It's a beautiful morning in Kona today.

We've got nice flat water conditions right now. This evening we're doing a two tanker. We'll go out and do a dive with a passenger who hasn't dove with us in a year, and then swing back into the harbor to pick up those who've already dove with us the last week and head out to just off the Kona airport to do the manta ray dive. Should be a nice evening for it.

Here's a picture of Ho'okena Beach park in South Kona. The Big Island, being some millions of years younger than much of Hawaii, isn't loaded with beaches, but there are still some nice ones to be found. Hookena is one of my favorites. It's an old cattle wharf area with a nice local beach surrounded by cliffs. In the past few years they've fixed it up substantially. I was afraid they'd mess up the local feel, but it's quite nice. The beach park is multi-purpose, with camping, a nice beach, decent snorkeling and such. It can make for a nice shore dive, but you may have to dive it a few times in different directions to find a route that interests you. Dolphins often rest offshore on sunny afternoons. It's a great place to relax.

If you visit there, you ought to drop into the South Kona Fruit Stand, which is about a quarter mile south of the turnoff to the Place of Refuge (Pu'u Honua 'O Honaunau), it's probably the largest fruit stand in the area and has lots of strange tropical goodies you won't find in stores.

Have a nice day,

Steve