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

No diving tomorrow for many, maybe most, dive companies in Kona... Ironman is happening...

One of these days I'm going to have to get downtown for all of the Ironman festivities. Before my wife Pat and I moved here we came out for a vacation and it happened to be Ironman week. It's fun... lots of good energy. I still am impressed with seeing Alii Drive lined with spectators, many with contestant listings and looking up numbers as people approach and then yelling encouragement... "way to go Mark" ... and such, using the racers names. It's a neat event. Since I've moved here though I tend to stay away or spend the day watching college football to avoid the crowds.

Yesterday, well I guess it was the day before yesterday now due to the late hour, I was heading off to a charter and realized if I had started into town just 10 minutes earlier I could have caught one event I haven't witnessed as of yet - the Kona underpants race. It's more of a parade than anything, there's no winner and they're not going very fast. It started several years ago when a couple of the racers were offended seeing other racers and others walking around town (grocery stores, restaurants, etc) in banana hammocks (Speedos, for those who are not familiar with the term) and decided to get a group of racers together to walk a portion of downtown Kailua in their tighty whiteys in protest. It's turned into a sizable event now, I think they had over 400 co-ed participants yesterday morning. It's become an event that raises money for local charities. I think they hold it the Thursday before the main event at 8am, at least that's when it was this year.

Not sure if I mentioned this, but my camera gave up the ghost a week or two ago. I'm now going through my old stuff and either finding pics I've missed, or altering (hopefully for the better) pics I've posted before for a little while 'til I figure out what I'm going to do about a camera.

Our local Costco just started printing posters up to 30X20 inches on a new large format inkjet printer they picked up, so I've been having some fun going through my photos and finding some I can blow up and hang on my walls in the new office/shop. I'm thinking I posted the original of this pic earlier. If I did, it had most of the original background in it... rocks, backscatter, some guy's fins, etc. I spent a little while (call it a couple hours at least) after the charter tonight in Photoshop cloning out all the extraneous stuff so I'd have a pic I wanted to hang on the wall (now I only wish every squid was in focus). I'm happy with the way it turned out for now, at least 'til I see it blown up.

I'm up late tonight... dove the manta night dive and I usually can't sleep afterward. I got involved with the squid pic and couldn't stop. It's 2:30 am and I probably should crash, although since they're basically shutting down the highway to the harbor tomorrow I have nowhere I have to be early on.

Later,

Steve

Ironman triathlon in Kona Hawaii is this weekend, October 11th...

It's a fairly busy week here in Kona... Ironman is this Saturday. Ironman is likely the world's most famous triathlon event, held here annually for almost three decades. I can still remember the big worldwide showing of the '82 Ironman on television where the woman who was leading collapsed just short of the finish line and was passed after what seemed like minutes of crawling (she eventually made it) which turned into a huge PR boon for the event.

The only time I've gone downtown to see the finish of the race was back when I was here on vacation over a decade ago.. lots of good energy... I was really impressed that there were people in the miles before the finish line looking at contestant's numbers on their shirts with binoculars, then looking up the names and cheering them on by name as they passed to finish the last miles of the race... pretty cool. Being the slow season in October, we're sometimes out of town that weekend, most of the times I've been here I've just avoided the traffic and stayed home. The town pretty much shuts down, at least the north end of it outside of downtown, that day. I'm debating between heading downtown for some good energy or just watching college football for the day and avoiding the crowds.

We've been having fun on our charters this week. We had our newly certified students on board yesterday and did a one way drift north of Hoover's (the northern most mooring off the Kona airport) that I led... I love that dive... lots of pinnacles, saw a flame angel, a big spiny lobster in a hole, a very cool Reticulated Frogfish (which I'll post a pic of on my next post) in a coral head, and DOLPHINS UNDERWATER ON THE DIVE!!!! Yes, I have a very few seconds of that on video to be posted later...

Here's a photo of a Zebra Moray (Gymnomuraena zebra) that we came across on that dive.

later,