Lots of great diving in Kona the last couple of weeks...

Aloha,

I've been quite busy since about the 18th doing charters, have a day in the shop today so I thought I'd catch up on diving conditions. The water temp has bumped up, we're seeing 79/80 on the dives right now. We've had a couple pretty big south swells swing through the last 3-4 weeks, they tend to stir up the south facing sites a bit so we tend to do north facing sites on those days.

Mantas mantas mantas. We've been going out two evenings a week this summer for the most part, were skunked 3 times in the last month or so.... bummer, but Friday night was really quite the show. There were 14 mantas at the light circle when I got my divers down, and then it started to get crowded. A total of 21 mantas showed up for the evening. It's almost overwhelming when we get that many mantas, but it was nice to see that many as it was kind of sporadic the previous 3 weeks. An additional highlight of that dive was on the roundabout tour back to the boat at the end when we came across a pretty good sized Bigfin Reef Squid (sorry no photo, but if you search the blog using the search function in the upper left I've got several squid photos that will show up).

Here's a local cerianthus anemone. In the aquarium trade we called them pacific long tentacle anomone. These guys are found down deep in the sand. I took a picture of this one at about 110' several years ago, I generally don't get down that deep often so we don't see them on tours all that often.

Later,

Steve

Best night dive in the world? Best manta ray diving in the world? The Kona Manta Ray night dive is really hopping right now....

Thought I'd mention the manta dive is going off again right now. We went out again last night and had umpty-ump mantas on the dive and are going out again with a full boat of divers tonight and Monday night. I've had a couple different companies call me to see if I have room the next few nights, they're running full too. Maybe the busy season has finally hit Kona.



I've probably posted this before, but the manta ray night dive never gets old. This video only has about 25-30% of the number of mantas that have been showing up the last couple of nights, but it gives you an idea of what it can be like.

Later,

Steve

The manta ray night dive has been crazy nutzo in Kona Hawaii the last little bit...

Howdy,

Just a heads up... the manta dive off the airport is going off bigtime right now. We had 9 on Wednsday of this last week, not bad, then on Saturday's dive we had 19 mantas (we were one of the last two boats to leave and it was boiling with mantas around our boat at the end of the dive, had to turn off all the lights and shine a beam off to the side just to start the engines and get out of there). Last night the report was 20 mantas at the site.

I won't be roped into picking a "season" for manta rays, however we've had some of our biggest number nights in May over the years. Hopefully it'll keep up for a while.

Here's a pic I took several years ago on the night dive. Imagine having bunches of these coming over you.

Later,

Steve

Several manta rays on the Kona Manta Ray Night Dive last night...

Manta rays visit scuba divers in Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

We went north of Honokohau Harbor up to the Kona Airport site for the manta dive last night. Our divers saw one manta ray on the afternoon dive, that's always a good sing. On the night dive it was obvious there were several rays that had shown up - all the snorkelers from the other boats were squealing with delight.

There were 7 or 8 mantas hanging around and everyone had a teriffic time. Here's a short video from a while back on a night there were a few mantas at the dive. It looks like there were only 4 or so in this video, once the numbers get up a bit higher it can be a manta madhouse.

Hopefully it'll keep busy with mantas through the Christmas season. We're looking to be pretty darned busy... Ive got today off, then my next empty day is the 5th of January.

Aloha,

Steve

1 tank manta ray night dives in Kona Hawaii....

I thought I'd talk about a question that comes up from time to time about my business... why don't you offer 1 tank manta ray night dives? Well, we sort of do, but don't really push it for a couple reasons.

