I'm such a meanie... I made Bob jump the same mooring twice...

Two days ago the water settled down and was very nice. We went up to a dive site called "sand chute" up by the Kona airport. Bob jumped the mooring and as he was climbing up the ladder I noticed a lot of ruckus going on about a half mile out on the surface. I told Bob I was sorry to do this, but I think we needed to unhook and check it out.

As we approached the spot we could see it was what I expected... a baitball! There was a circle of white foamy water and small fish about 10 inches high off the surface of the ocean with a bunch of shark fins swirling through it.


We parked right next to it and you could see fish jumping and probably 6-8 five to six foot long sharks swimming through it. The sharks were probably Galapagos or Sandbar sharks, I'm not sure as I really don't know the difference right off hand.

Once our eyes adjusted to looking through the water, we could tell the mass of fish life was much larger than just the immediate foamy spot where the fish were jumping. It was all around us. After 8-10 minutes or so a dolphin watch operator pulled up about a hundred feet away and we could tell the whole area between us was quite busy. Looking down you could see tons of little 2-3 inch fish, with tons of 6-8 inch fish below them, which were being hit by tons of 12-15 inch fish below them and the occasional shark passing through.

I wish I had my camera, but then again I'm kinda glad I didn't as I would have had choices to make. I pretty much chickened out about going in to check it out... probably a good idea, but if I'd have had a camera and housing with me I might have been tempted to ease down the ladder with the camera. I know from experience with swimming with Ocenic Whitetip sharks years ago that it's not the most comfortable feeling (especially when you read up on how many deaths Oceanics are responsible for - apparently it's more than all other sharks combined) being in open water with predators and not being able to see in all directions at once. These weren't Oceanic Whitetips, but still I'm kinda conservative these days.

It was an exciting thing to watch for a few minutes before going back to sand chute for the dive.

Above is a shot of one of my favorite fish... a Yellowtail Coris Wrasse. These colorful guys change colors as they grow.

Hawaiian Flame Wrasse

Here's my first shot of a Flame Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus jordani) that has come out really at all. This is a male. They're tough to get a shot at as they tend to dart away at the last minute and you can't really get all that close to them. I took this one from probably 5-6 feet away and luckily I was shooting in RAW and could bump the exposure up enough after the fact to get a recognizable image... awfully dark otherwise.

They're endemic (live only in Hawaii) and pretty hard to spot, so not that many visitors are aware of them. You need to be able to tell the difference between them and a female pencil wrasse, and there's lots of pencil wrasses where these guys tend to hang out. The males can look spectacular when they are flashing and in full display. Take a look in the blog's sidebar at the Amazon ad for "Hawaii's fishes"... a male in full display is on the cover of that book. One of these days I may have to break out my strobe and see if I can get enough light on one to do it justice.

It's still quite flat, but brrrr is it cold for here in the water. Call it 71/72. I'm packing extra shorties on the boat for the next bit in case the divers aren't staying warm enough with their full suits... layering usually does the trick.

Yesterday's dives were fun. Cathy did a dive in Pawai Bay with our customers and the highlight of the dive was a couple of 8-10 foot hammerheads that joined in on the dive for a few moments..... WAY COOL! I did the second dive, off at Kaloko Canyons and while we didn't have any awesome shark action, we still saw some neat things. We pulled a double yesterday. Bob's under the weather for the next week or two it seems, so old friend Rich, an instructor and state research diver I've worked with off and on for several years, filled in for the evening dives. The manta dive was sort of strange... Rich saw 5 mantas on the evening dive, but the night dive was a bust for much of the dive 'til one showed up towards the end.

There were very few boats on the water yesterday morning. We only saw 4 other companies out and we were the only 6 pack boat that we noticed. Things ought to pick up for everyone the next couple of weeks with spring breaks... hopefully. Things are pretty slow in Hawaii in general. I heard rumors of 30-35% hotel occupancies the other day, not good.

