2018

Like any other morning I woke up to an amazing breakfast and prepared for the day. I put on swimming shorts and packed my scuba gear. We began the day by heading to captain zodiac. My first specific topic is over the zodiac boat which can hit 90 mph. The boat is said to be as "untippable" as a...

We started this day by visiting the NELHA facility. NEHLA stands for the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority. This group does community service and nonprofit events, but primarily focuses on OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conservation). We learned that OTEC leaves no carbon footprint and is the largest source of seawater energy production in the world. After that we visited the...

Today was a very action packed day. We first went to NELHA, which is an organization that specializes in OTEC and other technologies. Then we went to a local school based around marine life. The school is very unique because the students learn by creating projects. The projects include efficient energy proposals, which are so close to a real...

We began the day with a 2 tank dive. I decided to snorkel instead of diving. As I explored the water, The coral, while not exploding color, appeared to be healthy. In fact, it seemed to be in a healthier state then the coral I saw in the British Virgin Islands. This helped me realize how effective the Hawaiian...

Today we started off the day by going to NELHA and learning about conservation and research efforts unique to Kona. One such example was the OTEC, use of cold deep water and surface water from the pelagic zone close to Kona's shore to create energy using the re-boiling of ammonia through a closed system. By boiling the ammonia using...

Today was our fifth day in Hawaii, and we got to go to several places. We began our day by sleeping in, waking up at around 8, and leaving the house at 9:15. We first went to NELHA, and the guide took us under the building to check out their cooling system, completely dependent on sea water. The building...

Today our program helped to clean up a beach that was affected by the 2012 tsunami that hit the island. Also we visited the summit of mana kea one of the tallest mountains in the world. Our service project was a beach cleanup combined with a really fun sand castle building contest. The beach cleanup was pretty uneventful for me...

Today was the day of the first dive which began early . Once we finished with the dive we went back to the monk seal hospital and then were treated to a lecture from renowned underwater photographer Joshua Lambus. My first dive was as cool as I expected. While my skills were not the best I was still able...

This morning, we left early for a two tank dive off of Honokohau Harbour. Our first dive was at a place called Sucle Er Up. At this site, it has a great big lava tube with lots of natural light from. It got its name from that lava tubes tendency to suck divers up and spit them out on the...