We were skunked on the manta dive the other night...

It was a fun dive, but alas no mantas a few nights back. As much as we'd like to, we can't guarantee mother nature.

Bob sent me a couple of pics from the other week of a good sized frogfish he found on a dive. This guy's still got a fair amount of yellow in it despite pushing 7-8 inches in length. Bob reduced the size of the photo for email to send it to me, by the time I reworked it for my blog posts the resolution leaves a bit to be desired, but you still get the drift of what the fish looks like. They're neat looking critters.

Aloha,

Steve

Been busy....

Aloha,

I've been reasonably busy with Wanna Dive the last little bit, so I havn't been posting as much. I've been doing more of the diving the last while, which has been very fun.

Today we had a couple of very nice dives, lots to look at and pretty reasonable conditions, although the last little while the water temp has cooled off a hair (I'm seeing 73-75 on my computer). We had several nudibranchs, banded coral and ghost shrimps, a male psychedelic wrasse and it's harem of females, a pair of flame angels (in a spot there was only one last year... dating is alive and well in the reef world), several eels and other neat animals.

Here's a baitball of opelu we saw today. It was a pretty thick swarm of opelu. Fishermen catch them for use as bait for larger fish or for smoking, they're a popular snack item when smoked.

I'll try to post a bit more frequently (I'm five or six photos ahead right now so even if the post is worthless there'll be an OK picture).

Later,

Steve

First Aloha Airlines shuts down, now ATA does the same....

Hawaii has just lost roughly 15 percent of it's mainland arrivals in the last few days... that's pretty big news here.

I've already had to juggle my schedule next week to accomodate divers who were delayed a couple days trying to get here, may lose a charter or two out of it. I currently have customers who are diving with me who just found out today (from Cathy and I) they might not have a way home set up at this point... the ATA flights are going to be tough to replace right away. Apparently Hawaiian is trying to add what flights they can, but they can only do so much.

It'll be curious to see how this all shakes out. It was very quiet at the harbor today, several of the boats I see regularly at the boat ramp and boat wash at the end of the day weren't on the water today. I know at least one of them had to cancel today's charter as they're customers were caught up in the closings.

Interesting times, so far other than a little schedule juggling I'm not feeling the sting too much.

The underwater photo above is of a divided flatworm that Pat took on a dive a couple weeks back. I'm back to diving regularly again and I'll have the camera in hand when I'm not teaching, hopefully something interesting will happen by (I generally don't actively shoot when I'm leading dives, maybe a few shots a dive if any, most of my shots come on my day off or if I take a "Captain's dive" during the surface interval) that I can capture on the camera.

We're very busy 'til about the 17th or so, I'll post when I can.

Aloha,

Steve

Scuba diving at the Place of Refuge in Kona Hawaii

Scuba diving off Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

Here's a quickie underwater video of part of the drop off at the Place of Refuge taken with my Canon G9.

Adios Aloha. Aloha Airlines just announced tomorrow (March 31st) will be thier last day.

It's the end of an era of over 60 years. It'll be curious as to how this all shakes out. The State will ask the bankruptcy court to not allow the closure but that may not have any effect. Expect another airline to come in and purchase what remains of the company in a short time... hopefully.

Aloha and Hawaiian had attempted to merger a few years back to attempt to create a larger, healthy company. The state wouldn't allow it despite pricing lock guarantees. When that fell through prices went up and the two companies have been struggling to do well since. Go Airlines came in a couple years ago and has offered artificially low prices which has weakened both companies. While benefitting passengers for the short term, it's made it tough for everyone to operate. Both companies have sued Mesa, the parent company of Go. Hawaiian won thier suit and was awarded 80 million, Aloha's suit is ongoing.

Hopefully someone steps in soon to service the interisland traffic or things could get dicey for a number of businesses, as well as travelers, here. Custmers who have purchased tickets should contact their travel agencies or credit card companies. Those who paid for their tickets by cash or check will need to deal with the bankruptcy court.

later,

Steve

Did a three tank dive trip today...

Today we did a three tank dive trip up north. We did Kua Bay and Makalawena dives along with a dive closer in to town. Kua Bay is a very nice dive, especially when you've done all the closer in dives. Makalawena is an exceptional dive (I don't want to describe it 'til I dive it... let's just today's divers said there were about 10 swimthrough archways within 100 feet of the boat) we'll probably start doing more often as the weather and swell conditions improve. I'd heard about the Makalawena dive but had never actually done it. Today's group was a bunch that had dove with Bob over the years so he did the diving, but I managed to snorkel the site and could tell it's really quite something. It's a bit of a haul up there so I'm trying to figure out how to work it charge-wise since I often just go out with two or three divers and that trip would make a break even charter into a money loser between fuel and extra time.

Speaking of pricing... just a note to anyone who's thinking about booking, I'm probably going to have to sit down and open my web page program and bump prices a bit in the next month. I'll honor all pre-existing prices on bookings, so if you are thinkiing about setting somethin up for later in the year, you might want to just book before the prices creep upward.

The pic above is of a Zooanthid colony that Pat took a couple of weeks back. This particular colony is absolutely HUGE, maybe 25-30 feet or more long, usually we see only small clusters of them if we see them at all as they aren't all that common.

I'm busy the next couple of days, so I'll probably post again on the weekend.

Aloha,

Steve

3 whales sighted underwater by our divers today....

Man I wish I was leading that dive. I was up on the boat and just as my divers went down a few whales went by. They (the whales, the divers had no idea what was coming) turned themselves around and passed outside of the divers as the divers hit the edge of the reef at "Hoover's" then turned around again and headed directly to the divers. A female and her calf went directly overhead while an escort whale passed about 50 feet outside of Cathy and the group.

All were thrilled. 2000 or so dives here and I've yet to see a whale underwater, bummer.

Anyway, it was a good day of diving. The whales were definitely the highlights, but Cathy also found a yellow frogfish she's been watching grow over the last month or two... and at the end of our second dive (at an undisclosed location) she came up and said she needed to borrow the camera again. This is what she found..... Despite not being familiar with my camera, and also in a pretty strong surge, she was able to get these shots of a Reticulated Frogfish (Antennatus tuberosus). These little guys aren't found all that often. There was one for a while at a popular dive site right outside of Honokohau Harbor a year or two back and hopefully this one will stick around for a while if it's left alone. I'm hoping to get some more pictures of this guy when the water settles down (it was a bit bumpy today later on). Here's another shot of the frogfish that shows it's entire body. These critters tend to hide deep within coral heads (they're not that big) so they aren't seen often.
In the top photo the frogfish is looking to the right - you can see it's eye and mouth pretty clearly. In the lower photo it's looking to the left, the eye and mouth are tougher to make out.

Later,

Steve

Hawaii volcano update....

This is a Potter's Angelfish (Centropyge Potteri), one of the dwarf angelfish species we have. They're a tough one to get a shot of because they dart into the coral as soon as you get reasonably close to them.

The volcano has been particularly active the last couple of weeks, first spewing great amounts, several times the usual, of sulfur dioxide into the air, then having it's first explosive event, along with large amounts of ash now, since the 1920's. No major danger yet, although they've considered evacuating nearby communities due to toxic gasses. All of the sulfur dioxide has brought tremendous amounts of VOG (volcanic fog) to the Kona side the last 8-10 days or so, although it was a hair less thick today and yesterday in comparison to earlier.