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No rain today, just wind....
2007-11-07 06:05:00
When all else fails, take a blurry picture, photoshop the heck out of it and call it an attempt at "art". Anyway, this file fish was really cool, very teethy, but out of focus.Today 's charter went well. We had 3 divers and a snorkeler and Bob took them down. I'm still waking up with a headache from whatever's going around...Pat has it too. We had a pretty brisk northwest breeze today, as well as a strong south swell that is supposed to be dropping tonight. The "new" boat's doing just fine. Bob commented afterwards that with four passengers on the boat, it felt like it used to with just two - the extra space from removing the inboard engine, as well as the additional storage space I had put in seems to really help. anyway, the group had a couple of nice dives... lots of eels, a male Whitley's boxfish, cleaner shrimp, anthias, Dragon wrasses and lots of other stuff.Tomorrow we're doing the manta dive. I hadn't done it in quite a while, but it's been hopping. Apparently...
More About: Hawaii , Wind , Rain

The Hawaii weather report is.... WET
2007-11-05 22:14:00
Friday evening on the news, they announced a flash flood warning for the entire state through late Tuesday night. We haven't had that much "weather" in Kona , but it poured on Sunday. Apparently they had real rain troubles on Oahu. It's gorgeous today so far, but I won't be surprised if we see a few more downpours later today or tomorrow.I've been working on the boat getting it ready for charter. I just have to finish the main cabin door and hang it, along with a few other little things. Tomorrow we start chartering again. So far I have charters lined up for Tuesday, Wednesday evening, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. November in the past has typically been my slowest month, so it's not looking too bad from here on.Here's a couple of shots of the cockpit of the boat. That's me, dirty shirt and all (much to my wife's horror), sitting on the transom and coming out of the cuddy cabin.It's a bit difficult to get a handle on the size of the boat. It's not a huge boat by any m...
More About: Weather , Hawaii , Report , Weather Report

New Camera.... Canon G9 with housing for underwater photography....
2007-11-03 02:12:00
Well, I done did it. I've been debating about sending my camera back to Olympus to see if they could repair the flash, buying another camera, or just living with manual white balance 'til I could afford a new camera in the spring.... then Pat said the magic words... "Bill me later". I was unaware of this, but many of the big photo/electronics companies contract out with bill-me-later.com to offer 6 months free interest for their goods. That's about perfect timing for me, so it was done after two days of research.Here's the camera I chose... I also picked up the housing for it. The Amazon link actually has pretty good pricing for both the camera and housing (which is available as an accessory), I paid a few extra bucks at the time getting it from a company that had the delayed billing options.One little story on shipping... very fast and efficient through UPS, however we tracked it and for some reason it actually spent a day in Taiwan after it first reached Honolulu. A coupl...
More About: Photography , Camera , Canon , Housing , Underwater

My Kona Hawaii Scuba Diving Blog has turned two...
2007-11-02 06:44:00
Aloha!I've just realized the blog's over two years old and has over 300 posts. I'm about flat out of pictures that are decent. This is a shot of a Leaf Scorpionfish I took a couple of years back, there's another angle of it very early in the blog. Feel free to go back through the archives to see lots of underwater photos, as well as an excess of verbiage.Been busy the last little bit... some charters off my friend's boat.... some chasing around for my boat and trailer.... and a whole lot of worrying.... but the boat is back, and so far it seems better than ever. We've had it out the last few days breaking in the new engines and getting used to the differences in the handling. It's been pretty choppy on the water and I've only had it up to three quarter's throttle so far, but it moves pretty good. I've got enough time on the engines I can run it at full throttle for a couple minutes if I want, it's been a little too choppy on the water to do that so far, the reality ...
More About: Hawaii , Blog , Kona , Scuba Diving , Diving

Arc-eye Hawkfish
2007-10-26 08:31:00
This Arc-Eye Hawkfish is probably one of the last pics I took with my Olympus sp350 before the flash went out. One of these days I may send it back in for repair as it's a pretty darned good camera still even without the flash, but for now I have a different plan... yup, I ordered a new point and shoot camera and housing, thank goodness for 6 month free financing programs some companies offer. More about the new camera later when it shows up.The boat is really coming along, when I went by today at 3:30 they were wiring in the last of the deck lights and the red over white over red restricted maneuverability lights (they're sort of the night time version of a dive flag). The engines appeared ready to go, but they hadn't installed Raycor filters (oversized fuel filters with water separators) just yet and I told them I had to have them on the boat. It may be done already, I can't wait to get tomorrow's charter off and see if it's ready to start breaking in the engines as I nee...
More About: Kona