Back in the day when I worked for other operators I used to lead 1 tank manta dives up to 3 times a week for a pretty good stretch. We'd get people who hadn't dove in years, or people who took the class a year or two earlier and hadn't dove since, wanting to do that one tank night dive because they've heard it's "THE" dive to do in Kona. Well you know what, a single night dive when you've not been in the water in some time just plain isn't the smartest idea one can have. If something can go wrong, even if it's just a matter of comfort as opposed to something serious, it probably will the first time you're in the water, and doing it at night only compounds any issues that might occur. I've never had to perform a major rescue at night, but little panic session mini-rescues are pretty darned common when a night dive is the first dive a person's done in months or years... it's task loading for the person that's attempting it. I'm amazed at the difference adding a late afternoon dive prior to that night dive makes for LOTS of divers. I've found the night dive wasn't always a fun experience for some divers, generally due to discomfort, when doing a 1 tanker, the addition of that extra afternoon dive pretty much changes that. I can't recall one panic issue to anyone on the night dive in all the years I've been doing the afternoon dive first. It just makes for a better experience, in my mind anyways, for everyone... even if you personally don't have troubles, if there's someone in the group having issues it can affect the dive for everyone in the group.

As a bonus, that first dive is generally a very good dive. We generally dive the same spot as the night dive if we're diving the Garden Eel Cove manta site, 'cause it's one of Hawaii's premiere dive sites. Before I moved here I knew of it because it made a list of "Best Dives in the Pacific" in a reader survey in Scuba Diving Magazine (and that was before the night dive even started being held there). It's a very good dive. If we're heading south to the Sheraton site for the manta dive, we tend to dive one of two great reef sites on the way.

That said, while I don't push 1 tank night dives, that doesn't necessarily mean we won't do them. The trick is I need to have enough divers, preferrably that have already dove with us at some point this vacation, to make it worth going out. I usually require 4 to 6 divers to do a one tank dive, and I really want them to have some dives in this trip first so we don't run into problems. If you've got a group of 4-6 divers and are looking for a one tank dive to keep your evening shorter rather than making a 5-6 hour event of it, give me a call.

Here's a shot of a Moorish Idol. They're one of everyone's favorites it seems.

The Kona Hawaii manta ray night dive is very busy right now...

Untitled from Steve on Vimeo.

Just thought I'd throw in a little manta video from a year or so ago since the manta dive off the Kona airport is hopping right now. We've had numbers in the teens the last several nights - that'sa lot of manta rays in one spot! We've got 3 manta charters running next week, as well as a slate of pretty full day dives.

The next few weeks are looking pretty busy, it's that last of the summer crush I guess. Water temperature is still holding at 78/79. We've had a bit of a south swell this weeks, limits a few of the sites somewhat, but there's still plenty of great spots to dive that are free from the swell and have great viz. I'm hoping that swell has raised the water temp a degree or two. It'd be nice to see 80 degrees or more for a while this year, last year I only saw it once on a dive. Some years we get a few months in that range in the late summer through fall.

later,

Steve

Scuba diving Kona Hawaii with Wanna Dive... a typical day...

Looks like I've got the weekend off the boat, I've been going out every day since the 14th (one day off in there somewhere). I'm expecting a busy summer, been getting lots of bookings already. I thought I'd try to describe a "typical" day on the boat...

I'm in town about 8am on most days running errands, filling tanks and such. I ask my customers to meet us at 9 on their first day, or if they've got their gear with them. If we've already got the paperwork out of the way and have our customer's gear sized up and ready for Bob, Cathy and I to set up before the charter, I'll ask that they show up around 9:15 - 9:20 or so so they don't have a long wait before launching. When everyone arrives on schedule we can usually launch at 9:30, surprisingly, early arrivals can slow the process down as I can't get up on the boat and help set up gear. We may be fiddling with the starting time in the next couple of weeks, we're trying to get the new customers to meet us at the shop for paperwork and gear sizing and see if we can bump the launch time up by 15-30 minutes.

At launch we give the boat safety briefing for new customers then head out the harbor. We're generally trying to get an idea of what the divers have already seen, and what they'd like to see, and once we're outside the harbor and can get a good look at water conditions, we can figure out a couple of good likely dive spots. I'll never commit to a dive site 'til we see conditions, one of the typical questions we get at the boat in the morning is "where are we diving?" Best I can say is "out there somewhere" because you just don't know if sites are even available 'til you get to them. We try to pick sites based on best available conditions and what people on the boat want to see.

