Very enjoyable diving in Kona today

As I said yesterday, we had a charter with a nice couple today. I dove the first dive, we dove right outside Honokohau Harbor at manta ray bay/eagle ray bay/naia bay (the name basically depends on what you saw last and who you work for). Whales were singing the entire dive. It's really cool being able to listen to them while you dive. This was my first dive this year I heard them the entire dive. They weren't real loud so they were likely some distance off. The Captain was watching for whales up top but apparently saw none. We saw all the usual stuff at this dive site, which is a very fishy site. Pat (my wife) joined the group for the dive and did see a Curious Wormfish (Gunnellichthys curiosus), I wish I'd noticed, we don't see them all that often. They are often confused for the ewa blenny or scale eating blenny (pretends to be a cleaner wrasse, then eats the scales of their mistaken victim).

We did Pawai Bay for the second dive. I Captained the boat for that one and saw 5 whales pass by, funny thing, they didn't really hear much in the way of whale songs during that dive.

Today the water was flat, temperature was 75 (by my computer, Pat says her's said 73, all's I know is it's down about 6 degrees sicne early December). There weren't a whole lot of dive boats out on the water today. We're in the middle of our post-holiday slow spell so not everyone's going out every day....Spring break's coming though and everyone will be hitting the water most every day.

Here's one of my favorite eel photos I took a couple years back. This is a nearly full sized Dwarf Moray eel (Gymnothorax melatremus). These guys max out about the size of a pencil. To give you an idea of size, the rock boring urchins are usually smaller than a golf ball. When I find them, their heads are usually poking out of a crack in a rock wall. They're typically very shy and will cower back inside their holes if you look at them too closely, sometimes they'll stay put though.

Aloha,

Steve