Underwater flash for Olympus camera housings...
2007-10-25 09:50:00
I've been thinking about cameras lately since mine have been on the fritz. Many of the popular cameras actually have underwater housings available and Pat and I have housed several digital cameras over the last few years. The onboard flash on most of them has it's limits and many people look for extra light by adding an external flash. Last year I picked up an Olympus flash and it's appropriate housing for my Olympus SP 350 set up, but it was so bulky I never really used it. The other day I was checking things out and found this new offering by Olympus...Olympus UFL 1 - Underwater flash - 14 (m) It's a stand alone underwater flash that is compatible with many of the Olympus underwater camera housings that have a hot shoe, offering TTL exposure without the hassle of wires and strobe trays. I wish they had it back when I was looking. This Amazon price is actually a very good deal, as a housed Olympus flash will cost much more, and trying to get TTL exposure with another b...
More About: Flash , Camera , Sings

Fred is dead.
2007-10-24 09:59:00
My wife had pretty much tamed the male day gecko (it would eat from her hand) that hung out with it's conterpart, Wilma, on the espresso maker in the kitchen. We hadn't seen Fred in a couple of days and cleaned out the fridge and found him in the back of it. There's been another male hanging out trying to horn in on Fred's action, so I guess this is his chance, he'd been run off with major head bobbing, body leaning and tongue sticking out threats 'til now. Here's a link to a pic of Fred before the permafrost incident. So barring any further missing pieces.... I finally have a pretty good idea of when I get the boat back. Whoohoo!!! The paint job is basically done, I'll be enameling the cabin interior after all the wiring is done. The engines have been mounted in place for weeks, but now the throttle and shifting and steering cables are in place, the new ladder's up, the GPS is in, they were hooking up the running lights and stereo when I was by earlier. After that it...
More About: Kona , Dead

Back from the mainland....
2007-10-05 02:26:00
I just returned from the mainland. All I can say is Brrrr it's cold compared to here, at least in Oregon, especially the last week or so. I hadn't planned to go anywhere this fall, but I had a break in the charters and thought it'd be a good idea to visit my family and my wife (she's in Oregon for 6 weeks doing a practical portion of her doctorate she's been working on) while I had the opportunity. I hadn't been back in several years so it was about time.What does one do when they go to Oregon from Hawaii ... I can basically answer that by saying "I'm full of burritos". Boy do they have mexican food there these days, and boy do I need to back on my diet - I'm heavier than I've been in about 4 years, still not up to what I' have been, but it's time to turn it around. I'm not sure if I made I through a single day without some type of mexican food. I did get to see a monumental 4th quarter implosion at the OSU - UCLA football game, nothing like going from 2 points up to...
More About: Kona , Back , The Main

Bandit Angels from Kona Hawaii....
2007-09-14 11:09:00
Here's a couple of Bandit Angels (Desmoholocanthus arcuatus) from a dive the other week. Hawaii only has a limited number of angelfish species on their reefs, most of which are dwarf species ranging to only 2-4 inches in length, Bandits however reach about 7 inches in length. These guys are not real common, but we've got a couple of spots where there's a good shot at seeing them.So the latest on the boat is... it's still being worked on. Longest 3 weeks of my life... Anyways, it's really starting to shape up. It sat once again for a short while but we've got someone working on it now. We're fabricating new hatch covers, moving fuel lines/vents/etc, finishing the interior grinding/sanding/fiberglassing and such and it should be ready for paint hopefully sometime next week. After that it'll need about 6-10 hours of work - that's probably a week in mechanic's time - and it'll be done. I've got all my charters pretty much set for the rest of the month on my friend's boa...
More About: Kona

This is a test... google map image of Honokohau Harbor public ramp area....
2007-09-13 10:32:00
View Larger MapPeople are always wondering how to meet the boat and I have to give out directions all the time. I've realized you can do a lot with google maps and figured I'll see if I can link an image here before I mess with it on my business website.Cool... it works! You can zoom in and out, you can grab it and slide it one way or another to see what's off in other directions, all the usual google map stuff. Neat toys on the internet these days... One could keep busy for a while just looking at the coastline satellite image. For those of you unfamiliar with google maps, assuming you have an image above, click on the minus at the top left a couple of times and the picture will zoom out a bit, then you can run your cursor over the image and you'll see a hand icon, click on it and drag your mouse, or you can click on the directional arrows at the top left, and the image will move with it and show more... you can zoom in or out at any time, kind of a neat way to get a feel fo...
More About: Google , Hawaii , Public , Kona , Harbor