Once we reach our first dive site one of the crew will jump the mooring, then whichever of us is guiding the first dive will give a briefing. We break out the book and try to show people what to expect to see on the dive, most sites have their resident critters that we've come to know. After the briefing it's time to suit up and get ready to dive. We'll have you in your wetsuits, fins and with mask ready at the rear of the boat, then the Captain or crew will bring your BC setup to you so you won't be walking around with heavy gear on. Preferred entry is a back roll off the side (safest entry from smaller boats), we can have you do a giant stride off the swimstep or hand your gear down to you in the water to don there if desired.

Once everyone's in (usually goes fast because we max out at 6 divers and typical group size is closer to 3-4) it's time to descend. We take our dives SLOW, so people can get a good look at things and have time to take photos and such. We're always looking for critters to show you and carry eraseable magnetic slates to write down names of what we're showing. If you see something interesting and wonder what it is, just let us know and we can tell you right there. Our routine is to ask to be notified when you reach 1500psi and 700psi in the tank so we can drop off divers at the boat as they reach 500psi for their safety stops. Divers who have plenty of air remaining can stay down and tour other areas of the site we've not shown yet. It's pretty easy to give good tours to people of all breathing capacities, and we go by air and computer NDL time remaining so we're getting long dives from those that are good on air. 75-90 minute dives are not unusual for the good breathers on the day outings. Note: the night dives are a timed dive, usually in the 50-60 minute range depending on the mooring situation.

End of the dive it's back to the boat, hand up fins to the captain and up the ladder (if you've got back, hip or leg issues and need us to pull your gear out of the water, just let us know), our ladder goes down in the water fairly deep and it's easy to navigate with gear on for most divers. We'll get your gear off your back when get to the top of the ladder and switch out the tanks for the next dive. Between dives it's talk story about the things we saw, pass out dry towels (we keep a stack on board) water, sport drink, sandwich or salad, and we generally try to keep some snack stuff (trail mix, etc) on board to munch on too.

During lunch (usually about an hour) we move to a second site.... we try to vary the type of divng you see each dive. Kona has lots of different types of sites to offer, you can keep diving without repeating sites for quite a while as long as the conditions don't pin us down to a few sites. Once we're to the second site and moored off, it's time to give the briefing for the second site and then the routine repeats itself. One note: On the twilight/night trip, we generally don't move, they're essentially two completely different type of dives without changing sites.

After the second dive, it's towels again, along with more water or sport drink if wanted, then it's back to the harbor. We typically meet up at the boat wash after the dives, we've got wash buckets and we'll be rinsing off customer's gear and handing it down. We do keep big gear stored overnight for customers that don't want to haul their stuff back to their hotels or condos between dives if requested. We can store wetsuits, BCs and regs and have it back the next charter, we do ask that customers take their masks, fins, booties and other small items with them.

Typical days are from 9am to about 2:30 to 3:00 or so (depending on how many on the boat and how much ground we cover).


The photo above is one I took on a night dive about a month back. We've been doing the dive 1-2 nights a week lately, probably 2-3 nights a week once it picks up for summer. The mantas have been around fairly consistantly.

Thought I'd mention water conditions.... it's warming up nicely, we're seeing 78 and even 79 degrees now. The last week or so the viz has been FABULOUS... over 200' much of the time. I did a dive at "Hoovers" two days ago and it was "down" to about 150' viz for that dive. We had some wierd currents the other day and have been seeing some pelagic stuff float in... lots of Crown Jellyfish and such. I had my camera the other day, then realized I left the memory card out - bummer - I might have some good jelly photos if I'd pay a litlle more attention with the memory cards after I download them.

Later,

Steve

Kona scuba diving with manta rays.....

Manta rays from Kona Hawaii, April 2010 from Steve on Vimeo.

