Busy Week

Aloha,

What a busy/fun week we've had out here on Maui.  We started the week with a bit of a windstorm, which kept us diving locally around the Carthaginian and Turtle Reef.  Even though the wind was strong, the visibility was awesome underwater.  We got to do a bit of teaching and even to certify a few new people.  Plus, Lahaina Divers does a discover diving program, which is a program that enables anyone to go diving even without a certification.  Some friends of ours have enjoyed this program over the years too.

We were also busy off the boat in the office getting ready for a couple of projects we're working on this month. We've gotten ask to help out with a car commercial, a biomedical company shoot, and a product shoot for a small company.  It's a lot of fun, and a lot of work.  We're really hoping that these extra projects will help create our next journey.  We'd love it if we could work with T.V. and big companies on shows and commercial material more often.  We are working with some fun production companies that seem to like the work that we do, so we keep getting phone calls, so we're hoping that's a step in the right direction.

The wind finally died down on Wednesday morning and we were able to make it out to Molokini to dive the Backwall.  In fact, the weather was beautiful and we had a strong current which makes drift diving a blast.  We were lucky enough to be in the right place to have three large Pelagic Chevron Manta rays swim by us while we were diving.  Unfortunately we were only able to get two of them on film, but it was still amazing.  One of the coolest parts of the encounter was the way in which the Remora were acting.

Remoras are the fish that attach themselves to a larger pelagic animal to catch a free ride through the ocean.  The host animal doesn't gain anything from having the Remora attached, but it also doesn't lose anything from the relationship.  The Remora eats leftovers from the host's meals and is said to also eat the feces of the host.

Anyway, there were two Remora on one of the large Manta's and one on another.  The two large Pelagic Manta came near enough to each other that the Remoras were swimming from one Manta to the other.  It was really cool to watch, it was a bit to far away to capture on video though.  The scene got even more interesting when a couple of large Giant Trevally decided that the Remora might make a good meal.  So two Giant Trevally were swimming around the slow moving, graceful Manta's trying to bit at the Remora.  the Remora were swimming all around their hosts like they were ants on an apple.  We wish that we had some cool video to share, but all I can do is tell you about it today.  Just another reason for us to keep diving and hope that we can get some evidence to share next time.

I do have some clips to share from the Manta's and some clips from the Turtles at the Product shoot.


Manta's and Work from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


Stay in touch everyone, it's great to hear from all of you.

Talk soon,

C3

Thanksgiving Weekend & Grey Sharks

Aloha!

Happy Thanksgiving, a couple days late.  We hope you all are having a wonderful holiday weekend, even if you have to work.  We're eating a ton of leftovers, sadly they are all gone already.  The fun isn't quite over for anyone yet, we can all look forward to the Patriots beating the Saints on Monday night!  It's like another added bonus to a great holiday weekend.  (If you don't know, we're from New England)

The diving has been really nice lately, the water has been very clear.  It's starting to get cold again, for Maui.  The water is about 76 degrees, burrrrr.  You'll all laugh at us again because we're all dressed like it's Antarctica again.  As you all know we'd probably be diving in tropical dry suits if we could, but we've been told that sends the wrong image to the people diving with us?  Like people don't know that we dive a bit more than most?  It is funny when you think about it though, we used to dive thinner wetsuits in Maine in the middle of the winter!

Mike had a pretty cool encounter with a baby turtle at First Cathedral the other day.  It was a curious little guy who was very photogenic.  Over our time out here we've noticed that baby turtles love the camera, much more so than the adults.  Although that's not much different than most human children.  At one point Mike set his camera up and passed it to Jarett so that he could actually be in a picture.

We do spend most of our time behind the camera, so it is nice to be in front some of the time.  We often wonder if people think we just make these diving stories up?  We don't!  In fact, we're thinking of making little video clips with us in front of the camera and with voice overs too, more like a real TV show.  It'll be practice, please give us some feedback if you have any.

The Molokini Backwall was awesome the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  At the end of the second dive, at about 50 feet, when half of the divers were up on the boat because they were running low on air, 3 Grey Sharks showed up to hang out.  It was awesome.  We got some pretty cool video clips from the encounter.  It's deceiving though, we have a knew wide angle port on our video camera so that nothing looks that close to the camera, when really we were very close to those sharks.  See what you think!

Grey Shark Encounter at Molokini from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.

Dan's band has been playing well and getting more gigs around the island.  We're off to another gig in Kahalui tonight at a place called "Hang Loose," come if you can!  We hear that Black Powder might be playing at the Ale House soon too, and maybe once a week at "Life's a Beach" in Kihei.  Hopefully, we'll have some recordings we can share with you all soon!

