Heavy surf to start off the new year... water's cooling down too....

We've had heavy surf from the west/northwest the last 4 days or so. We've been able to get out and dive during the daytime, with most of the diving being limited to Pawai Bay/Old Airport area and the south Pine Trees dive sites.

We canceled our night dive on the 1st because we went up and checked out the bay off the Kona airport (home of the manta dive) that afternoon and there was basically 10 foot surf in shallow and little viz out to about the 60-80 foot depth. We checked it again on the 2nd and it was much better, doable but still not real nice conditions. Today the surf is down a bit and I suspect other sites are opening up again. We've got the day off today but have bookings the next several days.

The water temp off Kona is 75, maybe even 74, depending on the computer you use. It could get pretty cold this winter if the lack of 81-83 degree temperatures this fall is any indication. It pretty much topped out at about 79 this fall.

This picture is a re-post of a picture I took earlier in the year. If you are getting about 2/3rds of the photo on your screen, just click on it for the whole picture... I've never tried linking a full sized picasa picture before. Some of the message boards have "your favorite picture of '08" threads, and that got me to thinking - I think this is mine, although I really like some of the squid shots I took earlier this year too.

Aloha,

Steve