Here's a 2 minute video I took on last night's manta dive. We had 3 customers on the boat and went up for the night dive. It was a very good show. We spent 48 minutes watching the mantas, the last few minutes most of the other divers had left the manta area and the mantas were closer than in the video here... lots of head bumps at that point. At the end we did about a 15 minute reef tour taking the circular way back to the boat to find a couple of mantas under the boat. Fun evening.

Today was gorgeous in Kona the first part of the day, turned a bit gray later on. We had a charter this morning with the 3 from last night and a couple of intro divers. Cathy and a DM/Captain friend who's filling in for Bob (Bob's in the Phillipines diving right now... jealous) switched off with the certified divers, I took the intros. The intro divers did very well, did dives of 60 and 55 minutes. For those of you who don't dive, intro dives are something to consider if you enjoy snorkeling and are comfortable in the water. You essentially get the full diving experience without taking the course. My intros from today had never dove before this trip, today was their second outing with us... they're getting to be pretty good "divers" and should consider getting certified in the future - Intro dives are a good way to get an idea if scuba diving is for you without committing time and money into a full class.

Later,

Steve

Kona manta ray night dive action is picking up, just in time for spring break!!!

I saw on the manta report yesterday that 20 or so mantas showed up on Monday night. That's a bundle of action. I've got a manta ray night dive charter tomorrow and another one or two scheduled for next week. Hopefully it'll keep up with lots of mantas for those outings.

We're crazy busy next week. I've got 8 charters currently scheduled, and 6 of them are full. It'll be interesting to see how spring break diving pans out for all of the dive companies in Kona. The last two years it hasn't been as busy as it had been in years earlier. I'm thinking people are starting to travel a bit more than they have lately once again. I've got bookings into June and inquiries into August so far. I used to have a good portion of my bookings 3-6 months out, the last two years it's been more like 2-6 weeks ahead of time with a lot of last minute calls. I'll be referring a bunch of the last minute people elsewhere next week most likely. If other operaters are experiencing the same thing it might be tough to catch a dive for the last minute bookers this spring break. After next week I open up again for now.

Yesterday we had some strange winds in Kona. It was blowing in heavily from the north at the harbor in the morning, so we headed a bit south to Casa Caves and it calmed down for a very nice dive. We don't seem to visit this site often enough, it's got the cave and a very nice reef out front, the topography's a bit different than our other sites and the finger coral reef is a great example of that type of reef for Kona. By the end of the dive the wind had done a 180 and switched to fairly strong from the south and things were getting pretty choppy, so we headed north and found the conditions to be quite good in that area... go where the wind ain't I guess, it worked this day anyway.

Here's a photo of a Goldlace Nudibranch. We see them from time to time. I took this underwater photo a couple days back. Yesterday Cathy and a couple of others popped into the cave at the end of the first dive and spotted 6 of them in a grouping. I've never seen that before, wonder if it's some sea slug sex thing?

Man, the scuba diving conditions are great in Kona Hawaii right now...

On Friday I had a double, running charters all day long. The water's really flat right now and viz was great. On the morning charter we hit the Golden Arches area and had fabulous viz, then followed it up by doing the Suck 'em Up/Skull Cave/Aquarium sites. Water was calm and great at both sites of the day. Cathy's big thrill was finding 6 different leaf scorpionfish during the course of the day.

We went out for the manta dive about an hour later. On the first dive the divers took their tour of Garden Eel Cove. Highlights were 2-3 mantas during the dive, and 10, yes ten, squid hanging out at the night dive site. On the night dive it was all about the mantas. I heard two different numbers for the night, 8 & 9, either way it was a real good showing.

Yesterday I took day off #3 for the year, this time there was no vacation rental to clean or Superbowl to watch so it was an entire day of doing nothing... I think watching bad Steven Seagall movies on some cable channel and eating frozen pizza qualifies as nothing at any rate. The downtime felt good.

Today there's not much going on, hanging out at the shop all day to see if I can get some walk-in bookings. I've got 12 charters scheduled the next 13 days so far (I'm trying to keep it to no more than 9 charters a week 'til the shop's open full time and I hire another crew member) so I'll be busy on the boat for the next couple weeks.