Aloha & Talk soon,

C3

Thursday Morning

Aloha and Good-morning!

Not much to update this morning.  We were all out at Life's a Beach in Kihei last night watching Dan's band (Black Powder), host Open Mic night.  It was nice to get out of Lahaina and hang out with some of our south Maui friends and listen to some good music.  I think we'll have to head down more often.

We put together a couple cool clips from Red Hill diving Wednesday morning to share.  A couple turtles and our favorite critter to find in Hawaii: Harlequin Shrimp.  Check it out:


Red Hill from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


We also got a couple of cool emails from some of you guys, thanks for the continued support and efforts to help our little dream come true.

Talk soon,

C3

Back Home and Our First Seahorse

Aloha!

Gwen and I just returned from a two-week trip to the East Coast.  We spent the first week representing Lahaina Divers at D.E.M.A. which is a diving trade show.  It was a lot of fun.  We caught up with a lot of old friends and met a lot of really interesting people.  Some of the world’s best photographers and videographers were there too, which was very cool.  I got to meet Eric Cheng, Marty Snyderman, Stan Waterman, and Stephen Frink to name a few.  We got to look at all kinds of cool new equipment and hang out with a bunch of nerdy divers like us.  Some people even knew who we were, not many, but definitely some.

We got to stop at Universal studios and Disney World too!  I haven't been on a roller coaster in about 12 years, so Gwen decided to take me on the scariest one first.  It was called the Hulk at Universal Studios and it was not tame at all.  I closed my eyes for the first ten seconds until I found my happy place, then it was so much fun.  The thing spins, turns, loop-d-loops and drops more than anything I have ever been on in my life.  Needless to say, the theme parks are a lot of fun.

We spent the second week traveling around Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont visiting our parents and relatives.  Even though it was a whirlwind tour visiting each parent for a day and half, it was a blast.  As usual, it didn't feel like we were home long enough.  It was so good to see everyone though.  We had great meals each night; I actually gained 10 pounds in a week!  I got to visit with my three best friends from high school, which was awesome.  There were a million great memories from the trip, but two stand out more than any.  

The first and best memory was getting to sit and play cribbage with my grandfather all day.  Our family has bee so worried about his health especially after a huge open-heart surgery, which makes it so hard to be 4,000 miles away.  So to be able to sit there and hang out with him for a while was worth the whole trip, even though he ended up destroying me in most of the cribbage games we played.  I did skunk him twice though!  (I won't say how many times he won)

The second great memory was Gwen learning to shoot a gun!  Pat, Gwen's Mom's boyfriend, was teaching her, and it was hilarious.  It was just a little 22 rifle, but it was awesome and we were all laughing for an hour.  

All in all the trip was great.  I just hope that our family knows how much we love and miss them.  I hope we'll all be able to come back and visit soon!

Back to Scuba Diving, we saw our first Hawaiian Seahorse!  We've been diving around Maui for over 7 years and combined we probably have over 15,000 dives around here and we've never seen a Seahorse here.  It was very exciting, even though the little guy we found was in shallow water in a surgery area, which made visibility pretty poor.  It was still awesome.  We might have some little sea ponies around soon too.  We'll update when we can.  Check out the video clips from the encounter.

Maui Seahorse from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.

Thank you all who stuck with the America's Next Top Model Show to see us on TV.  Did you figure out who was who?  Did you see Dan rescue Sundai?  Could you see Gwen? Could you figure out which one of us was standing on the boat?  We were in almost every underwater scene, and Dan shot almost all of the underwater stuff.  Thanks for watching.  Here's the link if you missed it: 

America's Next Top Model



Talk soon, Aloha!

C3

"America's Next Top Model shoot"

C3 on national t.v.!!!

Tomorrow night (Wednesday 11/4/09) at 7:00pm on the CW network C3 Submerged starred and helped film  a portion of the show America's Next Top Model.  

You will see John in front of the camera talking with the models and also helping them through their newest challenge. The models will have their shirts off but will our eldest brother John... wait and see. Dan will be behind the lens capturing all of the underwater scenes for you viewing pleasure, so don't forget to tune in, you don't want to miss it! 11/4/09 7:00 p.m.

Click on me for preview of the show!!!!! 