Frogfish seen while scuba diving Kona Hawaii.
2007-09-06 10:06:00
Here's a young frogfish, maybe 3.5 inches long or so. These guys start yellow and then tend to change colors to blend in with their envirnment. I wish I had a camera with a working flash when I took this. I may break out one of our older cameras to use 'til I can get the current one fixed.So I haven't posted in a bit. Lots of stuff going on, but little action on the boat renovation until this week. The interior cosmetic work is now coming along quickly and I'm thinking it may be ready for all the electrical in a couple of days. I'm trying to find someone who can re-sew the seams on my canopy in fairly quick order. The old ones were falling apart so now's the time to take care of it. Pat's got a pretty good machine, but it can't quite go through several layers of sunbrella material, as well as the piping on the edge.We've had some very nice dives. As far as water temperature goes, we're still seeing mostly 79-81 degrees on the dives. My personal highlights the las...
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Scuba Diving , Diving , Frogfish

Kona Shore Diving....
2007-08-20 21:46:00
Pat and I both had days off yesterday, so we decided to go for a little shore dive and relax for the morning. I'm still seeing water temps of 79, I'm hoping for it to bump up a little more over then next few weeks, primarily so we're not freezing while diving in January and February after the winter cool down.This is a Blackside Hawkfish (Paracirrhites forsteri). They're pretty good about posing and not running off on you when you want to get a shot off. Hawkfish, as I've undoubtedly mentioned before, basically perch around all day waiting for small prey to get close enough to swoop down on. I came oh so close to getting a shot of a hawkfish with a tail sticking out of it's mouth some time back, but it took off at the last moment. Have a great day! Steve
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Diving , Shore

Suddenly our house seems very quiet.
2007-08-18 08:07:00
This was a very sad day for Pat and I. Our German Shorthaired Pointer passed away this afternoon, about 2 weeks short of her 15th birthday. She's had a rough go of it the last few months, giving us several scares, but kept plugging along. We'll miss her greatly. We've got friends and family who read the blog, I thought they might want to know. Steve
More About: House , Ouse , Quiet

So here's the hull extension on the dive boat.
2007-08-17 06:19:00
This is the engine mount/hull extension on the boat. The gunwale area above the blue tape has yet to be worked on. Hopefully things will start to move along more quickly now. The boat is supposed to go back on the trailer tomorrow and the engines will go on. Then starting next week all the electrical work will be done and supposedly the fiberglass guy is coming back to finish off the interior, then it'll be time for the interior paint job. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it'll be ready to break in by the first of next month.Later,Steve
More About: Boat , Extension , Hull , The D , Dive

We now return to our normal programming....
2007-08-16 22:01:00
Please take a brief look a few posts down and you'll see pictures of a "Dragon Wrasse". Those pictures were of the juveniles. This is the adult phase. They go through a transformation of both appearance and habits as they grow. The adult version is referred to as a "Rockmover Wrasse", for it's habit of digging around and literally picking up and throwing rocks around. They spend most of their adult lives foraging under rocks looking for goodies to eat. They can easily lift a rock that is their own size... kinda fun to watch.Now that all the natural disaster activity has passed, I'll be back to posting primarily about diving, with some local info tibits every now and then. Kona saw nothing weather-wise out of Hurricane Flossie, had no tidal wave from the earthquake in Peru, and no damage from the Hilo side earthquake of the other day... other than school closures and the economic impact of closures and cancellations all over, it's been life as usual the last few days. Tak...
More About: Programming , Hawaii , Return , Ming

Wow, that was fast. They just broke in and announced the Pacific tsunami w
2007-08-16 04:19:00
Good news, and it only took about 15 minutes.
More About: Tsunami , Pacific , Fast , Nami , Anno

Hot off the press... Tsunami advisory for Hawaii 8/15/07...
2007-08-16 04:05:00
Apparently they just had a 7.5 earthquake in Peru. There's a possibility the state may see a tsunami around 2or 3 in the morning tonight. Apparently the tsunami sensor off Peru did note water movement and a possible tsunami, there's another sensor halfway between here and Peru that they'll be watching. The 1960 Hilo tsunami was caused by an earthquake off South America, so these things are taken quite seriously.
More About: Tsunami , Hawaii , Press , The Press , Advisor

