The changing face of Wanna Dive....

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Wanna Dive started with me doing guided shore diving and instruction on the side while working for one of the larger companies here. By 2003 I was up to about half time doing my own thing and I decided to pick up the boat. Wow, what a learning experience... when I told my Oceanic rep (my rental gear at the time was from them) I was picking up a boat, he looked at me and said "ya know what BOAT stands for, bust out another thou". Boy was he right, in spades.

With very little actual boat business in '03 and '04 it's been a long slow growing experience. By 2005 I was starting to actually get a fair amount of boat business and it kept growing. In 2007 we decided to take the boat out for 6-8 weeks (our boat guy said it wold be 3) to completly rebuild the boat and change it over from and inboard/outboard to just outboards. After going thorugh 3 chevy 350s and a couple of lower leg units in 4 years it was time to get to outboards... it ended up taking 5 months (that's a lot of downtime, I ended up using the boat of a friend that was starting their own dive biz at the time)... the rebuild and extension of the boat gave us lots more room, a better ride and a lot more reliability and has be completely worth it.

The change in the boat was huge for the business. A couple of summers ago I rented out an office in hopes of eventually turning it into a shop. Well, eventually came last month. Along with the new shop came a new hire (I may be hiring one more part timer this month as well). Talking to the new employee, I found that the spouse was a graphic artist. Well, I've never had an actual logo ever, a couple of ideas but no real talent to do it myself. It was time. I just got the disk, so, I'd like to introduce our new logo we'll be using with printed materials.

Later

Steve

There's a new dive shop/scuba center coming to Kona Hawaii.....

Aloha,

Well it looks as though I'm finally going to be able to get the retail side of Wanna Dive open soon. For a bit over a year I've had a space and set it up as an office and gear storage, along with a few shirts masks and a few scuba do-dads to sell on the side. It's looked like a dive shop is coming for quite some time... well, the time is getting to be oh so much nearer now.

During that time I've had lots of people ask why I'm not manning the shop, well unfortunately you need to have lots of product to sell to really justify spending a few thousand a month manning the shop, and I can't be in the shop and on the boat at the same time. It hasn't been in the cards just yet. This last November I went to DEMA, the big industry show, with the intent to find some lines for the shop and order it in.

Over the course of December and January the gear's been coming in. I was crazy busy with charters in December and the first 8-9 days of January, since then (unfortunately with the help of the arrival of scuba unfriendly surf) I've had some spare time to where I could spend time in the "shop" and get it put together. Along with the product, I've been bringing in extra fixtures, shelving, racks and such and have been setting it all up and getting the gear on the walls.

It's not yet where it will be down the line, but it's to where I can show it off and say the store's coming soon. This next week I place my help wanted ad. I'm hoping to be able to open the shop up full time come about 3 weeks from now so we'll be in the swing of things before the spring break rush hits. The February dive charter schedule is starting to shape up nicely, so I'm not sure how often we'll be around 'til the day I officially open (whenever that is) - once that happens it'll be 7 days a week, except major holidays, Ironman day (the highway out front is closed that day)... and maybe Superbowl Sunday.

We're located at 74-5035 Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway ste 1-b. It's super easy to find... it's across the Highway from Honokohau harbor, right next to the Tesoro gas station.

Later,

Steve

Manta ray scuba diving in Kona Hawaii with Wanna Dive...

Manta rays visit scuba divers in Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.

Here's a short video of mantas from last year that I took with my Canon G9 on a manta ray night dive. There were 4-5 that particular night. Last night we had only a few boats on the site, fewer divers than when this video clip was taken, but there were LOTS of manta rays. Bob said there were at least 15 when he came up, later on during cleaning up the boat a videographer came by and said they'd watched the tape and could name (the mantas have individual markings) 21 in the tape.... so imagine this times 4 or 5 and you've got an idea of what it might be like last night for the better part of an hour.

Very cool night.

Speaking of cool nights... it's cooling down here in Kona district. When I got up this morning it was 64.....Brrrrrrr... for here (I live at 900 feet down in the Captain Cook area, we're typically a bit cooler than down in Kailua. December hasn't even hit. Part of the reason we're having cool nights is there's very little moisture in the air for here, it's dry and sunny during the days and then cooling off well at night without the cloud cover we usually build. Water temps have cooled down as well. Bob had 76 on the computer throughout the dive today.