When your there, click on the Americas Next Top Model "Dive Deeper" preview clip;

Dan and I went out and saw our very first Hawaiian Seahorse yesterday!! Combined we have probably over 20,000 dives in Hawaiian waters and had never seen a Hawaiian Seahorse until then. Needless to say... amazing and extremely rare. We have waited a long time to check that rare species off our dive belt. We will post some pictures and video soon. It's a tough life, Dan and I had to work (Look at Seahorses) while John and Gwen are in Disney World playing on Roller coasters (at DEMA dive show) in Florida, it's just not fair.

Aloha and tune in!!!!!!!

Mike

Hammerhead Update!

Good evening!

Just some quick updates from today!

We got some close-up pictures of the Hammerheads today.  We'll share them soon.  There weren't a ton of sharks, but the ones that were around were pretty curious.  We can't imagine what it would have been like if we were down there on rebreathers!  We'll have to get on our friend Todd to get our training going soon.

When we arrived back at the dock, Gwen was there to greet us with a Hammerhead shaped cake that she had made!  It was for a diving friend's birthday.  It was very cool, and who doesn't like cake?  Not bad for a homemade cake!

Oh yeah, not only did we get to see some cool Hammerheads; we also got to swim with dolphins!  I will let the short video clip do the talking...


Swimming with Dolphins from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


Aloha!

C3

Submarine & Trumpets

Aloha!

It's been a busy week!  We got to go out with Atlantis Submarines and take some test footage of the sub sinking and surfacing.  We actually strapped one of our cameras to the "roof" of the sub; it was very fun.  We jumped in the water too to video from a different perspective.  The guys that operate the sub are so much fun to work with, and super talented as well.  We were amazed at how good they were at piloting that sub!  If any of you ever visit an island with an Atlantis Submarine: take the tour, it's worth it.  We put together some clips for the guys to see what the camera picked up, enjoy:


Atlantis Submarine Test Shoot from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


We are hoping that we will get the chance to work with these guys again.  We learned a lot from the first shoot, and we're excited to try again and mount the camera to different parts of the sub.  We'll keep you all posted on how it goes; hopefully we will have more footage to share.

We got a new lens this week, a beautiful 14mm aspherical, it's awesome.  We hope to have some new shots out for you soon.  Oh yeah, if you haven't noticed our website is under a bit of construction.  We're updating/changing some things to make it better.  We hope to have it up and running efficiently soon.  Actually, we're hoping to have some Christmas specials and some free t-shirt give-a-ways as well.

We also wanted to share a funny event from earlier today.  First, we have to say that we are not big fans of people touching the marine life, nor are we fans of finding animals dead or dying, as you may have picked up from our earlier video about the dying Chocolate Margin Nudibranch.  However, it was hilarious when Dan found a dead Trumpet fish today and pretended to play it.  We think the funniest part was the look on his face.  Luckily, Gwen was out and able to capture this even for us all to share!

All kidding aside, let's take a moment of silence for the Trumpet fish.

*Silence*

Poor guy.

Tomorrow, we head back over to look for Hammerheads!  We really need some close up shots for a magazine, wish us luck and great visibility; tomorrow could be the day.  Either way, one of us will have the video camera so we might have some cool clips from the day anyway.

Until next time, Aloha!

*Don't forget to watch America's Next Top Model.  I think we're on soon, either this Wednesday or next!  Wednesday nights at 7 on the CW channel.

Goodnight!

C3

Possibly Sappy Content Warning

     Aloha!

     So, by now you probably know that Dan's band won the Battle of the Bands here on Maui last night.  But, you probably don't know how awesome it was!  For all of you who either weren't on Maui or just couldn't make it down to the Cellar last night, let me tell you how great it was.

     The Cellar is a huge place, for Maui, and last night it probably had over 150 people watching the three bands perform.  (You mainlanders have to remember that we're talking about Maui, a small island...)  Black Powder played last because they were the local favorite and the promoters didn't want all the people to leave after hearing them play, which was smart because the first two bands had a much different style.

     The first group brought back memories of an early Metallica style and the second group seemed exactly like a band we all used to see on the old Bevis and Butthead show on MTV.  Remember when they would rock out to their TV watching some death metal band, those were our flashbacks last night.  Anyway, they were both really good, not our type of music, but you could appreciate the talent that the other musicians had.

     Finally after about two hours of holding our ears and waiting for the speed metal to stop, Black Powder took the stage.  It should also be noted that Black Powder is comprised of 5 guys, three of whom are in a Motorcycle club called Koa Puna, Dan is one of the two who is not in the club but they want him to be.  Imagine Dan in a biker club?  So most of Koa Puna showed up to root on their band, which made it so much fun.  Everyone was very into the music and hooting and hollering for the band, they won in a landslide.  Their mix of Tom Petty and Rollingstone style stole the show and they won a chance to record an album for free here at a big studio on Maui.  We'll share the results when we get them...

