saintstickets
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2009
Tuesday Sep 4th (Continued)
We were thinking about going aboard the battleship USS Missouri and the submarine USS Bowfin but we have been on those types of ships in the past. We are supposed to be at the dock for the sub-scooter at 2:30 this afternoon and with the traffic the way it has been, we werent sure how long it would take us to get to the dock. So, we walked around for a little while longer, visited the gift center, deposited a fair amount of coin, turned our audio headsets back in and then took off on our adventure to find our next destination.
Google maps said it was about 18 miles to the dock in Kapolei and would take about 30 minutes. Sure it would. A little over an hour later, we arrived BUT internet maps, iPhone apps and Garmin would not get me this time! Bwa-ha-ha we were 45 minutes early because we allowed extra time. Oh crap what do we do for 45 minutes now? It worked out okay because the dock is adjacent to a shopping center so we grabbed a bite at a fast food restaurant, browsed a few stores, took a motion-sickness pill just in case and just took our time and slowed down a bit.
At 2:30 we walked down to the boat right on time. To refresh everyones memory about this excursion, I subscribe to Groupon-Hawaii and a few weeks before our trip, I received an email for a 2-for-1 discount to a Submarine Scooter Tour. These scooters are a self-propelled, electric apparatus that requires no diving or scuba experience. You board the 40 dive boat and you are taken out past the harbor to the open sea to a volcanic formed bowl that is about 10 deep on the rim and about 25 deep in the bottom of the bowl. There were 4 certified divers in addition to the boat captain. They lower the scooters into the water and you jump in the water, tread your way to the scooter, take a deep breath and go underwater and up into the dome that is supplied by an oxygen tank on the scooter. Here is a picture of the scooter being lowered into the water.
You sit on the black seat with your head up in the dome on top. The oxygen tank is in the front of the scooter and there are steering handles that fold out to allow you to go in the direction you choose. The scooter will go about 3-4 mph (about the pace of a normal walk). They tie off a bag of fish food on the front of the scooter that attracts fish. The heavy marine battery that provides the propulsion is in the bottom of the scooter which also helps to keep the scooter upright. It is something I had never heard of before and we were looking forward to it. Before you are allowed in the water, you are given instruction on how to mount the scooter and operate it. The scooter ride is about 20 minutes and they have one of the divers taking pictures while you are underwater. Four scooters are in the water at one time and the other boat passengers can snorkel while waiting their turn. There were 5 couples on our boat. You are also given hand signals to respond to the divers to make sure everything is okay. This will come in handy later.
Everything is taken care of and off we go. Here are a few pics before we arrive at the destination...
Captain of the boat
Nice scenery
DW
Continued in next post...
We were thinking about going aboard the battleship USS Missouri and the submarine USS Bowfin but we have been on those types of ships in the past. We are supposed to be at the dock for the sub-scooter at 2:30 this afternoon and with the traffic the way it has been, we werent sure how long it would take us to get to the dock. So, we walked around for a little while longer, visited the gift center, deposited a fair amount of coin, turned our audio headsets back in and then took off on our adventure to find our next destination.
Google maps said it was about 18 miles to the dock in Kapolei and would take about 30 minutes. Sure it would. A little over an hour later, we arrived BUT internet maps, iPhone apps and Garmin would not get me this time! Bwa-ha-ha we were 45 minutes early because we allowed extra time. Oh crap what do we do for 45 minutes now? It worked out okay because the dock is adjacent to a shopping center so we grabbed a bite at a fast food restaurant, browsed a few stores, took a motion-sickness pill just in case and just took our time and slowed down a bit.
At 2:30 we walked down to the boat right on time. To refresh everyones memory about this excursion, I subscribe to Groupon-Hawaii and a few weeks before our trip, I received an email for a 2-for-1 discount to a Submarine Scooter Tour. These scooters are a self-propelled, electric apparatus that requires no diving or scuba experience. You board the 40 dive boat and you are taken out past the harbor to the open sea to a volcanic formed bowl that is about 10 deep on the rim and about 25 deep in the bottom of the bowl. There were 4 certified divers in addition to the boat captain. They lower the scooters into the water and you jump in the water, tread your way to the scooter, take a deep breath and go underwater and up into the dome that is supplied by an oxygen tank on the scooter. Here is a picture of the scooter being lowered into the water.
You sit on the black seat with your head up in the dome on top. The oxygen tank is in the front of the scooter and there are steering handles that fold out to allow you to go in the direction you choose. The scooter will go about 3-4 mph (about the pace of a normal walk). They tie off a bag of fish food on the front of the scooter that attracts fish. The heavy marine battery that provides the propulsion is in the bottom of the scooter which also helps to keep the scooter upright. It is something I had never heard of before and we were looking forward to it. Before you are allowed in the water, you are given instruction on how to mount the scooter and operate it. The scooter ride is about 20 minutes and they have one of the divers taking pictures while you are underwater. Four scooters are in the water at one time and the other boat passengers can snorkel while waiting their turn. There were 5 couples on our boat. You are also given hand signals to respond to the divers to make sure everything is okay. This will come in handy later.
Everything is taken care of and off we go. Here are a few pics before we arrive at the destination...
Captain of the boat
Nice scenery
DW
Continued in next post...