As for our Kona dive shop/office, we're going to open the shop on weekends with regular hours from here on. Starting Saturday the 13th of March we'll have it manned 10am to 6pm on weekends. I've been hanging out there when I don't have charters ('cept the 3 days I've taken off this year) but otherwise there's been no consistancy in the schedule. Count on us being there 10-6 on weekends for now and I'll be adding days as business starts to pick up again... we're starting to get into our busier season, winter's are slow for the most part for dive ops here.

Here's one of my favorite fish, Reticulated Frogfish. I didn't even know about these fish 'til a few years back when someone pointed one out to me. They hang out in larger cauliflower corals and antler corals. Looking at them, their faces match the color of most of the older shells, and their body resembles the pattern of a cone shell, so they're quite often overlooked. At first glance they'll easily pass for a shell, but then you see their eyes or their little webbed "feet" and catch on to it being a frogfish. We've had a couple of them "stashed" away at one particular dive site, for now they've seemed to like that particular spot and we'll be able to show them off 'til they move. Once they've moved off it'll be sheer luck in finding them again, so we're happy to have them in one spot for now.

Aloha,

Steve

Endemic Hawaiian Longnose Butterfly Fish... They're not just yellow, there's a black phase too...

Longnose butterflyfish from Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

Here's a short clip of Hawaii's endemic version of the Longnose Butterflyfish. They're real unusual in that they have a black phase (this one was especially black, lots of time you can see some yellow mixed in). I'm not sure that anyone's actually figured out why they'll sometimes turn black. We see the black phase in Kona on a fairly regular basis, but they're uncommon on the other islands from what I understand.

Tonight we're doing the manta night dive again. Most of the last couple of months we've been making the trip down to the Sheraton for the manta dive, the mantas kind of scadoodled from Garden Eel Cove when the surf came up and the plankton level dropped for some reason. I suspect they don't care to eat a lot of sand that gets kicked up by heavy surf - that's as good a theory to make up as any, so I'm sticking with it. We've had a week and a half or two without major northwest swells and apparently they're back again... 10 last night... Yahooo!!!!! Most of the dive operators really prefer to do the manta dive at Garden Eel Cove off the airport, it generally has better water conditions, larger numbers of mantas, and is a great night dive to boot in comparison to the Sheraton site. We'll be happy to do the dive there again.

later,

Steve

So it's December... a big northwest swell comes in... and the water temperature in Kona goes up 4 degrees???!!!

Last night I led the Kona manta ray night dive and I was toasty warm. Weird. A couple of weeks back the water temp took a tumble and I figured it was time to start thinking about getting into a 7 mil wetsuit for the first time since moving to Hawaii... then we had biggish surf for a week and I expected it to be cooler, but it's now sitting at 79 on a computer that maxed out at 80 degrees this summer. Very comfortable scuba diving right now.

Last night we did the manta dive. We pulled up to the dive site at Garden Eel Cove and could immediately could tell the viz was fabulous. Despite the late afternoon sunlight you could easily see everything on the reef from topside. My guess without being in the water for the first dive was that it had to be in the 200 foot or higher range. Even the customers, who had been on a dive a couple days back with about 200 foot of viz, commented on how clear it was and that they'd never dove in anything this clear in their diving the Caribbean. I went down for the night dive while Captain Cathy watched the boat for the night dive. There was virtually no plankton at the site. Two manta rays showed up and cruised the divers for a few minutes then took off... they know when the food's not to be found. At that point we turned it into a very nice night dive.

Slipper lobsters, Bulls-eye lobster, cusk eel, several moray eels and LOTS shrimp and other critters were seen on the night dive.

We do the night dive again on Wednesday (tomorrow) and Friday, and I'm hoping there's more plankton so the mantas stick around, but the night dive itself can be fabulous out off the Kona airport site. Later it was reported that there were no mantas present at the Sheraton site last night. We typically go to the airport site, which usually has larger numbers of mantas than the other site, unless it's just not happening there. We'll probably stick there for now since nothing's been seen down south lately... it's a much nicer night dive up at the airport site if the mantas don't show.