Later,

Steve

OK, I don't normally post pictures/videos other than one's I'm sort of directly involved with... but. this one I really like....

This showed up on my google homepage and it's something I've talked about with customers from time to time over the last few years as it's something I read on the net back at least 3-5 years ago.

Watch the video first or I guess I'm giving it away... a few years back they started finding dogfish shark carcasses in the big display at the Seattle aquarium. Employees spent the night to see if they could figure out what was going on and a video showed up on the net, I'm thinking this is a re-edited version unless another public aquarium has had the same experience.

Back in the day when I dove off Newport, Oregon with my Instructor and his buddies, they'd come up talking about the octopus they'd found.... meanwhile, I saw nothing.... it was early in my diving days and I still had "tunnel vision" and more or less focused on what was directly in front of me. I remember one of them saying they found one they didn't even want to think about touching, that it might get too much of a hold on them. It appears these critters can be pretty darned strong.

later,

Steve

This last week was shark week for Wanna Dive in Kona I guess...

Aloha,

I wasn't actually on any of these dives as Bob was leading them at the time and I was Captain up topside, but this week Bob and his divers saw a tiger shark in the distance on one dive outside the harbor, a smallish whaleshark overhead on another dive at a spot long known as "outhouse" and occasionally mentioned as "thunder reef", and then topped it off yesterday with a 10-12 foot hammerhead at "golden arches". It was a good week for the shark fans. I lucked into my second tiger sighting ever just a few weeks back, but it's been a couple of years for me for both hammerheads and whalesharks.

The picture above isn't from the other day, it's of a whaleshark (I figure about a 26 foot long one) I saw on a dive at "sand chute" a few years ago. Nobody had time to get any pictures on this weeks sightings as they were gone in short order. Whalesharks can get HUGE, but are completely harmless as they eat plankton, although they can handle something sardine sized, and are basically filter feeders. Tigers and hammerheads are always a thrill to see. The tiger I saw a couple weeks ago was about as close as I'd care to have it (say 20-25 feet) but I've swam very close to a hammerhead (say 5' or so) before - they're gorgeous animals.

Later,

Steve

10-12 foot Tiger shark on today's dive in Kona Hawaii....

Sorry no pics, it was a training dive. I had a 12 year old on the dive and a tiger shark went near us. The student probably only saw the tail end of it as it was heading off, but I got a pretty good look at it from about 25 feet away... first good look at a tiger shark since I've been here. I've only seen a glimpse of one once before, in the first year I lived here.... new divers get all the luck, he isn't even certified yet (dive # two of the OW class) and he's seen a fish that most divers here dream of. Anyway, the shark paid no attention to us, it was swimming along the rocks near shore.

The water's nice and comfortably warm now, I saw 79/81 today on my computer. It took a while to warm up, but we're about where we usually are this time of year now.

Here's a shot of a Zebra Moray (Gymnomuraena zebra) I took back in '03 with my first digital camera. I may have posted it before, but I'm not going to look back through the archives tonight... I hate doing repeats, but I'll take a chance, I liked this photo quite a bit at the time I took it.

Later,

Steve

Water temp's climbing back up....78-79 the last few days.

I'd been out of the water for a couple of weeks and have dove the last three days. I should have known by the rain we've been seeing in the afternoon up mauka that the water temp has jumped upward, but I had to see my computer to be sure. I had 79 degrees on my dives the last three days.

I've been running charters on a friend's boat, mine's taken apart for the next few days. I can't wait to get it back, I've been turning away a fair amount of last minute business, and as it turns out, my frined is leaving town for a week and the boat won't be available. Right now the boat's up on stilts and the engine is out. I'm just waiting for my mechanic and the boat surveyor to get together and make sure we have a workable plan for extending the hull, then things really get moving on the boat.

We had some really nice dives the last few days. Sharks, turtles, spinner dolphins on the dive (the divers even got to see them jumping in and out of the water from beneath) and a bunch more neat things.

