Hawaiian Ghost Shrimp.

OK, I finally took a reasonably decent pic of a ghost shrimp (Stenopus pyrsonotus). They are also known as Flameback Shrimp or Fountain Shrimp, depending on who you are talking to. This shrimp and it's mate I'd only recently found at one of our more popular dive sites, in fact, I found another pair about a hundred-150 feet away just yesterday. Both pairs seem to be very good posers, coming out of their holes when divers approach, so I suspect there will lots of photo opportunites of these guys at that site assuming all the other DMs find them too (the first set is hard not to find for someone who does the site regularly). These shrimp will often set up house in the same spot for a couple years at a time as long as storms don't knock them out of their holes or something else get to them.

Aloha,

Steve

Kona water temperature has bumped up to 81 or so...

We've had a pretty big south swell the last few days, but it seems to have brought the temp up a bit.



Sometimes you just gotta work for your dinner! Here's some turtles eating (or attempting to anyway) algae off the rocks on a mildly surgy day down at the Place of Refuge right near the "2 Steps" entry point. I sometimes wonder what they do when the surf is really up. I compressed this video a bit more than I should have, so pardon the pixellation.

I've been doing primarily students the last couple of weeks, seems sort of odd because I've really only had a couple sets of students the last several months and have been taking out certified divers primarily. My business has changed over time. When I started my shore diving business, it was primarily instruction. Now that I've added the boat I appeal much more to the certified crowd.

Something I did last week which was kind of neat was an open water student who had certified family and friends that hadn't dove in years. We did the class for her, and mom and friend also joined in for the entire class as a refresher. I cut the divers a deal on the cost of the class to where it was essentially cost a little more that just going out and doing the 4 dives would've cost. A lot of people would benefit from doing this type of thing after having been out of the water for several years. It's easy to forget some things, especially the important stuff involving handing emergencies that you probably will never need to use... but it's nice to know what to do if needed. They're all back in the swing of it now and ready to go if they decide they want to get back into the hobby on a regular basis.

Later,

Steve

Hurricane Daniel was a non-happening in Kona

Just a little update on Hurricane Daniel... it dissapated into a tropical depression and caused rain on the east side of the island and on some of the other islands. As much as 2 inces of rain fell in some parts of the state yesterday as a result of the ex-hurricane.

Kona was sunny and hot for the day yesterday, the day it affected everywhere else.

We did manage to get some nice rain today later in the afternoon in Kona, but that wasn't part of "Daniel" and didn't effect the diving. Hopefully we're settling down into our regular summer weather pattern - sunny in the morning with clouds building on the mountains and occasional rain in the late afternoon/evening, with most of tghe rain being near the mountains. We had nice diving conditions for the charter today, doing dives at Golden Arches and Turtle Heaven with a group doing a combined Open Water coruse and refresher.

The photo above is of a Fourline Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus tetrataenia). These little guys are tough to get a picture of. They tend to dart into coral heads when you approach. This particualr individual was relatively tolerant of me being near, I was able to snap off a few shots and this one was probably the best of the bunch. My first shot of one of them.

later,

Steve

Funky Kona Manta Ray night dive video

Here's a short video of the Kona Hawaii manta ray night dive off the Kona airport that I shot underwater with my Olympus sp350 on Tuesday night. We work with a local videographer who takes video of our divers and snorkelers (it is broadcast quality stuff, not like what you see here) and I thought I'd poach some of her light and see if my little point-and-shoot digital cam could take the video. Turns out I was too far back and it doesn't do anywhere near as well in low light as a dedicated video camera. After a little tweaking in quicktime, I was able to at least bring up the brightness to where things show up. Pardon for all the psychedelic colors, it's not like that in real life.



Aloha,

Steve

Lots of manta rays right now. Water temperature is 79 in Kona.

Been busy on the boat the last little bit. We did a double yesterday, with dives in the morning and then the late afternoon dive followed by the night manta dive. We has the same thing on Tuesday. I have a pool session with some open water scuba students scheduled for later this afternoon.



Here's a little video I took of a manta ray on a day dive a couple weeks back with my Olympus sp350. We see these guys on day dives on occasion and we'll have divers oh so excited to have seen them. At that point we highly suggest they try the night dive. Seeing a manta in the daytime doesn't even compare, they're just swimming by. At night they are swimming to you. I do have a little, very dark, video I took of the night dive I'll post later. It'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

later,

Steve

It's "Hurricane Season" again in Hawaii.

