It's choppy on the water this evening...

I have the boat out on a charter tonight and I talked with the captain, he said it's quite choppy. I'm sort of a nervous parent tonight... this is only maybe the 2nd time I've ever sent the boat out without being on it. I came down with this crud that apparently has been making the rounds. I've had it quite mild compared to some I've talked with. I thought I was going to make it through it without missing a day, but last night was one of those nights, although I do actually feel much better now than I thought I would, I've probably found the right combination of over the counter drugs. I'm working tomorrow morning unless tonight turns into a night like last night.

We did a manta trip on Tuesday and had one manta, it sounds as though there aren't any tonight though. Yesterday we had one certified diver and one unrelated intro diver, so that means 2 diving crew and a captain. I stayed on board for both dives since I wasn't sure if my ears could take it.... wouldn't you know it, the certified diver and guide saw a WHALE UNDERWATER. Apparently it came to within 15-20 feet of them, "close enough to see the barnicles on her mouth" according to the DM. Apparently the whale had a baby swimming on it's back. Sorry, no pics from anyone as it all happend very fast. I'm jealous. One of these days, maybe I'll see one.

This is a Trembling Nudibranch we found on a deep water mooring.

Goodnight... hitting the hay early tonight,

Steve

Brrrrrrr... Today was cold in Kona.

Today was the coldest day I've experienced in Kona since moving here back in early '99. By 3 in the afternoon we'd hit 64 degrees. I was wearing sweats and on the couch with a blanket and an afghan and still freezing (I've got a bit of a cold I'm fighting and I was waist deep in the harbor earlier today). It's actually a tad bit warmer right now than earlier in the day.

We had a charter this morning... sort of... We met up with our group and it was rainig, which is no big deal. By the time we got to the harbor mouth the storm came in, heavy wind and the first fog I've seen on the water in my time here. We pulled back to the dock to see if it'd blow over and called it a day ten or fifteen minutes later. While we were cleaning the boat several other charters came in after calling it a day. Very crummy day for here. Everyone's diving with us later on in the week.

Well, apparently a couple of the other islands have had days like today for the last several weeks. Hopefully that's the end of it for us.

I found the little nudibranch above under a large archway and thought it looked slighty unusual. It looked very much like a fried-egg nudibranch, but I finally found it on Hoover's (he wrote the invertebrate book linked in the sidebar) website and it turns out it's a newly described fryeria species. I've seen them another time maybe and I've seen pics show up on the web that are definitley this guy and not the fried-egg nudi.

later,

Steve

The day started out with a bang in Kona...

I guess the weather had been just nuts in Oahu and later Maui last night. I woke at about 4am and the horizon was lighting up every half second or so.

By 8 or 9 o'clock this morning it had reached here. It got flat out dark at home and my wife called from the hospital (works there) to let me know that the hospital had been warned tornados were possible with this storm and I ought to get out in the yard and bring the lawn furniture and barbeque inside. We did get a number of sudden blasts of wind, but no tornadoes in our part of the island.

It cleared out in South Kona in just a couple of hours. It's still gray to the north with occasional thunder. I've got a night charter and I'll probably head into town and decide around 4-5 if it's cancelled. We're not going out if thunderstorms are around.



Here's a few shots from the botanical gardens on the scenic loop just a few minutes north of Hilo. I think it's one of the must-dos over on the Hilo side if you are heading over that direction.

Later,

Steve

Hawaiian Nudi Photo from Kona

I just felt like posting a photo of something aquatic and getting the food pic off the top of the blog. This is a Bluedragon Nudibranch. We don't see a ton of them here in Kona. They are spectacular!!

later,

Steve

Non-diving related restaurant review....

Well, the Hawaiian Style Cafe in Waimea did not dissapoint. It turns out it did sell back about 8 months ago but no major changes, that I noticed at first glance anyway, were made.

It's basically a plate lunch place with some more local style food. I had the "sweetpork", which was more or less a korean steak type of concoction but maybe a bit less bite. I did take the camera, so here it is. There's 4 fairly large peices of meat on that plate overlapping each other, probably in the 3/4 to 1 pound range total. With the rice and potato mac the plate ran $7.25. I haven't found anywhere else that gives you that much food on your plate lunch. I wish they had one down this direction. I may have to check out the place that took over Billy Bob's Park and Pork, you never know. Anyway, I was full 'til late in the evening.

Pat and I made it to the underwater photo club meeting tonight. The video presentation was actully of the Marshall Islands around Majuro, rather than the Solomans. I was happy to see it because I'm particularly curious about this destination as it's only a 5 hour or so flight from here. Very interesting.

Aloha,

Steve

Wheee!!! Eleven manta rays at the night dive tonight!