     It was an awesome thing to witness our little brother up on stage rocking out!  We were so proud to see him up there having such a good time and doing so well.  We put together some video clips from last night so that we could share a bit of the night with anyone who wants to see, (Mom, Dad, etc...)  I wish that my words could do the achievement justice, and i don't mean the winning of the contest, (which was awesome), I mean watching Dan kick ass on stage.  It was very cool.  One of those moments where you stop and realize just how great life can be.


BLACK POWDER from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


     Even though we were tired, we got up and all went diving today as well.  And, even though we were tired, our good moods carried us through the day.  I got to dive with my wife all day long and we even had a small group so we led together.  Cute, huh?  We swam with sharks and even saw an eagle ray.  We checked on the rare Chocolate Margin Nudibranch which is doing quite well, it even laid some eggs!  We also saw a huge Bottle-Nosed Dolphin, it was awesome.  But I think my best picture of the day was my last one before I got back on the boat.  A self portrait with my wife, Gwen:

    Have I told you that I love my wife and my family lately?  I am going to go home and tell them now!

     Goodnight all, talk soon.

     C3

Black Powder

     Aloha!

     We're all very excited today because we get to watch Dan's band, Black Powder, compete in the Battle of the Bands at the Cellar tonight in Lahaina.  Anyone who is in town and can make it should come to support Black Powder, the Battle of the Bands starts around 9 and it's just $5 at the door.  Just come and cheer for the best band to win!

     Hopefully there will be some good pictures to post on tomorrow's blog for those of you who won't be here on Maui to witness the event.  Let's hope they win!  If you are out of town you might be able to catch the bands on the radio tonight at 9, on KRKH Maui's K-Rock 97.3  I honestly have no idea if that radio station has a streaming online link, but it might.

     Anyway, we're all super proud of Dan.  We can't believe that he's gotten this good at the guitar while doing all of this diving/photography stuff we've been doing.  He's truely the man!  (He's single too.) 

     We'll update some more tomorrow!  Good luck Black Powder!

     Aloha.

Back to work!

     After another weekend of selling our photography under the beautiful Banyan Tree, we were back to leading dives and shooting pictures.  Mike and I usually work the tree on the weekends, while Dan drives the boat on Sundays for Lahaina Divers.  Dan gets his art fair on Wednesday's down in Wailea at the Four Seasons.  The art fairs are pretty fun, we get to meet a lot of people and talk about our dives.  It's funny to talk about our photos because it seems like it doesn't matter how much time has gone by we can remember the exact dive and even the situation that enabled us to get the photo.  The only problem we have is that we're not very good sales people, it always feels strange to push your own art?  We still sell pretty well, but we usually just wait until someone just loves one of our pieces so much that they have to have it.  It's probably amazing that we're still in business.
     Today we were back in the water.  We got to go looking for Hammerheads again with the hopes of some more close up photo's.  Much like Friday, We had no luck getting the pictures that we had hoped for.  But, much like Friday, we did have another cool day of diving.  We got to swim with about 200 Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins.

     I guess that we can't be too upset about not getting the Hammerhead shots that we want!  I wish that you could have been there to see them.  The whole group was getting a little bummed about not seeing as many sharks as we had all hoped, but then we started hearing the tell tale whistles and squeaks that give away the fact that dolphins are in the water nearby.  We started looking up towards the surface in all directions hoping to catch a glimpse.  The minutes passes as we waited and waited, we even stopped looking and went back to scanning the depths for the sharks.  Then all of a sudden a pod of 200 Spinners was right in our face.  What made the encounter really cool, is that they didn't just swim by real fast, they swam by slow, then they all turned and swam by again, and again, and again!  They swam through our groups 4 times.  It was great.  We'll attach a few photo's from the day to prove it.

     Oh yeah, we just finished making a short video of the Hawaiian Monk Seals from Friday.  Please check it out and see what you think.  It's pretty cute.  One of the customers at the camera store who reads the blog said we should put it up, so here it is:



Monk Seals from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.



Thanks for reading. We recieved a few really nice comments and emails about the last few blogs, thanks so much. As long as the ocean keeps providing us with adventures, we'll keep sharing.


