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

Ewa Fang Blenny !!!!

I managed to capture a decent shot of one of these fish the other week. They're tough to get a good shot of because they are free swimming and dart around. When frightened they'll dive down and back into a hole, sometimes you can get a shot of their head while looking out of a worm hole or sponge.

The Ewa Fang Blenny (Plagiotremus ewaensis) is one of the blennies that seems to mimic the cleaner wrasses. The have similar coloration as the juvenile Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides phthirophagus) and swim in the same fish enticing motion as the cleaner wrasses, however when a larger fish presents itself for a cleaning, they take a bite of scale, gill, skin or mucus. The fish don't seem to like that. I did see a Parrotfish chase one about 30 feet one time after the blenny took a nip of it's gill.

We've had some cold clear nights here lately. It managed to get down into the upper 50's a couple of times at our place. The surf is finally down... big surf for a whole week this time, that's not common. I feel sorry for anyone coming over specifically to dive this last week. Most everyone cancelled all week, and I personally wouldn't have wanted to dive Monday through Friday of this week. I had a buddy who dove Sunday of last week, before it got bad, who said they had fairly heavy surge at 80' that day. They're expecting surf again later this week, but not as big as the last go around.

Later,

Steve