Whew, busy, here's a quick underwater photo to tide you over while I'm not posting much...

Here's an adult male Spotted Boxfish (Ostracion meleagris). I've got a lull coming up in a few days, I'll put in an extra post or two then.

Aloha,

Steve

My last grasp at youth....

I should've taken my camera to the hair salon for today's photo...

So a couple months back I was feeling kind of crummy, I'd put on nearly 30 pounds in the last year and a half and was sitting at 240 lbs, torn the hamstring, was having the blood pressure creep up and was having heel problems and feeling old in general. About early March I realized it's going to be a long summer if I don't do something about it, so it's on with the shoes full time, more excercise, dietary restraint and seeing the doc for a change in BP meds. I figured I need to be down to around 220 by mid-June when biz picks up... well I've already done that, down to 216 this morning and I figure I might as well get down to 210 or under in the next month... Kinda stoked, don't notice the hamstring anymore, the heels are much better, the BP is in the range where it should be and I'm thinking maybe I can get down to around 185/190 (which I haven't been since I was 27 or 28) by the time I'm 50 this fall, then I can shave off my largely white beard, put on the contacts and maybe pass for 35/40 again...

...then I went and had a haircut today....

AAAAAaaaaaaggggghhhh (and I don't mean in an excited Howard Dean kinda way) Where'd all that gray come from? I'm looking at the clippings on the smock and practically half the hairs are white, substantially more white hairs in the clippings this time than in previous cuts. Guess I'll have to let my hair grow out long for my 50th, when it gets long the remaining brown bleaches out from the sun and you can't see the gray (at least at this point). It still blends in OK now but it definitely shows when it's short.

My wife is quite tickled that I'm getting gray.

Oh well, it is what it is, can't change the hair but I can still keep working on the other stuff and get myself in a more youthful condition.

Here's a shot of a male Whitley's Boxfish (Ostracion whitleyi) that Pat (the wife that is so tickled that I'm going gray) took a week or two back. They're rarely seen here. I've got some pictures posted earlier but they aren't as nice as this one.

Aloha,

Steve

So here's the male Whitley's Boxfish (Ostracion whitleyi) I've been talking about

I'd mentioned earlier that we found a male Whitley's Boxfish last week. My flash has died on the camera, while this guy was very cooperative, it was kind of dark so the blue really doesn't stand out. It's a dark navy color. Back in my aquarium shop days I'd seen a few of them over time, ranging anywhere from a power baby blue to a metalic blue. This guy is dark, not sure if that's a Hawaii thing or if it's just him.


If you look back a couple of posts you will see our more common male Blue Boxfish. The females of the common blue are basically dark brown with white spots. The female Whitleys are more ornate with white on the side, but still basically brown, check out the archives as I have posted a pic of a female Whitley's at least once or twice.

I was so excited that my customer found this little guy, as it's among our rarest finds. Check out the belly, cool!!

Aloha,

Steve

Ostracion Meleagris - Blue Boxfish....

This is a picture of a male Blue Boxfish I took last month before my flash died on the camera. The blue really pops out on this one.

It was a gorgeous day today. We've had a fair amount of rain the last couple weeks, but it's been dry today.

The manta dive has been hopping... we had 10 last night and Bob and my friend, who's boat I'm using, are out on another charter tonight with another group. Our little stretch of charters is done for a few days after tonight and then it get's busy again.

OK... Whohoo!! On the charter two days ago we went to a site where we had a fish that is among our more rare fish here in Kona - the cousin of the Blue Boxfish, the Whitley's Boxfish. We actually see the females of this particular species with good frequency, but the males are very infrequent. I've seen one maybe 5 times, Bob's seen one in Kona maybe once or twice (we've both seen dragon morays more than male Whitley's). So I briefed it and described it and one of my customers actually found it on the site!!!! I didn't have enough time to wait for it to get into a good lighting situation (remember, my flash died) but I did manage to snap a couple shots that at least showed up. I'll post pictures of it a post or two from now.

Speaking of rare fish!! Tonight's charter was sort of a divided charter, we did the first dive with a couple of divers, and then met another group who was going to dive on the night dive. On the first dive, Bob found a Hawaiian Morwong. It's the first one he's ever seen here, I've yet to see one. I'm hopeful I can see it and get a shot at some time.

later,

Steve

Is scuba diving excercise?

This is a topic that comes up in the scuba message boards on occasion. Judging by the fact that I tend to get winded just walking back to the house from my mailbox, I somehow doubt it's a heck of a lot of excercise anyway - in my defense though, it is a bit of a hike and almost a hundred foot elevation change from my mailbox.

So today I took a walk part way down the trail to the Captain Cook Monument at Kealakekua Bay. I haven't done the entire trail in about 4-5 years. I had a friend who's done it a couple of times with me over the years, the first time he about died, so he went home and put something like 5000 miles on his bicycle and came back and totally whooped tail on the trail. He wasn't even breathing hard, while I (all 250 pounds of me at the time, I'm about 25-30 lbs lighter these days) had enough difficulties that he had to take an embarrassing commemorative video. Today I walked down to what he referred to as the "hugging tree" on his first trip - the hugging tree is apparently where you stop and hug the tree for 10 minutes because you are afraid you will collapse and not be able to get back up again. It's maybe half way down the trail. I handled the top half of the trail just fine, it's the bottom half that's a ton of work, but it got me thinking about diving and excercise. My goal is to be able to do the whole hill (1300' elevation change over 3 miles) again without huffing much.

Back to scuba being excercise or not. My guess is that for a lot of people, it can be at first. Once you get used to it though, at least in the type of diving we do here, it sort of becomes controlled floating and there's very little exertion. The only real exertion is getting into your wetsuit (man that can be surprisingly tough sometimes, especially on a hot sunny day) and getting to the water if you are shorediving. Shorediving can be some work, my ankles are definitely stonger than they used to be from climbing over rocks and such with gear on, but the actual diving, especially now that I'm primarily diving off a boat, isn't much work. I think there is some tendancy to burn calories just trying to stay warm, but the cardio end of it is minimal.

As you might be able to tell, I'm starting to realize I'm getting older... hence the walking. Pat had her birthday yesterday and we went out to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse up at the new shops at the Mauna Launi... Here's the brief review...Nice restaurant, a fabulous chili lime calimari appetizer and good pear martinis were offered on their specials for the evening, and the filets were really good. I had the "cowboy cut" ribeye, it was nothing special for me, I prefer the ribeyes off the grill at home. Service was great, the meal was pricey but in line for the resort area up north. All in all, pretty good but not at the top of my list for Kona/Kohala.

Now that I've rambled on for a while, the real reason I wanted to post this is because I took a semi-reasonable shot of a Spotted Boxfish (Ostracion meleagris) male. Commonly called Blue Boxfish, the males are a gorgeous blue with spots on the back while the females and juveniles are a dark brown with spots all over. This fish is not to be confused with a Whitley's Boxfish, that I'm still hoping to see some day with camera in hand.

Aloha,

Steve