Shipwreck Scuba Dive on the YO-257

Hanging on in the current
  Built in the 1940's, the YO-257 saw action in several different war campaigns across the Pacific. After surviving WWII, Vietnam, and Korea, it was lent to the Coast Guard as a transport ship. The YO came to its final resting place 100ft down off the shore of Waikiki in 1989 after being intentionally sunk to create an artificial reef by the Atlantis submarine company.

  Heidi and I headed out early morning on the Kilikina dive boat with Hawaiian Diving Adventures to explore the YO wreck ourselves. It is a pretty deep dive bottoming out around 100ft so we would only have 20minutes or so. We were greeted with beautiful ocean conditions with clear water and no wind with beautiful sunshine above.
   Looking down into the water one other thing was clear, there was a current, and strong one at that.

Divemaster Erica and orange cup corals
  The boat was equipped for the current with lines running down the side to hole onto. It was difficult to carry my big camera and hold on but I managed. The large Japanese group of divers got in the water first however so we patiently waited as they slowly descended down the line towards the shipwreck below. I finally became a little impatient and let go of the line to kick down to the wreck to start taking pictures.

Heidi gliding above the wreck of the YO-257

Wreckage of the YO-257
YO-257
   The wreck itself was covered in hard and soft coral of many different colors. Schools of fish hovered in and around the hulking wreckage. I have explored many shipwrecks, some have been hard to visualize what the original ship looked like but the YO-257 is still in great shape.

The elusive dragon moray
  After this beautiful deep dive we headed back towards shore to do a second dive on horseshoe reef. It started off a bit murky, again being behind a couple of groups of divers. They found some sleeping turtles and white tip reef sharks but kicked up so much sand I didn't even bother taking pictures. The big finds of the dive came towards the end and were quite surprising. Heidi spotted a reticulated butterflyfish which is the first one we have seen on this island. Then I was shocked when our dive master pointed out a very hard to find dragon moray eel! As I swam in for a closer look I thought I might be seeing double, because there was another dragon moray only a few feet from the first! Heidi and I are already looking forward to our next dive with these guys.


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