C3

A day away

     Friday we got a chance to pack up Mike's boat and sneak away to try and get some more Hammerhead pictures.  The weather was beautiful last week, flat calm seas and zero wind.  We were able to travel across channels that are usually extremely rough.  Unfortunately the calm weather did not translate into great Hammerhead diving, there just wasn't enough current out there.  We're convinced that current brings sharks, so with no current there are no sharks.  We only saw about three sharks, and they just didn't come close enough.  We're really trying to get some good close up shots and I think that it is just going to take a bunch of days out there shooting.  We were joking about taking a month off, and just going and shooting in the same spot every day and then we'd be sure to get some good photos and video.

    Our day away did yield some interesting shots, we ran into two very rare animals.  First was an extremely rare pair of Hawaiian Monk Seals.  There are only about 1,200 Hawaiian Monk Seals left in the world.  We were very excited to find this pair sunbathing together.  We packed up our land cameras into pelican cases and swam across the water to some nearby rocks, climbed up, dried off, kept our wetsuits on so that we wouldn't get sunburned and tried to take some pictures.  Hawaiian Monk Seals are protected, much like whales and dolphins, so you can't get very close to them at all so that you don't disturb their natural behavior.  Luckily, Mike packed our extreme telephoto (100 mm - 400 mm) lens into one of our dry cases.  We usually use this lens for shooting whales breaching during whale season, but it worked pretty well for Monk Seals too.  Here are a few shots:


Here are the two sleeping happily on the rocks probably resting and digesting from an early morning feast.

They were very cute, but very tired.  They didn't do much except sleep, which is a good sign that we didn't bother them.  We've had Hawaiian Monk Seals at some of our divesites in the past, and they can be pretty friendly.  Although, whenever we see one waiting around at a dive site it usually means that someone is feeding it.  Recently, there was a young female that got a little too friendly with another dive boat, she actually climbed up on deck following the divers out of the water.  She even started almost snapping at the people because she wanted food so bad.  Long story short, she won an all expenses paid trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands courtesy of N.O.A.A.

     The Second rare animal we encountered was a much smaller critter that we found feeding on the algae in the shallows and in small tide pools.  We weren't totally sure what they were at first because they looked a bit like a nudibranch, but they had s small shell on their back, but they didn't really look like a true snail because the shell almost seemed internal?  We knew that there were animals like this in the ocean, but we hadn't seen too many.  After a bit of research, we learned that these little guys were called Cymbal Bubble Shells.  There shell is not actually internal, it's just transparent, which is what allows the colors of the animal to be seen through the shell.  We also learned that during certain times of the year these Cymbal Bubble Shells can "bloom" and that there can be thousands feeding on the algae in shallow waters and tide pools.  We're pretty sure that we were witnessing one of these "blooms" because we saw a bunch.   We also believe that we found an egg case among a group of the Shells, it resembled the egg structure of the nudibranchs we were accustomed to find.  We also saw three of the Cymbals in a train type formation.  We always thought that these trains have something to do with mating, but we really don't know.  Maybe an expert will read this and let us know.



     We also had a playful group of bottle-nose dolphins show up on our surface interval.  We hoped that we might find more Hammerheads on the second dive, but we didn't even see one.  We did find a couple of Eagle Rays that decided to do a Safety Stop with us a the end of our dive, but not one shark.  We'll have to continue our adventures and keep trying to get a couple of nice close ups of those elusive Hammerheads.  I think that the Rebreathers will help, we'll get working on that.

Thanks for reading.  We hope that you are finding this interesting on some level, I know we're having fun sharing our findings with everyone.

On a different note: Remember to watch America's Next Top Model on wednesday nights.  There is an episode coming up that we helped film!  There is even a chance that one of us might be in front of the camera.  We'll see.  We can't talk about it too much, but we can tell you that the episode is coming up.  I think that there are 8 models left and we were around when there were 5 or 6 models left.  So keep watching!

     Also, if anyone is here on Maui on Friday night, October 16th, Dan's band (Black Powder) is in the "Battle of the Bands."  I think their going to win!  If you're around, come down to the Cellar in Lahaina town.  See you soon.

Aloha,

C3

Found some clips

Good morning!

It's thursday morning, Dan's day off.  We all had a great time out at the Cellar last night listening to Black Powder, the band that Dan is in.  It was also Captain Dan's birthday, he's the super talented musical leader of the band and he's also the head captain at Lahaina Divers, sort of a cool guy!

Anyway, Dan is still sleeping and Mike and Gwen got up early to take out the Lahaina Divers boat to Molokini, which leaves me with some office time.  So I decided to clean up some storage space for movie files and I came accross some cool clips from August.  I didn't wan to put too many together and make it boring, but I think I found some cool ones for you to see:


A few clips from August from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.



