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

Great diving conditions in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii right now

Aloha,

Been real busy the last couple of days. Spent all day on Monday working on the boat, basic maintenance stuff. Did morning and evening dives yesterday and another two tanker today. We're quite busy 'til around the 4th of August at this point.

We had a freak short term temperature drop. When Bob first jumped off the boat yesterday morining he came up saying man it's cold. Everyone was reading 75 or so on the dives all day long....at sites 4 miles apart, strangely enough it was 79 today, same computers at sites within a couple hundred yards from the spots yesterday. Not sure if the remains of Hurricane Bud (? not sure if that was the name), a hurricane that ended up east and north of the islands and did little but affect the tradewinds for a couple days, might have brought us some cold water for a day or two?

There were 17 mantas at the night dive last night. two of our passengers were doing it for their first time, the other four have been diving with me since my shorediving days and had done the dive a couple times over the years and had one and none show... everyone was quite thrilled this time.

Today we did the first dive at Hoover's, the northernmost Kailua Kona area mooring, just off the north end of the airport. It's a great dive, highlight of the dive was seeing a couple of mantas. On the second dive we did the spot right outside the harbor that can be such a great critter site. Anthias, cleaner shrimp and banded coral shrimp, eels, as well as a couple of eagle rays, were the highlights of this dive.

Here's a neat little Toby, sort of out of focus, that I took a picture of a couple of years back.

Later,

Steve

Big numbers of rays are apparently at the Kona manta ray night dive again....

This morning's e-mail said there with something like 18 rays on the dive last night. I haven't been out on the night dive this week, do have a trip or two scheduled for next week though, hope it holds up.

We've had a couple of days off, so it was time to do some important maintenance work. I had the carburetor overhauled and gave the engine a tuneup, as well as the more frequent stuff (oil changes, etc). Everything runs great right now.. then again, it's a boat, I should be good for another good length of time though.

Here's a little video of yellow Longnose Butterflyfish (Forcipiger longirostris), along with a few yellow tangs and such, on the reef. They spend much of thier lives poking their beaks into coral heads looking for tidbits to eat. This particular species is quite common here, but apparently they don't see it much on Oahu - they consider it to be "rare", they more often see Forcipiger flavissimus which is considered to be the common longnose butterfly. In this video you will also see the black phase, which is pretty much only found in Kona. I'm not sure that they've figured out why they turn black at times.

Later,

Steve