun that i forgot i was diving at 100 feet, and couldn't stay there for longer than 15 mins. My computer went into deco mode which i haven't seen it do, ever! It was a good thing M had more presence of mind than I did, and hauled my reluctant ass to start our ascent. Ooops.

Back in the surface, the divemaster told us that you can probably never get a more perfect condition than that. I couldn't agree more. I thought it was awesome.

Still reeling from the thrill of the previous dive, we head out to see turtles! Yay! The site was called Koko Crater. It was a volcanic crater sunk underwater. Around the edges of the crater, the turtles like to rest, the divemaster said. Even while peering down from the surface we could see turtle silhouettes swimming about. Let's go! Sure enough, not even a minute passed when we spotted our first one. If i could squeal through my regulator, i would have. Armed with my gorpro and selfie stick, i tried my best to get a photo with these cool dudes. I found out later how miserably i failed, and not for lack of trying or opportunity. But i was happy. There must have been about 6 or 8 of them swimming about or hiding under the rocks. Soo cool. The viz wasn't very good, and the current was pretty strong, but I didn't mind. I got what i wanted, and more!