Sea turtle finds lost camera.... shoots video....

A couple weeks back there was a guy that found a camera in a housing in Key West, the housing looked as though it'd been in the water for quite a while but the camera was fine. He went onto Scubaboard.com and posted about it with hopes of finding the owner. Eventually he started sharing the photos and then mentioned there waw one wierd video clip dated a couple months after all the photos... apparently a turtle got a hold of the housing and somehow turned it on. This clip has gone viral on youtube. In the end, with help of the internet community, they found the owner of the camera (who lost it in Aruba, over a 1000 miles away). Neat story. Ikelite, the manufacturer of the camera housing, has more info on thier blog.

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

When should you reserve your scuba diving charters... How soon is too soon???

I get people asking me if it's OK to book ahead from time to time... the answer to that is that I'd prefer it, I suspect that's the same for most if not all dive operators. I've had people book ahead as far as 14-15 months or so, but those are rare. Right now I've got numerous charters partially booked through September, September itself is starting to look fairly busy, but most people seem to be booking a little closer to actual dates than in years past. It's usually fairly easy to slide into an open spot on relatively short notice if there are only one or two of you in most cases, but with larger groups it can get dicey if you wait too long.

All in all it's somewhat of a guessing game. I usually recommend to people that they try to book when they feel comfortable that they know they definitely are planning on diving... during busier seasons it sometimes takes several phone calls to find space with someone if you wait too late.

I thought I'd mention this because I had a surprisingly busy May and had to turn down last minute bookings (by last minute, I mean last few days or longer) several times due to a full or mostly full boat. I'm not discouraging last minute calls, definitely give me a call (808-937-1175) if you're looking at diving last minute, but I'm definitely encouraging a little lead time if you plan on diving for sure.

Here's another shot of a turtle getting cleaned by surgeonfish/tangs at a cleaning station.

Later,

Steve

Wheeeee!!!! I can fly!!!!!!

Here's a shot that Pat took on a dive some time ago. When I look at this turtle, all I can think of is that it's flying.

So I may owe someone an apology... I'm responding to e-mail this morning and the phone rings... it's a "private caller" according to my caller ID. I pick it up and get a MUCH larger than life "HI STEVE" pause "HOW ARE YOU THIS VERY FINE MONDAY MORNING" pause pause pause... I didn't respond immediately because lately I've been getting lots of sales calls with more or less the same opening, and any time I've responded they'll continue on without stating what they're calling about for more exchanges and I'm getting real tired of it. I used to play along with those calls for a while, but today I just wasn't into it. If the person who called was an actual potential customer, I really do owe them an apology.

Anyways, when I get a phone call from a blocked sender, it automatically ups the odds that it's from a salesperson about nine times, when I get the much bigger than life super-friendly person on the other end of the line the odds that it's a salesman skyrockets- in fact, I can recall only one non-sales phone call ever where it was a much larger than life caller, but that one had a name behind it on the caller ID. Hopefully I didn't ruin someone's day, I need to decide how I'll handle those calls in the future.

So other than that... It's a gorgeous day in Kona today. We've got a nice breeze and the vog's gone for now. The surf's up a bit, should be coming down for tomorrow's charter.

Later,

Steve

Sometimes, when you are checking out the underwater world.....

....The underwater world is checking you out too!