Here's a male Marbled Shrimp (Saron marmoratus), one of the shrimp we commonly see on the night dive when we're doing our cruise around on the way back to the boat.

Later,

Steve

Manta ray scuba diving in Kona Hawaii with Wanna Dive...

Manta rays visit scuba divers in Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

Here's a short video of mantas from last year that I took with my Canon G9 on a manta ray night dive. There were 4-5 that particular night. Last night we had only a few boats on the site, fewer divers than when this video clip was taken, but there were LOTS of manta rays. Bob said there were at least 15 when he came up, later on during cleaning up the boat a videographer came by and said they'd watched the tape and could name (the mantas have individual markings) 21 in the tape.... so imagine this times 4 or 5 and you've got an idea of what it might be like last night for the better part of an hour.

Very cool night.

Speaking of cool nights... it's cooling down here in Kona district. When I got up this morning it was 64.....Brrrrrrr... for here (I live at 900 feet down in the Captain Cook area, we're typically a bit cooler than down in Kailua. December hasn't even hit. Part of the reason we're having cool nights is there's very little moisture in the air for here, it's dry and sunny during the days and then cooling off well at night without the cloud cover we usually build. Water temps have cooled down as well. Bob had 76 on the computer throughout the dive today.

Aloha,

Steve

Back to scuba diving with turtles in Kona Hawaii....

Being what is typically one of our slowest months of the year I had a few days off. Today we went out again and will have about 4-5 days straight booked and then see where it goes from there.

Today the conditions were awesome.... flat water and great viz. We dove Eel Cove and Turtle Heaven. Our "turtle dives" have been a bit sparse as of late, but there were two at Turtle Heaven this afternoon.

I haven't talked about the manta rays lately. It's been hopping, at least up 'til towards the end of last week. When the website went down so did my e-mail, so I've got to re-up on the manta report with the new e-mail. We did the dive last week and saw 4-6 on the afternoon dive and 14 on the night dive (one DM I know counted 19, but I'll defer to the videographer that made the report that night's count). Lots of mantas at any rate. We're doing it again this Friday night and I'm hoping it's similarly packed with mantas.

Here's a shot from a few years back. It was a surgey night... you can see someone's hair blowing - the mantas get close, but that's not what's moving the hair in this photo.

Later,

Steve

Man, the Kona manta ray night dive is still going strong....

The manta dive has seen 15+ mantas a night for the better part of almost a month and a half now. It's a spectacular event for divers and snorkelers. We did three of them last week, in addition to some day outings - made me tired... I'll use that as my excuse for not posting in that time (but it's more likely that I just haven't had much to say during that time). Going out on the night charters and then having to come back the next morning (or not, depending on the schedule) takes it out of me. I normally hit the hay around 10:00-10:30, after a manta dive it's more like 1am and I don't feel normal for a couple days... what ever happened to the good ol' days when 4 hours was plenty of sleep as long as it wasn't every day? It's our slower season right now so I've got a few days off before it all starts again.

I just got an e-mail that the Manta Ray protection act has made it through both the State House and Senate and is now waiting on the Governor to sign it. The mantas have been unprotected here and there's been a few attempts to get them protected so someone won't come in and harvest them all. Kona is the one place in the world that you know exactly where the mantas are likely to be 30 minutes after sundown, so that raises the risk of them being taken efficiently if someone were to decide to target them... this should help keep that from happening.

The pic above is of a Redstripe Pipefish (Dunckeroampus baldwini). Pipefish are related to seashorses, the males carry the eggs on their undersides, unlike the male seahorses which carry their eggs in a pouch on their bellies.

