Thursday, June 21, 2007

Wanna Dive's "NEW" dive boat is coming along.


If you've been following me, you know I've had the boat in for some major work. People who've dove with me lately know I've been wanting something different....so we've been rebuilding the boat essentially from the ground up.

Well, the old inboard engine's out, and the 30 inch hull extension is essentially done. It looks as though I will end up with two swim platforms with two ladders towards the outside with the outboards off the center of the transom. They've started working on the inside today.. new bench seating with both dry and open storage, additional tank storage below floor in the existing fish hold, the engine box will be a thing of the past with additional light weight gear storage below floor level where the old engine was, we're looking at additional shelving in the cabin (leaving room for the dreaded porta potti - few small operators have one, nobody wants one - the goal is to never have it used). The goal is to up our storage as much as possible (but please, please don't bring extra stuff just because we have extra storage) we're trying to trick the boat out for diving and make it very comfortable for everyone. The engines supposedly were at the dock today, the stereo has arrived (hey, if you are renting the whole boat, bring your ipod and plug it in), the interior lighting should be showing up soon, the new breaker box and power inverter are in, the new vinyl lettering has come in... and after it's all done a new paint job... It's essentially going to be a very nice new boat.

Here's the latest info on Kileuea Volcano closures. The local news said geologists (like the french gal on the last post) say this the the most dramatic activity at the volcano in over a decade. There is apparently no actual flow, but the floor in the Pu'u O'o vent has dropped 40-50 meters (may have been ffet but I think they said meters) in the last few days. They said it may be weeks or months before the roads re-open.

Here's a whitetip reef shark from the other week.

Aloha,

Steve

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve, I just stumbled upon your great blog while doing a google search for Hawaiian cleaner ship. Clicked on the blog homepage and was thrilled to see your whitetip photo front and center!!

I'm not sure if you've heard about our project, but I'm a UH grad-student running an islands-wide, community-based photo-ID project for whitetips for my dissertation. As someone who's in the water and shooting photos on a regular basis, I was wondering if you'd be willing/able to contribute any photos to our database.

For each photo we just need the date and location where it was taken. More info on our website: http://whitetip.hawaii.edu

Please let me know if you have any photos you can contribute. Thanks!

Aloha,
Nick