I was just checking my mail before heading to bed and got tonight's manta report. Gobs of mantas at the dive site tonight. We have two locations where we see mantas, the last few weeks the one off the airport (which has been the most reliable the last 5 or 6 years) has been nothing but no shows. Every now and than they just go elsewhere for a while. Tonight there were eleven mantas. Just in time as I've got a few night dives lined up the next week and a half or so. The other site has fairly consistantly had 1-2 mantas for about the last 6-7 months, but generally doesn't see anywhere near the number of mantas the airport site does when they are appearing. Hopefully we're good for a few weeks or months from here on.

The picture above is of a group of Shoulder Tangs (also known as Orange Shoulder Tangs or Orangeband Surgeonfish - Acanthurus olivaceus) feeding on algae. If I didn't mention it before, tangs (surgeons) are primarily herbivorous and keep the reef clean of algaes. These fish go through an interesting color change from juvenile to adult. The juveniles in Hawaii are yellow and are often mistaken for Yellow Tangs. Even some DMs here occasionally don't realize the difference. I'm thinking these fish mimic other fish as juveniles as back in the pet shop days I occasionally received related juveniles mimicking other fish. I was getting shoulder tangs or other very closely related juveniles out of Indonesia which actually mimicked Eiblii Angelfish and Pearlscale Angels, both of which aren't even in the surgeon family. Anyway, they go from yellow to an olive or gray with the orange stripe here in Hawaii.

Aloha and good night,

Steve

Totally gorgeous weather in Kona and Hawaii yesterday

Here's a shot from my living room on a similar day (figured no need to take a pic I already had) earlier. We've been having lots of clouds the last 3-4 weeks while some of the other islands have been having a ton of rain. It's quite unusual to have even 4 or 5 days straight of clouds here so the sun was quite welcome. We're back to some gray skies today, although the morning was quite nice.

I'm going to be quite busy after tomorrow with charters for a while. Tomorrow I get to go in for an MRI on my neck. I've had occasional pain and tingling in my right arm for about a decade (bothers me for a few weeks and then goes away for a year or two). After about 4 months of it this time, I went to the doctor and he wanted to investigate further... Guess I'm gettin' older despite quite possibly being in better shape than 12-13 years ago.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow though... I'm getting it done up at North Hawaii Community Hospital in Waimea (I live 8 minutes from Kona's hospital but this one is supposed to have a nicer machine) and I can go see if the Hawaiian Style Cafe is still the same as it used to be. This place is AWESOME, but I haven't been there since I quit the carbs (40 pounds in 6 months) a few years back. I'm back on the carbs and have added 15 pounds, so I might as well hit it again if it's still open(I heard a few months back it was up for sale).

I first heard of this place on the Travel Channel on a show called "Girl meets Hawaii" with Samanta Brown. I thought maybe the plates they showed on TV were just for TV, but that's not the case. It used to cater to the paniolos (Hawaiian cowboys - long story, but Hawaii actually had true cowboys before the American west did) and they really know how to put out a plate of food for 5-7 bucks. Fred Flintstone would eat there if he were on vacation here. I better take my camera... I won't order breakfast, but they used to serve a $5.35 breakfast on two fifteen inch oval plates that had two big piles of rice, a lot of hashbrowns, a big pile of scrambled eggs they referred to as "2 eggs" (must've been goose eggs) with 12 pieces of bacon (no kidding) and 2 pancakes roughly 12" across. The first time I went there, there was a bunch of people in the restaurant who'd never been there before either, and with each plate that came out there was laughter when it was set down in front of them because the servings were so huge.

Afterwards I'm going to work my way back into town and try to make it to the underwater photo club meeting where one of the Captain/Instructor/Guides I know is going to do a video presentation on the Soloman Islands.

That's it for now,

Steve

Kona Hawaii water temperature was 75 or so today....

Yup, the boat's back in the water. It ended up being a bit more serious problem with the lower unit than expected but it's been taken care of. I had an open water student and a friend of his in the water today. I'd been sending inquiries elsewhere for the last week. I've got bookings for the 23rd and beyond and now I can take the last minute (well, next day anyway) bookings again.

The weather is still a bit quirky... sunny this morning but it's starting to rain now. My other instructor/captain did the first dive, I did the second. The dive I did was quite nice at Turtle Haven (aka Turtle Heaven). Lots of nice reef, with occasional sand patches, with structure that acts as a turtle resting area in the shallows. Turtles will wedge themselves into holes or cracks so they are mostly protected and sleep here underwater, popping up to the surface every so often for a few breaths of air. Highlights of the dive were lots of shells (marlin spike auger snails primarily), a couple of large Helmet Snail shells, a decent sized trevally, a couple of flounder, a big puffer or two, 5 turtles, a school of over a hundred Raccoon Butterfly fish and other goodies. Viz was running in the 100 feet or so range.

Here's an older underwater photo of a puffer that I took on a night dive. These guys are always fun to look at. I personally am not into grabbing them and making them puff up like some DMs will. I did it a couple of times back when I first started working , then I got to thinking how it would be if someone put me into a stressful situation where I had to physically defend myself just for their enjoyment - kinda got me thinking I shouldn't be grabbing them. For now I just like to sit back and enjoy watching.

Later,

Steve