Here's a couple of Peacock Groupers (Cephalopholis argus) getting a cleaning by a cleaner wrasse. Called "roi" locally, these grouper were actually introduced by fish and wildlife back in '56-'58 or so back in the day they thought it was a neat idea to introduce non-native species. Now they are everywhere on most of our reefs.

Who needs men????

OK, so no news yet, but I was just looking over today's newsbits and saw this... Apparently they've pretty much proven Parthenogenisis in Sharks from a case in a Nebraska aquarium. There was apparently a suspected case in Detroit a couple years back also. Parthenogenisis means "who needs men" in latin... OK that's not true... but it essentially means "virgin birth" in greek apparently. No male is involved and is relatively common in the insect world, and has been seen in many species of creatures outside of mammals, this was the first known proven episode in sharks.

The photo above is of a Goldrim Surgeonfish (acanthurus nigircans). They are a neat fish which strongly resembles a Powder Blue Tang (acanthurus leucosternon) in a sort of night time pattern. They are not one of our more common tangs (a.k.a. surgeonfish), but we do see them from time to time. This is my most recognizeable pic of one.

Aloha,

Steve

Trumpetfish of Hawaii

Heres a Trumpetfish (Aulostomus chinensis). They come in a variety of colors, often in grays, browns and reddish colors, and the yellow color is fairly common also here in Kona.

We've been busy with charters the last several weeks. It was gorgeous on the water today, a nice changeup from the south winds we've been having for the past two weeks or so. Today we did Golden Arches and the Aquarium/Skull Cave/Suck 'em Up dive sites. They saw two whitetip reef sharks, along with outerh good stuff, on the last dive. We've actually managed to see hammerheads a couple of times the last couple of weeks (Pat got a mediocre pic of one swimming away I may be able to con her out of) on charters, unfortunately for me I was topside during those particular dives.

Just thought I touch bases, I seem not to post all that often when we're busy.

Aloha,

Steve

Coris Wrasse.... one heck of a colorful fish.

Good Evening,

Boy have we been busy on the boat. I had the fuel tanks replaced and was basically down for a month, but turning down little business, and suddenly were going out every day. I've had one day off since the 15th of last month between the two jobs, and only 3 days off on the boat since then with the next off day on the boat tentatively scheduled on the 16th.

We've been seeing lots of neat critters on our dives, sharks (mostly sleeping reef sharks, but the divers saw a hammerhead off Kaiwi point a couple days back), rays (we had one at a cleaning station for several minutes today), scorpion fish, turtles,etc. I saw a thumbnail sized yellow frogfish the other day but didn't have the camera... bummer, left it at home. Today we hit the site with another group and I looked for it and it wasn't there... also a bummer, but the manta ray coming in for a cleaning more than made up for it. I took a poor quality video of the manta circling that I'll post later.

The leg's feeling much better, but I did notice it when I dove off the boat to set the mooring, nothing major though. It's just nice to be back in the water.

The underwater photo above is of a Yellowtail Coris Wrasse (Coris gaimard), I knew them as a Red Coris Wrasse back in my aquarium keeping days. These guys are tough to get a picture of usually, they tend to zip off just as you are taking the shot. This one was fairly cooperative though, Pat may have an even better picture. The colors are a bit "hot" on this one, I had a rather dull looking photo and then hit
"auto levels" in Photoshop and this came out. It probably could be toned down a hair, I think the red on the top fin and the blue dots are almost too brilliant, but it's pretty darned close.

Kona diving conditions? It's been excellent as of late. Good visability, slightly warmer (I saw 75 the other day, but my computer read 73 today) than earlier, and pretty calm waters. The weather has been great.... sunny days with rain showers in the evenings up mauka. Rain almost never affects the diving conditions here as we have no rivers or streams on the west side.

That's about all for now.

Aloha,

Steve