Well, Hurricane Flossie is gone...
2007-08-16 03:09:00
Not much really happened anywhere on the island. I think they had 40 mile an hour winds hit southpoint, but then they see winds nearly that several times a week. It did bring in some pretty good surf on the southwest courner of the island though. Today we spent the morning chasing around picking up our freshly re-upholstered sofa and loveseat for our vacation rental (linked on the sidebar of this page), then cleaning up the rental for the next guests coming in shortly.The rental's pretty nice as far as rentals go in our area, and we keep changing things out over time to keep it updated. It took several years to really get it busy, but it stays booked as much as we want it these days - we're booked solid through the middle of March currently.Here's the first glimpse of the boat. Yesterday, which was supposedly the day the hurricane was to be hitting, was so calm they finished the exterior paint job. Today they're laying non-skid on the swimstep and then they'll start mounting...
More About: Hawaii , Cane , Ossie , Hurricane , Ossi

Quick update....11:20am...no unusual weather in Kona yet.
2007-08-14 23:17:00
In fact, the water was nearly mirrorpond flat this morning. We went to the harbor and virtually nobody was out. The town is very quiet, all schools on the island are closed, as are beach parks and beach accesses. They did close some roads down on the southeast side. That's all for now. Steve
More About: Weather , Hawaii , Kona , Update , Quick

Update on Hurricane Flossie and 8/13 earthquake...
2007-08-14 10:04:00
So the earthquake did end up being the first mention on the 10 o'clock news, short story though as there wasn't much information whether there was any damage. It was felt on the Kona side, but not strongly.Flossie's in the news bigtime. Assuming this works,here's a cool side form the University, it shows the animated hurricane track, it takes a while to load so be patient. Just in the last few hours the eye has broken up and the storm is spreading out (essentially weakening on the fringes). Tonight's news said they expect a downgrade to a category two in the morning.Coming into a potential hurricane is interesting. Traffic was nuts today around 4-5pm, everyone seemed to be on the road. Costco was jammed with people buying water and canned goods, the corner with Walmart and Safeway was very busy, by the time I made it home around 6pm I went to Choicemart in Captain Cook and you'd think it was the day before Thanksgiving or Easter (surprisingly that is pretty much the busie...
More About: Earthquake , Hawaii , Update , Cane , Ossie

Hey, earthquakes, hurricanes... Hawaii's got it all...
2007-08-14 08:11:00
So I'm frying up some italian sausage and the window starts rattling, for about 10 seconds. There's nothing else unusual going on anywhere else in the house, so I figure I'll check the time in case there was a small earthquake. 7:28. During "Fat Walk" on ABC a bit over a half hour later there's a hurricane update.... oh, and by the way, there was a 5.3 quake about 20 miles south of Hilo on the Big Island at 7:28pm.... any other day and that'd been one of the first mentions on the 10 o'clock news, as a 5.3 is a once every year or two or three event if I recall correctly. Here's the LINK to the USGS Hawaii earthquake mapAnyway, the current thinking is the hurricane won't hit the island directly, but might generate surf and 40-50 mph winds on the southeast side as well as surf on most of the east side. No talk about the Kona side yet. More updates later, if I'm still up (I'm getting to where I actually go to bed around night news time -10pm here), I'll update any new new...
More About: Earthquakes , Hurricanes , Cane , Hurricane

Up next, Hurricane Flossie....
2007-08-14 00:30:00
This hurricane's actually getting interesting. In general, hurricanes do not hit the Big Island, but we still watch them anyway. This one was expected to go well south of us a few days back, but now the southern tip of the island is within the projected possibility. We'll know a lot more tonight or tomorrow morning. I suspect south point will get surf and maybe some rain from it even if it stays fairly south, more if it touches. If the water temp was a couple degrees higher I think everyone would be more worried, especially Oahu and Kauai. Cooler waters (we're around 80/81 right now) usually cause them to drop strength.These are Raccoon Butterflyfish (Chaetodon Lunula). I took this shot the other day using just the manual white balance. The only photoshop work I did with it was an auto levels and size reduction, pretty bright shot for no flash.We had a very unusual cancellation yesterday. One of the family we were to have on fainted at the boat when we met. We decided i...
More About: Hawaii , Cane , Ossie , Hurricane , Ossi

