Tinker's Butterfly from today's scuba dive in Kona

OK, so we saw Tinker's today again at about 120'. It was sunnier, but still too deep to get a picture that really does them justice on available light. This will probably be about as good as I can do 'til I get a strobe. The gold color on these guys really pops when lit up.

The swell started to drop today and is should be very nice tomorrow along the whole west side... right before the next one hits. We'll be getting at some of the spots we haven't been able to do the last few days.

Aloha,

Steve

Continuing Kona Hawaii adventures

We had a couple of nice dives today. On the first dive Bandit Angels and 2 or 3 (depends on who you listen to) Flame Angels were seen, as well as several other interesting critters. On the second dive we did a one way dive from the mooring off Kaloko ponds to the north. This is a dive I've actually never completely done so some of it was new for me, lots of reef on a slight slope. Lots of the typical reef critters, we did see a group of female or younger Psychedelic Wrasses, but no adult male.

Between dives we went out to see to see if any whales were around. One of the whale/dolphin charters had found a large pod of Pilot whales and soon there were several boats watching. There were certainly several dozens of them (the whales) and very well could have been a hundred or more. Here's a pic of Pilot whales.

Cowabunga!!!

Big surf again today. We were still able to see lots of critters. Flame angels, tinker's butterfly (I want better pics, but I still may post one I took just to give you an idea of how cool this fish is) and a bunch of other goodies. I dove the second dive and we dropped down to look for the Tinkers. 2 of them right where they were supposed to be. These guys are so curious it's tough to keep 'em away from you when you find them. Viz on the second dive was quite good (60-70' on the flats and 120+ over the edge), despite heavy surf pounding most areas. We were around a point at Sharkfin Rock. Water's still running 78/79 degrees so far. We ending up cancelling the night dive. The manta location was getting pounded bigtime and there was NO viz at the site when I checked it between dives. I gave the group a choice of cancelling of just doing a "normal" night dive at the spot that's been clear for diving so far during the swell, they passed as they'd been diving that spot during the day and didn't feel like repeating.

Here's a fairly old looking eel from today's dive.

Steve

Mele Kalikimaka to all!! A Kona Christmas dive.

Hi there,

I had a dive charter today, it's a nice way to spend your Christmas day when your spouse has to work. I've got some customers from last year who are in for a week of diving. I've got several others, new and old, coming in in the next few days too, at least 9 charters going out in the next 7 days. I will be pretty darned busy for a bit.

We still have a pretty decent swell, but there was no windchop so the water was smooth and most all the dive sites were open with decent viz. Still running 78-79 on the water temperatures.

The first dive was off a site called "High Rock", which is as you may guess, a rock which goes from about 40' to near the surface. Our second dive was at a site known locally as "Freeze Face" which has a cave with a lot of fresh water pouring out. I led the second dive.

Here's a couple of Bluefin Trevally from today's dive. We see them quite often in Kona as they like to patrol the top of the dropoffs (which Kona has at most divesites) for prey.

Aloha,

Steve

Kona Brewing Company....

Just thought I'd talk about one of our more trendy/touristy/unique restaurants here in Kona. Kona Brewing Company, aka the Brew Pub locally, was started shortly before I arrived here in '99. It apparently was started by the guy who owns Kettle Chips. Serving very good pizza, sandwiches and salads and such it is also a very good microbrewry, serving several types of beer brewed on the premises. Several of their beers have been award winners. Their Porter (along with other beers they've made)- which both Pat and I are fond of, has placed highly in the Porter category at the Great American Beer Festival.

It seems to be somewhat of a diver's hangout around afternoon happy hour time. I don't get in there all that often, maybe once or twice a month, but dropped in with my DM today and immediately ran into several divers I've worked with or known over the years. I stopped in today as I had to cancel the night dive... surf was getting downright big during our second dive today, we felt the surge down to about 40' at a site I haven't really noticed surge at even on higer surf days.