As I type this, there is a Hurricane sitting about 900 miles to the southeast of the island. It's losing power. For the most part, hurricanes seem to peter out before they make landfall here due to hitting cooler water.

The current hurricane, Hurricane Daniel I believe, is expected to maybe make it to the islands downgraded as a tropical storm. In a way, many here are actually hoping to see it bring the rain, it's been kind of dry. I just noticed that things were starting to show some signs of dryness in our area. Normally the water's a degree or two warmer by now and we're seeing convection rains in the late afternoon 3-4 days a week at our place, we've really only had one decent rain the last several weeks.

Since I've been here in early '99, hurricanes have had little to no effect in the Kona area. There've been two or three that brought in surf and winds to the other side of the island. We've got a 14,000 foot mountain in the way that seems to act as a bit of a barrier. I'd heard that Kona never actually saw winds and major weather disruption from hurricanes in all of the last century... just big surf on a couple of the biggies (Iniki comes to mind) that swung by from the south. Those particular hurricanes went northwest after rounding the Big Island and caused troubles on Oahu and Kauai.

I'm just posting this because every year I get questions about how the hurricanes affect our diving. They haven't at all in the 7 seasons I've been here. Kona is probably one of the places (tropical destinations anyway) I'd least worry about hurricanes ruining a trip.

Here's another photo forwarded to me by customer Mike from Texas. It's of a pair of Ghost Shrimp, I don't really have any decent shots of my own of these critters so I thought I'd post it. Ghost shrimp are a pretty good sized shrimp that tend to set up shop in one particular spot for several years. We've got a few spots where we can pretty much nearly guarantee you'll see them. Notice the little fish in the photo... I'm not exactly sure what they are, but they are common in dark holes, one of these days I need to make it a point to find out what they are.

Have a nice day,

Steve

Kona Whaleshark Photos, taken on scuba.

Customer Mike from Texas had the presence to take a couple of shots while the whaleshark swam overhead at a dive site known as High Rock yesterday. That's Bob heading towards the shark, gives you a decent idea of how big the shark was.

later,

Steve

Hawaii reef dives, manta diving, frogfish, whaleshark... We've done it all the last couple of days...

A lot of scuba diving has happend off the Wanna Dive boat the last couple of days. We've managed to see most of the "rare" stuff... Or should I say my crew has anyway. I've been playing Captain for the most part.

Yesterday we had a newly certified couple join a group of four that's been diving with us. Newly certified divers can be fun to dive with... occasionally you get those cases of "beginner's luck", yesterday was no exception... part way through the dive Bob looked up and a WHALESHARK was swimming over their heads. The first diver up was one of the newly certified divers and he was extremly excited, going on about seeing a shark that was bigger than the boat.... for those of you who aren't familiar with whalesharks, they are harmless plankton feeders and can grow to 40-60 feet long - they are HUGE. Now Bob has well over 4000 logged dives and this was the first whaleshark he had seen on scuba ever... they got it on thier first try. It's all downhill for them from here on.

Last night we did the manta dive again. My regular nights are Tuesday and Thursday, but we had a family who wanted to go out on Saturday and it worked for us, so why not. They were all snorkelers so I figured I'd leave Bob to captain and I'd go down and play with the camera. We had several mantas, and when I went to turn on my camera I noticed it was slightly floaty, rather than slowly sinking... I thought that odd 'til I went to turn it on. No batteries. Oh well, maybe next time. Unfortunately, last night would've been a great night for the camera as there were a couple of squid that came by the dive site and swam with the divers and snorkelers. That's the first time I know of that happening. I've never seen them yet, I'd already surfaced after finding I had no juice to the camera.

Here's a fish that is kind of special. This is a Saddleback Butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium). They are one of our more ornate reef fish. I used to get real excited seeing them, but I seem to see them more often these days. They are one of our larger butterfly fish and tend to hang out in pairs. If you see one, another is usually nearby. I did a short captain's dive between dives the other day at Golden Arches and there was one of these right under the boat. The one wouldn't have anything to do with me, but it's mate seemed to not mind me, even seemed curious and kept coming near. I managed to click off 4 decent shots, all just mostly out of flash range, but with enough light to give it a chance with photoshop. This guy turned out with realistic color after a few adjustments.

Aloha,

Steve