Kua Bay and Kekaha Kai State Park, Kona Hawaii
2007-08-11 07:38:00
I took a drive up north the other day. I'd forgotten how dry the South Kohala area can be compared to where I live. The Big Island has so many different climates, you only need to go an hour or less in a different direction if you want a change of scenery. You can usually count on sun up north, even if it's raining in coffee country or Kailua, as they only see maybe 10-12 inches of rain annually in much of that area.They do have some nice beaches up north though. This is a shot of Kua Bay, which is still in Kona . It's at the north end of Kekaha Kai State Park (formerly known as Kona Coast State Park) It runs from Kua Bay down to the south entrance of the park which is about 3 miles north of the Kona airport. There are several beaches in the park, with Kua Bay being the smallest but easiest to reach as they've put in a nice new road to it. The road at the south end is kind of rough, but manageable (although I haven't been down it in 5 years so it could be pretty bad by n...
More About: Hawaii

Heller's Barracuda (Sphyraena helleri)
2007-08-08 08:15:00
Here's a group of Heller's barracuda. They are a schooling fish and are basically harmless to divers. They seem to swim in nice picturesque arcs, although they are tough to really photo accurately because the silver of their bodies doens't show up well against the blue of the ocean in photos.
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Barra

How to fit a mask for scuba diving or snorkeling....
2007-08-07 05:02:00
Howdy,I thought I'd post something that's almost informative for once. One of the complaints you hear about lots in this business is of ill fitting masks. It's a pretty common thing.When I first started diving, I was taught that a mask fit if you could put in on your face, inhale through your nose, and if it stuck, it fit. Well you know what, that works - sometimes. As often as not, you could make a non-fitting mask, that'll leak badly when you are in the water, stick to your face just by inhaling hard. I dove with a badly fitting mask for years, I'm pretty much used to having an inch or so of water in my mask.When I got to Kona, I was hired on at a now defunct (it wasn't me, really, I think it was an ownership squabble) dive and snorkel gear shop downtown. They sold probably 3-8 masks a day, and had people try on umpty-ump more during the course of a day. Every shop I'd ever been to did the old snort and stick method, so that's how I sold masks. Over the course of two weeks...
More About: Hawaii , Scuba Diving , Diving , Mask , Ving

Ringed Sap-Sucking Slug (Plakobranchus ocellatus)....
2007-08-06 05:59:00
Great name for an unusual little critter. I've only seen these a few times over the years. I posted one back in May or so of last year I saw in Maui, but these are slightly better pictures.I found this one on a shore dive Pat and I did with friends off Kukio up north earlier this year. Interestingly enough, we went over a sandy area that sort of reminded me of areas I've seen them before and I thought "this might be a likely spot to find one". After a few minutes of looking I gave up and went over the reef (where I've never seen one) and four or five minutes later ran across this guy. Later, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Slug , Ranch

Roadhouse Grill - Kainaliu, Hawaii... a review of a new restaurant in south
2007-08-04 02:36:00
Just thought I'd post a quick review of a new restaurant in our area. It's called the Roadhouse Grill and is in what was foremly the Guy's Grinds/Phillysophical Deli/Ma's Tavern (I think that's what it was years ago) location in Kainaliu.Pretty good place so far. They're sort of just putting together a menu. When we went they had sandwiches, a chicken chipotle burrito type thing in more of a flaky pastry, louisiana hotlinks baked in the flaky pastry (sort of a gourmet pigs in a blanket) and several other items. I'm hearing good things about it. It's more upscale lunchfare, not the typical plate lunch you find at many places, yet so far there's nothing over $4.95 on the menu with reasonable moderate sized portions making it a great deal for the price. Pat had the chicken dealy-bop, and I went for both the chicken and hotlinks things... I could have done OK just getting either one of them as portions were reasonable. Delicious! I'm pretty sure the owners were involved...
More About: Restaurant , Hawaii , Review , Kona , South

So here's the male Whitley's Boxfish (Ostracion whitleyi) I've been talking
2007-08-03 08:14:00
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
More About: Talking , Male , Trac , Been

...Becoming one with the fish...
2007-08-01 10:10:00
I'm hoping Bob doesn't mind me posting this. It's a pic I snapped the other day. It's interesting in that I've tried numerous times to get a decent shot of the goatfish we have that hang out in large groups at several of our dive sites. I've always tried with the flash, and now that the flash doesn't work, I tried it using manual white balance... much better. It turned out quite nice in my opinion.These goatfish are cool in that sometimes there's nearly maybe a couple thousand in this group, and if you approach them quietly you can pretty much blend in and feel like part of the group.
More About: Fish , Hawaii , Ming

Ostracion Meleagris - Blue Boxfish....
2007-07-30 10:24:00
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 actuall...
More About: Hawaii , Trac , Agri , Mele