We've had lots of mantas over the holidays and to start 2012

I took this brief video on the 23rd of December. I think there were 14 mantas that evening. It's been running anywhere from 5 to up to 25 mantas a night pretty much since then. Hoppefully it'll keep up.

Yesterday we had a blast. I had a friend that wanted to take friends out for a whale/dolphin watch. We headed up north and ran into mantas on the surface at Garden Eel Cove, then a huge school of dolphins off Makalewena. After watching the dolphins we decided to head out to sea and look for whales, about a half mile out we ran into 6-7 false killer whales (possibly pigmy killers, I can't really tell them apart at this point) and continued out to sea because we could see some splashing in the distance. turned out there was the largest school of pacific bottlenose dolphins I've ever seen out there. Usually we see 2-6 in small groups, this was dozens spread out over a good sized area. There were humpbacks whales in the mix as well. After watching that for a while we headed in to Garden Eel Cove to watch dolphins again.

We've had some gorgeous skies lately. If you check out my facebook page I've got a shot or two of the skies I took with my cell phone, it's been gorgeous.

Later,

Steve

Merry Christmas everyone... + always keep one eye into the blue when possible....

Here's another shot forwarded by customer Jim. This one was taken on his second dive ever with a camera... keeps getting decent shots. Makes me want to get some add-ons for my camera. This particular shot gave all of us a kick. Bob was showing customers a pincushion star, and the small crab or shrimp that lived on it, and Jim took the picture. It was only later after he was looking at the photo that he noticed what was in the background.... DOLPHINS!!!!! Make sure to click on the pic for the enlarged view. Jim actually managed to get a couple shots off that had dolphins in the background that none of us knew were even there. It happens, you can't hear them if they're not making noise. It's easy to miss things going on around you.

Today was a wonderful Christmas diving day. We did a night dive last night (14-15 manta rays, what a nice Christmas Eve) and got back into the harbor before a thunderstorm hit us - man it hit hard, we were standing in running water while cleaning the boat. Today was sunny and calm. We did a couple very nice dives. Highlights were Flame angels, Flame wrasses, Divided flatworms, Nudibranchs, Curious Wormfish, Octopus, a Tiger moray, lots of eels and more. It was pretty quiet on the water today, I only saw two other dive companies out, along with a couple of dolphin watch/snorkel companies. Nice day for a boat ride.

Aloha,

Steve

Today was a great dolphin day underwater....

We went to Garden Eel Cove for the morning dive today and there were dolphins in the bay. During the dive the dolphins were all over the place and visited our divers numerous times. Cathy had her camera in hand, I had to snap a shot of the back of her camera with my cell phone... tons of dolphins in this shot. They were all around our divers... I'm counting 22 in just the photo. By the sounds of it, it was one of our better dolphin shows on any charter I've worked in the 10 years I've been doing this. I'll try to get the actual image from Cathy at some point and post it...it's a VERY clear image.

On the way to our second dive site we were treated to an extra special happening - pilot whales around the boat. They were only about a half mile offshore, usually they're much further out. Sorry no pics. Great mammal day all around.

Aloha,

Steve

...the sharks at this site, their mouths are this big....

Here's a shot of Cathy giving a pre-dive briefing. OK, she's not really talking about sharks, probably something more innocuous like the length of coronet fish. At each site we like to talk about the things you are likely to see at the site. Many fish are territorial and so at most of our sites we've got a good idea of what you'll see and we try to point out a few highlights before the dive.

So our yucky weather and water conditions last week was relatively short lived. It's been gorgeous out on the water the last few days. They were predicting a big swell by now last weekend... couldn't tell it by today as it was nice and flat. We've seen lots of neat stuff the last few days. The highlight of yesterday and today both was dolphins underwater. We were up at "Hoover's" up by the airport yesterday on the second dive and there was a huge group of dolphins that came by spread out from around the corner up north during the dive, the divers saw about 30 of them, they came down to the boat and turned around and passed our divers again... but this time they all passed right over and around our divers, Cathy figured there were at least a 100 that they saw on that pass. Today Bob did Naia/Crescent Beach/Manta Ray bay (or whatever it's called, depending on the operator) on the second dive and had 12-15 or so come by him and his diver (very light load the last couple of days, several companies didn't even go out today).

The water temp is still in the upper 70's, but it's feeling a bit cooler. Tomorrow we're doing a night dive trip. We did one earlier in the week and had 2 mantas early on, but only one stayed for the bulk of the dive. One's enough to give a pretty good show, but we love it when there's more.

later,

Steve

Short underwater video of dophins on a dive in Kona Hawaii....

Spinner Dolphins on a dive in Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.
Here's a quick video clip I took on a dive the other week. We were checking out some pinnacles and a few spinner dolphins swam by.... It's short, I had to change the camera into video mode, but you get the idea. We were probably within aobut 20 feet of them when they went by.

Aloha,

Steve

Spinner dolphins in Kona Hawaii...

Here's a shot of some spinner dolphins right outside of Honokohau Harbor. Several days a week we might see a resident pod that hangs out in front of the harbor and a few other spots. When they are in, you have a fair chance of seeing them on nearby divesites... way cool!!!

Another day in paradise....

We had some good dives today. I've got a fun family group of 6 on board for a few days. Today we had a couple of nice dives. Highlights of the dives included moray eels, Bandit angels, a couple of flame angels, puffers, a rather large spotted eagle ray, and other cool stuff. Oh yeah, did I mention dolphins? I took this pic this morning, it's in grayscale and the contrast is turned up so it shows... dolphins sort of blend into the blue of the ocean so it's really tough to get a great photo unless you are only a few feet away. We don't get dolphins while on dives all that often, we usually see them on the surface but not underwater, but sometimes we get lucky, this time I actually had a camera on hand. This group probably came within 20-30 feet of us a couple of times.

...more later.....

Steve

Latest status of snorkeling, hiking, kayaking at Kealakekua Bay and the Captain Cook Monument

I went down the hill today to check on what all's going on at the bay. When we had our earthquake back in October and they had landslides, the state basically shut the bay down. It's been reopened for recreational use, but it is more limited than before the quake.

The hiking trail down to the bay has been officially closed for now. The DLNR has had an officer down at the wharf and park much of the time. Someone has put up informative plaques (one is pictured) down at the bay, which is quite nice, and they also have a booth down at the old wharf with this informative video (I linked this back in September, but here it is again) on snorkeling and critter care. They've set up buoys in the bay approximately 100' from shore in front of the monument and inside towards the beach. No boats/kayaks/snorkelers are allowed to land or swim within the buoys and they had a boat out there enforcing that. I guess this is supposed to go on indefinitely for now. Kayaks and snorkelers are allowed in the water, as long as you stay outside the buoys.

I suspect they are also cracking down on improper interaction with the dolphins. That has been a hot button topic here for a number of years, and now that the DLNR has a boat down in the area I suspect it'll be enforced. Last month there was a whale that turned up off Kailua and was basically killed by sharks - several boats got near to it to film it and there are rumors that there's going to be trouble for the photo/video guys and the captains of the boats as far as getting close in violation of the marine mammal protection act. We'll see if there's any fallout from that.

So basically the bay is open for recreational kayak use, the beach has been reopened, but don't expect to get all the way over to the monument.

Aloha,

Steve