Lots of scuba diving lately, experimenting with Facebook and Twitter as well...

Aloha,

We've been pretty busy diving since the tail end of February, although I've got a slower spell the next week and a half if things don't change radically. I took this photo at Turtle Pinnacle sometime in the last few weeks. The tangs are doing a good job of cleaning turtles when they show up.

Lately I've been experimenting with Facebook. I still don't completely get it, but I have gotten back in touch with a few old friends and customers... kinda fun. My page is here on Facebook - I don't get some of their security settings, so this may not work for you, if you are a Facebook member you can always do a search for Wanna Dive Kona and it'll come up. I'm not really putting a lot on there at this point, just trying to update it every now and then for now.

I also have joined Twitter... now this one I think I "get" even less... for now at least, I didn't get the whole blogging thing at first either. I've pretty much decided I'm just going to post mostly weather and/or diving conditions for Kona on a frequent basis, maybe other stuff I find interesting. I'll try to update water temperature, surf and underwater visibility conditions every day or two (or whenever.. I hate to make promises on that in case I take some time off) as there may be people interested in that sort of stuff. To find me on Twitter, do a search for wannadivesteve and that should get you there.

Tonight we're doing the manta dive, it's been hopping the last little bit, with manta numbers in the high teens showing up apparently. Tomorrow it looks as though we're diving for Easter. Pat's got the day off and it's a light load so she'll be coming along... at least we get to see each other some on the holiday.

Later,

Steve

Turtle Pinnacle - Turtle cleaning station in Kona Hawaii....

Turtle Cleaning Station Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.
Today's diving was good. Cathy did the first dive, at Golden Arches, and reported viz approaching 200 feet, mentioned it was warmer too. I did the second dive at Turtle Pinnacle. As we approached the dive site we were in very deep water (I didn't have the sonar set up, but we were off the reef and in deep water, probably 150-200 feet) and could still see the bottom. We pulled up to Turtle Pinnacle and probably had 135 feet or so of viz on the reef. This site is not one that's known for it's viz, so conditions were excellent today.

Turtle Pinnacle is a turtle cleaning station. Turtles will swim to there and solicit a cleaning from tangs (surgeonfish). In it's heyday, you could generally count on seeing several turtles there. The last few years it's been more hit and miss. We had two turtles at the site today. One was there for a cleaning, the other looked like it was just looking for a ledge to tuck under for a sleep at the time.

The turtles will often lay down and spread out for a good cleaning. The video above shows classic swimming cleaning behavior. This can get fun if there's several turtles wanting to be cleaned. It's almost as if they get jealous... turtles will swim over to a swimming turtle being cleaned and cut in tight trying to steal their fish!

Later,

Steve