DOGS vs. PIGS

About 10 am or so today, every dog in the neighborhood (but ours - she's pushing 14 and only gets out of bed for food, attention, walks and to bark at anyone who shows up) started going off and we were wondering what's up... then the boar started squealing... screaming like a banshee might be more appropriate.

We do have wild boar living around our place, but we usually only see them during mango season. In about another 2-4 months we'll see a bunch of them. Anyway there was one about, I heard a few grunts last night, there's enough avocado and other fruit around to keep the occasional boar happy.

Well, it sounded like maybe 4-5 of the neighborhood dogs had cornered one. A cornered pig can get quite loud, I hadn't heard this much noise in the neighborhood since the next door neighbor's landlord had a surfer guy with an M-16 come to their place and pick a few off (that's a story I'd rather not get into). I heard at least one of the dogs yelp in pain, hopefully it didn't get nailed too bad. The whole event lasted around 5 minutes and then evidently the pig got away or won the intimidation battle.

I haven't updated in several days. I took the boat out of service this last week because there's something going on in the U-joints and bearings between the engine and the lower unit and I'd rather not kill either of those, so we're getiing this fixed. My regular guy isn't available 'til April. One of the wierd things is that decent mechanics are few and far between here, so they stay busy. I lined up a mobile boat mechanic who lives just down the road from me who has a good rep with some people I know and trust, he hopefully will be able to get into it tomorrow and I really hope to have it back in the water by next weekend. In the meanwhile I keep turning away charters, that's no fun. I don't have one pre-scheduled 'til the 24th so I can play it day by day 'til then if I have to, but I'm gettting lots of people calling when they arrive these days and I hate to be sending them elsewhere.

I haven't been totally dry though. I started a class with someone who lives here, they can do the dives when the boat is back. I also did a dive the other afternoon just to get wet. Here's a better picture of a Bandit Angel (Desomholocanthus Arcuatus - last I heard, it keeps getting reclassified, it was Holocanthus Arcuatus). We keep seeing more of these guys. They are Hawaii's only large species of angelfish.

Later,

Steve