Ironman's a coming this next weekend... October 9th... Kona will be busy for a couple of days...

I'm hanging out at the dive shop today and thought I'd post on the blog. We've had quite a bit of surf the last couple weeks, not overly huge, but coming from two directions (can happen around September/October and March/April with the changing seasons) making things a hair sloppier than normal, but it hasn't been too limiting as far as the diving goes... a few sites were too crummy to dive, but there's usually good options available.

I have the boat in to the mechanic for a repair for the first time in almost 3 years... bummer, but it's under warranty and this is the opportune time (if there's ever such a time) to be down for a few days. We picked up an exhaust leak so the engine needs to come apart and have some parts replaced. Hopefully it should be pretty much good as new once done, should be a 2-3 day fix. The fun of boat ownership. I got off cheap this time, warranty... yahoo. I talked with another dive company owner who just finished paying several tens of thousands worth of engine work a short while back. It's one of the hazards of the business.

This next weekend is Ironman. Kailua will be a bit busier than normal for fall this next week, but not crazy busy. It'll be pretty much business as usual, although the main tourist section downtown should be hopping for a week or so. I've never really seen a spike of business for Ironman, people are too busy doing other things than diving. I've had a couple of competitors dive 3-4 days after a big race from time to time, before the race they're too busy getting ready for the event. I may have to go hang out downtown for a couple hours the tail end of the week... lots of "good energy" in town around Ironman week. I'll close the shop for Saturday, they pretty much shut down the highway on the north end of town to the airport for the race so you'll find a lot of businesses off the highway in the area between Kaiwi street and the airport shut for the day.

Here's a photo of a Leopard Blenny. These guys are pretty cute, they're fairly tough to show to people and really tough to photograph because they dart into finger corals the moment you give them too long of a look. The new camera has a short enough lag time that I was able to get a shot off before it darted into a hole. This is the best shot of one of these guys I've ever managed to take so far. I still need to put in some time with the camera underwater, I've only had it wet a few times.

Later,

Steve