Reading in John Hoovers new book , which happens to be probably the best book on Hawaiian fish available right now, I just noticed that these particular pipefish were endemic - I didn't know that before tonight. They are typically found in pukas (Hawaiian for "holes") or cracks in rock formations. They're small, maybe 5 inches long in total, and quite slender so they're tricky to point out to other divers. We've got a few of them stashed at a few dive sites so we do get to brief our divers and show them from time to time.

The manta ray night dive in Kona Hawaii is hot right now... here's a quick video clip...

Untitled from Steve on Vimeo.
We did this dive Saturday night. 15 or so mantas were at the site when we arrived, it was 20 by the time we went back to the boat.

This is always a great time when there's even one manta showing up, more is gravy... this was lots and lots of gravy. We spent pretty much the entire dive watching them, did a short pass of the reef at the end and saw something that REALLY excited me (not that the mantas didn't, but one of our divers found something I'd yet to see, and I had the camera in hand), more on that in the next post.

Later,

Steve

The manta night dive is going off bigtime again right now.....

Hawaii fish video from Steve on Vimeo.
I looked at the manta report and noticed they've had 17 mantas the last couple of nights off the Kona airport.

When this is going like it is, as a diver you'd owe it to yourself to do the dive. It's also a fabulous snorkeling experience!

This video is one I've previously posted from last spring, but it's not a bad idea to repeat it, it'll give you an idea of what it can be like on a crazy busy manta night.

Later,

Steve

A short manta ray video from the manta ray night dive in Kona Hawaii...

Manta rays eating plankton in Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

The manta ray dive has been pretty active the last couple of weeks. Here's a short video from a slow night a few months back. If you want to see what it's like on a busy night, go to my May archives, or click on the "video" label below.

This video does a good job of showing the plankton that the mantas feed on. Plankton is a mix of small critters and larval shrimp and fish and such that is on the reef and tends to come out at night. It's attracted to light like moths. Over time the manta rays have learned that light means food, so they key on the diver's lights when they are feeding. Garden Eel Cove, off the Kona airport, is a spot that's rich in plankton and most of the dive operators here run their manta ray night dive at this location.

later,

Steve

Steve

Road construction update... Whoohoo!!! Kona has a new highway... sorta kinda anyways...

They opened up the north bound lanes of the highway from Palani Road to Honokohau Harbor the other day. This hopefully will really speed up traffic to the north in the mornings from here on. They still have about a half a year's work, at least, on the south bound lanes and the area between Palani and Henry Street. I'll try to take some photos of the work in the next little bit.

Yesterday was a fun day, we had a certified diver and two intros, so both Cathy and Bob were on board as we don't mix students and certified divers unless it's a family thing. Everyone had good dives. Cathy and her diver had a 15-20 foot pelagic manta ray swim up to them. The pelagic rays are open ocean rays and are slightly different than the resident ones we typically see... big and solid black with a white saddle. She said the remoras that were tagging along with this one had to be 10 pounds each, which is huge compared to the little ones we see on the local rays.

So here's an almost irritatingly too close closeup of a Banded Coral Shrimp (Stenopus hispidus). I was playing with the new closeup lens.

Later,

Steve

Manta ray cleaning station...

The water's finally warming up and getting to more summer-time like conditions. We've been seeing mostly 77 degrees off Kona with the occasional 79 the last couple of weeks.

Today I'm cleaning the vacation rental for our next renters who come in tomorrow, then I have a night dive tonight with day trips the next several days. I thought I was going to have more time off than I wanted, but suddenly I booked an extra 12 or so charters... that's nice, but I'm still hoping for more divers to add on to those days... gotta keep busy!

I'm stealing a couple of photos from Bob for this post. He was leading a dive the other week when a manta ray came by for a cleaning. The mantas will come to the reef and look for a cleaner wrasse. When one comes in to pick parasites off them they typically will circle around in slightly larger concentric circles in an effort to find more cleaner wrasses. Sometimes you'll see mantas with numerous wrasses working them over. If you look real hard, you can see a small wrasse just below the manta in the second photo. I belive Bob's group had the manta hang out for several minutes during this dive.

Aloha,

Steve