Dan just called, so it's time to hit the Dirt Bike trails.  I'm not sure if we'll video today, but if we do I'll share.  


Write soon...


John

Rebreathers

Aloha.

Dan and I went searching for close photo's of the Hammerheads on Tuesday morning, with no luck!  We're going to keep trying, and we'll obviously post if we get any.  We have a few ideas in mind to get closer, one involves rebreathers.

If you don't know much about scuba diving, you probably won't know about rebreathers.  Rebreathers are a different way of being underwater with the fishies, totally different from Scuba Diving.  Without getting very technical, rebreathers allow you to stay underwater longer and they are silent because there are almost no bubbles escaping, so fish and other marine animals are not scared away.  Normal Scuba, as you see on TV, is called Open Circuit scuba diving, and that is basically exhaling bubbles out into the water, which is very loud and we think it might scare the animals away.  Obviously, scaring animals away is not ideal for shooting photos' and video underwater.  So we're working towards using rebreathers!

So, yesturday (tuesday) afternoon we met up with our friend Todd, who owns North Shore Explorers, and he took Mike and Dan out diving on rebreathers.  I have dove them before and can actually teach a semi-closed circuit system, so it was more fun for Todd and I to watch Mike and Dan try them out for the first time.

We used an Inspiration System and another Navy Seal type rig called a Lar V.  They are both rebreathers, but very different.  The Inspiration is huge, and it looked hilariously overwhelming when Todd strapped it on Mikes back, plus it weighs a ton.  It's a great rig for going deep for a long time, which we think might come in handy down the road, especially when we want to sit down at 100 feet waiting for some Hammerheads to show up.

Dan was diving the Lar V, which is very small.  It's a chest mounted system that enables you to breathe 100% oxygen, which means you can only go 20 feet underwater.  (too much oxygen isn't good for humans, and depth underwater makes the dosage of O2 go up)  At first Dan was scared because Todd did a great job telling him how he could die if he goes to deep, or how he could die if he takes his mouth off the rig to breathe normal air then breathe off the rig again, or how he could die, etc, etc...  The whole system is pretty simple when you're actually using it, but it sounds pretty scary when you hear about the 15 or so ways you can die on it.

Todd and I were using regular scuba so that we could help Mike and Dan if they had any troubles, and we went on a shallow dive (obviously above 20 feet) to test these things out.  After breathing on each rig for about a minute, Mike and Dan were hooked.  They were swimming around like happy little fish, amazed at how silently they could move through the water.  Todd was so impressed with their skills, that he had them switch rebreathers underwater, it was awesome.

Long story short, if you have any interest in trying a rebreather, do it!  If you are on Maui, call up Todd over at North Shore Explorers and you will have a blast.  Tell him that we sent you and maybe he'll call us and we can all dive together.

We're hoping to get certified to dive rebreathers soon, and I will keep you posted on the progress.  I might film some clips to share the experience next time.

Thanks for reading!

Oh yeah, there is a chance that you can see some of our work on T.V.  I guess there is even a chance that you will see us on T.V. too, but mostly our work.  In one of the next few episodes of America's Next Top Model, see if you can figure out what we shot.  It should be fairly obvious.  I think it will be in about a week or two, I'll keep reminding because we're kind of excited about it.  I hope it doesn't end up to be nothing.

Also, our friend Todd posted a short video he made on Youtube called "Hoover gets sucked," its pretty funny and amazing, check it out!

Stay in touch.

Talk soon,

John

Moustache Contest

In the first week in September Dan out of his bathroom sporting a pretty sweet beginnings of a moustache; Moustache September was born.

For some reason, unknown to Gwen and Jamie (John & Mike’s wives), the three of us thought that it would be a great idea to just let the old moustaches grow for the whole month.  It wasn’t long before Jarett, (our cousin Amy’s boyfriend, who’s birthday it is today HAPPY BIRTHDAY) decided to play along with us and join in.  Jarett is sort of a self-proclaimed mountain man when it comes to facial hair growth, so he thought for sure he’d have the competition in the bag.  Little did he know that three short kids with Italian roots, with a week head start, would give him a run for his money regardless?

In short time, most of the local harbor folks were jealous that we hadn’t included everyone in the plans.  Sometimes things just happen, we said.  I am pretty sure that from now on, however, Lahaina Harbor on Maui will be full of Moustaches each September.

