Diving the Corsair Wreck

For the third time, I spent my birthday in Hawaii. I take my birthday off every year. I like to use it as an excuse to go exploring somewhere or to do something fun. Last year we visited Costa Rica. The year before was the Big Island of Hawaii. The last thing I want to do is to be at work wishing I was elsewhere. Some people don't care about birthdays. It's just another day. I don't care about presents, but I love having a day where I can do what I want to do while having a minute or two to reconnect with the people who mean the most to me.

This year, two of my favorites came to visit us in Hawaii. Mike's brother Jeff and Jeff's wife Lisa are two of the greatest people I know. They're smart, like crazy smart, good with money, interesting, fun, and thoughtful. On top of all that, they're avid divers. That means the only logical choice was to go diving. The dive shop sent us out to the LCU wreck since I hadn't been yet. The tradewinds were causing some nasty currents though and we ended up diving the Corsair Wreck. I'd already done it so it was a little disappointing until I got in the water and realized that it was just as cool the second time.

The wreck is a WW2 plane that ran out of fuel in 1946. The pilot bailed and the plane eventually hit the ocean floor. Don't fret, the pilot survived. Anyway, the propeller is bent from the impact and the wings are broken off. One of the wings is long buried in the sand. The plane is in pretty great shape considering it's been soaking in a salt bath for 70 years. It sits at 110ish feet in the sand surrounded by thousands of garden eels that look like bendy straws sticking straight out of the sand.

The body of the plane has disintegrated in areas allowing bright tropical fish to swim in and hang out. There were lots of little banner fish, yellow butterflyfish, and even a little spotted boxfish. Lisa spotted a leafy scorpion fish on the tail, too! The engine is growing some coral which makes the whole aquarium look even cooler.

Because of the depth, the dive is short. only 15-20 minutes until you hit the no decompression limit. As a second dive, we visited a turtle cleaning station. I've never seen such massive turtles, and they were EVERYWHERE! They're all just laying around like lazy dogs letting the fish nibble algae off their shells. There were Buddha statues placed randomly that added some fun to the otherwise beat up reef. Hawaiian coral is pretty hammered. All in all, I'm glad I did this dive again. It was fun to share it with people I love.