Diving Blue Hole

 Perhaps one of Guam's most geologically spectacular dive site is "Blue Hole."  A 60ft long limestone and coral tube that you can swim down into and out the bottom or swim into from the bottom and then up and out the top.  It's a really cool dive and anyone interested in diving who visits Guam should check it out!  These are images i took on my fourth time to Blue Hole.  I first dove it in 2005 with my best friend in high school (Mr. K. K.) on a senior spring break dive trip from Japan.  Since then I've been back 3 more times.  It never seems to get boring for me.  First went back on a weekend boat dive about a month ago with Micronesian Diver's Association and 2 more times as part of my PADI training for deep diving and assisting with an advanced open water class.

These were taken from the advanced open water class as part of my internship as a dive-master candidate with Seleen Divers off of Wes's sailboat:

Here are the two advanced open water students hanging on to the mooring at the hole.

Not usually this cloudy in the water but still a good 60-70ft visibility.  The top of the hole is visible as a dark blue shape left of center.

Getting closer as I work my way down the mooring line.

Wes says O.K.

Having a break sitting at the top of the hole around 60ft.

We make our way into the hole.

One of the students descending into the abyss.  Below 90ft the partial pressure of nitrogen in your system increases to the point where it becomes narcotic and you can get nitrogen narcosis.  Basically you feel drunk. A good rule of thumb is for every 10ft below 90ft is like having another martini.  

Small reef fish expecting to be fed come and visit.

The view looking up through the hole to the surface from around 100ft.

More fish waiting at the window at the bottom of the hole at 122ft.

Wes goes down and out first.  The top of the window is 122ft and the bottom is around 220ft with a steep slope that drops off well beyond recreational diving depth limits to 280ft.  Know your limits because with the spectacular visibility some inexperienced divers who aren't watching their depth go deeper than they should which has caused stupid accidents in the past.  If you drop a camera, or flashlight or diveknife, you aren't going down to retrieve it.  

After swimming back up the outside, we stop to look at a large boat anchor which holds another mooring.

just relaxing before the assent.

Lastly we stop at 15ft on our ascent for our safety stop for 3 minutes to off-gas any nitrogen micro bubbles that have accumulated in our tissues at depth before surfacing.  

All images shot with GoPro HD.