If you get a chance to check out our Facebook page you’ll get to see some of the pictures from the month. Our friend Chelsea wasn’t shy to post a million pictures of us, thanks a lot Chelsea, especially the ones from your birthday underwater…

Anyway, after the monthly Lahaina Divers staff meeting, Dan was voted best Moustache by a few single girls that happened to be drunk.  They must have been drunk because my moustache was the best.   So Dan is the 2009 champ of moustache September!  I think we’ll take him next year. 

I should mention that Mike was the first runner up in our books, even though no one voted for him.  We decided to give him that honor because he decided to wear a wife beater all night long so that his chances would go up.  Good effort!

Talk soon,

John

Rest days & Nudi update...

First I'll begin with the serious news:

Gwen, John's wife, was diving out at Molokini Crater on thursday morning and reports that the sick/possibly dying Chocolate Margin nudibranch was no where to be found.  The remaining spongemate was in a hiding spot on the small rock and it took her a minute to find it.  She reports no strange behavoir so far, but we'll keep you posted. 



On a different note, for the first time in almost three years Mike, Dan, and I all got to go out and have fun together at the same time during the daylight hours!  We jumped at the oportunaty and after doing a bit of work in the mroning, we packed up the dirtbikes and took a trip to a secret track.  (Yes, John's is still a broken mess of parts on the floor, but luckily Mike and Dan share.)  Gwen and Jamie, Mike's wife, came along too.  We had a blast.  Dan suffered the only injury of the day with a sprained ankle.  He limped around all afternoon and still walks with a funny limp today.  It was great to see him in a bit of pain for a change because Mike and I have been doing most of the wiping out lately.  Now we don't have to hear how old and weak we are anymore!

Gwen and I have been working on some mountain biking as well.  We've been hitting some trails upcountry and having a blast.  The higher elevation brings vegitation a lot like back on the east coast, so we feel a bit at home.  We're hoping that all five of us will get to go biking up there together someday soon, we'll try and post some pictures of the event.

Thanks for tuning in, it's fun to hear all of your comments each day.  (Mom, I am glad you finally figured out how to read this...)

Aloha,

John

Did we mention we love our job?

Today was a lot of fun.  Another trip to Molokai with the hopes of seeing a Hammerhead shark.  Molokai is such a special place for sharks because we don't feed them at all, they are just there!  If you dive, and you want an adventure, come visit and we'll show you how to see wild sharks.  It is so cool.

Untitled from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.

One shark came so close today that it actually scared the crap out of one of our younger guides, Chelsea.  It was hilarious.  In retrospect, I should have filmed the whole event so that I could have embarrassed her a bit more, but I only filmed the shark.  It was great though, the shark turned towards her and was curious enough to swim right at her, when it got about 10 feet from her she turned and swam as fast as she could in the other direction.  My mask filled with water because I was laughing so hard.  

Talk soon...

C3

Sad day on the reef...

I have a sad story to report today.

We were diving out at Molokini Crater, which was beautiful for the most part.  Although, the beautiful glassy seas that we've been enjoying for the past few weeks officially passed on.  We had our normal relatively calm seas with our light Maui tradewinds.  The diving was great, and the water was very clear, I think that the visibility was about 175 feet.  We saw tons of the usual suspects, and we even had an above average showing of White Tip reef sharks.  Unfortunately, the good and happy news is not what I am reporting today.

At the end of our first dive on the Ene Nui corner of Molokini Crater, I swam over to a familiar little rock that houses a special black sponge.  On that special black sponge we've grown accustomed to finding two special little Nudibranch friends.

For almost a year we have been visiting this black sponge a few times a week to visit a pair of Glossodoris Atromarginata Nudibranchs, which are extremely rare.  One of the local Nudibranch experts, (who is actually famous worldwide and in the diving hall of fame), Pauline Fiene told us that there hasn't been a sighting of a Glossodoris Atromarginata in over 7 years, which makes our little guys very special, (obviously they are not only ours, the other local divers watch them too).  We showed the pair to every diver that we could, and over the last year that was a lot of different people!  We even named the little guys "Chocolate Margin" Nudibranchs because the name was more fun.

But, today was different.  When I approached the little rock and searched the sponge, I only found one little guy and the other was no where on the sponge or in their usually hiding spots?  Since these Nudibranchs are only about an inch and a half long they can hide anywhere, so I wasn't too worried about not seeing the other one today.  It wasn't until I began to swim away from the rock that I found the other little creature.


Sad day at the reef from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.


