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