The first dive we did was off Keahole Point, at a divesite called "Pipedream", the westernmost point of the Big Island. It's a great dive, with lots of pipes, chains and stuff from deep water pumping operations (long story, come visit me on the boat and I'll tell it to you). The DM saw several ulua (Jacks) and a couple whitetip reef sharks down at the big pipe the site is named after. I did the second dive off of Kaloko, an area of canyons and arches which are remnants of collapsed lava tubes.

Both my wife and I have tomorrow off, but we get to work on Christmas day - Yahoo. Actually, I get the better end of this deal as she has a real job.

Here's my tee shirt... It's the absolute rage in Kona fashion wear... Not quite, but it's pretty OK for the basic dive operator tee shirt.

Aloha,

Steve

Went to King Kong last night.

Nope, this isn't Kong, just a Kona moray eel. Yellow margin morays are among the most common morays we see here.

Kong was quite a movie. I liked the fact that they kept it in the time frame of the original as opposed to trying to update it to current times. Great effects and tons of action. I'd read the early portions were slow moving, but Pat and I didn't find the movie to move slow or be boring at any point.

I went out for a two tank charter today. We've had a big swell the last couple of days and we had to time it coming out of the harbor once again. I played captain on the first dive, at Sharkfin rock. My DM said viz was approaching 150'. We did the second dive a Pawai bay and I'd put the viz in the 80-90 foot range at least. It was very flat in the bay as it is blocked from the northwest swells by Kaiwi point. It's still running 79 degrees in the water... if this keeps up we could be in for a fairly warm winter season.

I've got a 5 passenger charter tomorrow, 2 full charters on Friday (day and night, no real time off between) , Saturday off (so far), dive on Christmas and then run charters straight on through the 1st at least. It looks to be busy for a bit here.

Take care,

Steve

Here's a nudi photo

This is a fried egg nudibranch from today's dive. Nudibranchs are basically a sea slug without a shell. Nudibranch means "naked gill", many will have a feathery gill structure. Some of the other types I've posted or will post will show those.

It's a gorgeous sunny day in Kona today. We've got Kona (from the west) winds today which has blown off all all the clouds we usually have on Hualalai and Mauna Loa. The swell was up so we had to time going out of the harbor, but we were able to find a couple of different dive sites with 80'+ viz.

Have a great day!

Steve

Quizno's is open - Kona's hitting the bigtime.

I went' to Quizno's yesterday for their first day open in the midst of lots of errands. Kona's grown since I moved here in very early '99.... Home Depot, Lowes, Jamba Juice, Bubba Gump's, Hard Rock, Outback are the notable chains that have appeared in that time that I can think of. Already had a Walmart, Safeway and a Costco, but otherwise not a whole lot of major chains other than McDonalds, Taco Bell, Starbuck's, Subway and the like. Kona's growing, but we still have a single 2 lane road which acts as THE highway for the entire west side of the island - we're still small by mainland standards, but at least we have a traffic problem.

We had a manta ray for the night dive the other night. It was a full moon and there was plenty of plankton, but just the one manta. Some say the full moon affects whether the mantas show, but just when you think there's a pattern, there will be a dozen on a full moon.

We had a two tanker go out this morning. Oahu had a huge west swell yesterday and I was worried it might affect us. It did wipe out the diving at several of our dive sites, but there was still good diving to be had off the Pine Trees area at Lone Tree Arch, Skull Cave/Suck 'em Up and that area. We probably had 70'+ viz for the day. I was with a student and saw a whitetip shark, octopus, a few different nudibranchs and such. The other group did see a Hawaiian Stingray. I've yet to see one in 6 years of diving/working here, they're rarely seen. We've got a private charter going out tomorrow, hopefully we've seen the heaviest of our surf. It's a group that went out with me last 2 years and it was a rough water day the last time.

Here's another angle on the frogfish. It's tough shooting in available light, much of him was in the shadow. He moved a couple minutes later and faced into the light for the pic I posted earlier.

later,

Steve