On a rock about two feet away from the main rock, one of the little Chocolate Margins was sitting all along up on top of the littler rock.  Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that the little guy was either dead or dying.  It had been bitten or chewed up by something, but that didn't seem to be the reason it's life was coming to an end.  It actually looked like this one had crawled out away from the sponge to die, maybe to keep the scavengers who can smell decay away from it's home on the black sponge?  Maybe it did this to protect the one Chocolate Margin who still lives?

It was very sad to see one of our special Nudibranchs in such bad shape today.  We are not sure what the effects will be felt by the one Nudibranch left behind.  I don't know a lot about the species, but I think that they can live on their own and reproduce a-sexually.  Although, these two have spent over a year together on that sponge.  We have watched them lay eggs together, we have watched them eat the sponge together, and sometimes when we show up they are just sleeping in a crack together.  So I can't imagine that the remaining Chocolate Margin will do very well alone.

It will be interesting to watch, and I will do my best to keep you updated.

Aloha, talk soon.

John

False Killer Whales

For those of you who don't know us, we spend most of our time working with Lahaina Divers.  We are all captains and scuba diving instructors on the island of Maui.  We've been living out here for almost 7 years.  Anyway, we are out on or in the ocean almost every day, teaching and sharing the ocean with new people all the time.  Well just the other day (9/16/09) we had an amazing encounter with some False Killer Whales.  We got to watch an adult teaching a youngster how to catch a Mahi Mahi, which is an open ocean fish.  It was so cool.   Check it out below...


False Killer Whales from C3 Submerged on Vimeo.

I should also mention that it was a really cool day because we were also teaching a small underwater photography class with David Fleetham.  David Fleetham is a famous National Geographic Photographer that lives here on Maui.  It was really cool to spend the morning with him and get to witness the False Killer Whales with him.  It was awesome to see someone like David Fleetham get just as excited as us to see the rare False Killer Whales.  What a cool guy.

Today Mike got to dive Molokini, and he said it was beautiful.  He ran into the office quickly to say hi to Dan and I and change camera batteries for the Night dive.  He's the captain tonight, but he likes to keep the camera ready just in case something cool swims by the boat.  You never know when a False Killer Whale hunting a Mahi is going to swim by.

Dan had the day off but decided to come into the office anyway for a little while to work on some projects.  I think he was also waiting for me to finish up so that we could go dirt biking today!  I spent the day working on the website projects, linking the blog to the facebook page, linking the Vimeo video's to all the other pages, etc...  It's amazing how this stuff all works, and it's very cool that you can be in touch with so many people in so many places.

All right, it's time to go ride!  Maybe we'll convince my wife, Gwen, to come out and ride with us.

See you tomorrow...

John

Aloha!

I'm not sure where to begin?

Mike, Dan and I just thought that it would be fun to share our world with anyone who felt like following along with us.  We're three scuba diving brothers who are attempting to achieve childhood fantasies of making our obsession for being underwater into a career that will enable us to share our passions with you.

Here goes:

Today we split into three directions.

Dan woke up around 6 A.M. to drive an hour to Wailea and exhibit our Fine Art Photography at the Four Seasons Resort.  He goes and represents us each Wednesday from 9-1:30, if you're in the area you should go say hello!  It's a cool program that exhibits 7 local artists each day, we were very lucky to get selected, some artists make a whole career out of their 1 day a week at the Four Seasons.

Mike and I woke up around 5 A.M. to get ready to work the dive boats at Lahaina Divers.  Mike went to Lanai today, and I went and dove Molokini Backwall.  Mike took pictures of all of the divers and the dive-sites and I made a video of my trip.

I had an awesome day out at Molokini.  I dropped down to 120 ft. with my group and ran into 6 Grey Reef sharks hanging out in the current.  My divers were so excited.  I had a great group today, and I had already dove with most of them in the past few days.  In fact, I think I had the exact same group at Molokai yesterday when we went looking for Hammerheads.

Anyway, now it's about 6:30 PM and we've finished making all the movies and the photo's for the day.  We've been trying to learn this web stuff so that we can share with everyone, so I took on the Blog for the first day.  Mike was trying to work on a Facebook page for us, and we're getting into Youtube and Vimeo so that we can share our video's too.  I should have a new one for Youtube in the morning...

Well it's off to dinner for me.  It's wednesday night, and that means that we're all heading to the Cellar to watch Dan play in his band.  It is a fun night because we all get to hang out with the divers that are visiting Maui this week, plus we all get to get out of the office and do something different once a week!  Maybe someday we'll see you there!

Goodnight, and talk soon..

John