Aloha,

Steve

Long day ahead tomorrow....

We've got a morning charter and then the night charter coming up tomorrow. I was told by a friend from another company the final count for manta rays on the night dive on Friday was 16 - Hopefully that'll keep up for a while.

Today was another internet battle. I've been working a bit on the website since we migrated over to our new web address and I tried to upload the new information and couldn't manage to get it done. When I talked to the tech support, they tried a few things and managed to crash the site. Took all day to get it all working again. I gotta hand it to Fatcow (my new webhost) though, the tech support is quick to respond (their "heiffercratic oath" swears they'll respond in 2 minutes, although I think it might have been 3 minutes on one call I made) and it's here in the USA so there aren't any language barriers.

Google's indexed my new website address and it's starting to make the slow climb back to the first page. As people stumble across my "de-hyphenated" address in the web search results and spend time on the website it'll climb up in position. I'm hoping the old results go away on their own fast.

Here's a couple of divers checking out a school of Raccoon Butterfly Fish (Chaetodon lunula). We have a couple of spots where we have good sized groups of these that haven't moved from their home base coral head or rock in the ten years I've been diving here.

Wanna Dive Kona has a new web address... www.wannadivekona.com

Well, I've been spending the last couple of days frantically trying to get things updated to my new website URL. My webhost of nine years finally had a technician contact me and he informed my that my site was hacked by a pornographer from Turkey and they had to suspend the site. I said well that's all fine, give me some server space for the remaining time of my contract and we can talk about an extension in May.... Oh no, we can't do that, you have to sign up for a 3-5 year contract before we can give you any server space. I know in the past when they've dumped a server it's only taken a day or less to get a new one up and running and all the sites transferred. The last time my renewal was about a half year out they had a different excuse for needing to upgrade my account to a long term deal.... apparently it's the way they do business.

I'm done with them. Avoid Gisol.com at all costs if you're ever looking for a web host.

So here's the new address again- http://www.wannadivekona.com I hate even making this post, but the way the internet works, my site probably won't show up 'til it gets enough links, and the blog is actually a semi-quality linking source. If anyone out there is akamai and sympatico about the ways of search engine optimization and feels like linking to my new address, I appreciate it and give thanks in advance. This will be my last blatant post about the URL move, gotta do it though... Sorry.

Here's a pic stolen (by me) from a cool blog I came across... www.upsidedowndogs.com That's a neat idea for a blog. My guess is whoever started that had to only take a very few pictures, the rest are all sent in.

Later,

Steve

Wanna Dive's "NEW" dive boat is coming along.

If you've been following me, you know I've had the boat in for some major work. People who've dove with me lately know I've been wanting something different....so we've been rebuilding the boat essentially from the ground up.

Well, the old inboard engine's out, and the 30 inch hull extension is essentially done. It looks as though I will end up with two swim platforms with two ladders towards the outside with the outboards off the center of the transom. They've started working on the inside today.. new bench seating with both dry and open storage, additional tank storage below floor in the existing fish hold, the engine box will be a thing of the past with additional light weight gear storage below floor level where the old engine was, we're looking at additional shelving in the cabin (leaving room for the dreaded porta potti - few small operators have one, nobody wants one - the goal is to never have it used). The goal is to up our storage as much as possible (but please, please don't bring extra stuff just because we have extra storage) we're trying to trick the boat out for diving and make it very comfortable for everyone. The engines supposedly were at the dock today, the stereo has arrived (hey, if you are renting the whole boat, bring your ipod and plug it in), the interior lighting should be showing up soon, the new breaker box and power inverter are in, the new vinyl lettering has come in... and after it's all done a new paint job... It's essentially going to be a very nice new boat.

Here's the latest info on Kileuea Volcano closures. The local news said geologists (like the french gal on the last post) say this the the most dramatic activity at the volcano in over a decade. There is apparently no actual flow, but the floor in the Pu'u O'o vent has dropped 40-50 meters (may have been ffet but I think they said meters) in the last few days. They said it may be weeks or months before the roads re-open.

Here's a whitetip reef shark from the other week.

Aloha,

Steve