A Kona Hawaii scuba diver blabbers on

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Taxis, shuttles, the bus and rental cars.... getting around in Kona.
2007-02-23 02:43:00
I've probably already posted this picture a long time ago, it's of a black phase long nose butterfly. While long nose butterflyfish are found in most of the indo-pacific, Hawaii has two species, one of which is endemic (lives here only) and has a longer nose. Occasionally you will see a black phase, which is considered very rare, in Hawaii, mostly in Kona . We do have spots where you can see several of them on a single dive.Back to the topic of the title... gettting around in Kona: I've always recommended getting a rental car when you come here, but there are many people who do want other options, so I'll discuss them here. First thing one needs to know when coming to Kona is - there is no walking to anywhere from the airport. I had someone asking me how long of a walk is it to the Fairmont Orchid from the Aloha terminal last week, and while I'm not exactly sure, it's something in the range of 27-34 miles or so (a longer distance than most people want to roll their luggage). Th...
More About: Cars , Rental , Rent , Round

Happy 4th of July!
2006-07-04 20:03:00
So I'm liking my Olympus sp-350 still. This is an underwater photo of a strawberry nudibranch. I've tried to get a picture of one for years with 3 different cameras and underwater housing setups and this is the first one that I've taken a good photo of this critter with. I'm getting closer to getting a good picture of a Flame Angel (Centropyge loriculus). They are very timid and tend to dodge cameras... this one was oh so close to a good shot.Kona diving conditions have been very good as of late, with good viz and warming water, but the surface chop has been up so the boat rides have been a bit bumpy on occasion. We had a passenger feeling a bit queasy a couple days back and we told her the proper remedy and she tried it last night, which was bumpier yet, and felt great. If you have EVER had sea-sickness issues, or even if you don't know due to lack of sea time, do take Bonine (generic active ingredient is meclizine hydrochloride) or the less drowsy Dramamine (same acitve ...
More About: Happy , July

2 manta rays at the Kona manta ray night dive last night.
2006-07-03 05:19:00
We took our group out last night and enjoyed seeing 2 rays. This morning I had three on the boat and did a couple of nice dives. Tomorrow we're pulling a double again with a two tanker in the morning and an afternoon and evening dive later in the day.I didn't take the camera down today, and I sort of wish I had for one particular thing. I found an interesting nudibranch I hadn't see before, segmented like a blue dragon nudibranch, but it definitely was not a blue dragon nudi. It was nowhere near as frilly. Oh well, maybe I'll see another sometime in the next 7 or 8 years.Herre's a photo of a Titan Scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis cacopsis) that was tucked away in an archway. The flash really brings out the colors on both the scorpionfish and the archway. They're tough to see. I had to point at it for almost a minute from just a few inches away and trace the outline with my fingers for one of my divers to realize what it was... not uncommon to have to do, they can be that har...
More About: Night , Manta , Kona , Rays , Dive

Lots of great weather and great diving....
2006-07-01 22:47:00
Been pretty busy the last couple of days, with back to back charters day and night on Thursday and Friday, and a night trip tonight.The mantas disappeared for about 5 days a couple weeks back, but have been present the last 5-7 days. On Thursday we had a quite pregnant "Bertha", one of our largest and best known mantas, for the entire evening. Last night we had two rays at the site.The day dives have been quite nice. I've been seeing a bunch of dwarf morays, 5 total on my last 3 daytime dives. I don't know if there are a lot of them right now or if I have just started seeing them. These are a very small moray, roughly the size of a pencil, sometimes a bit larger.This is a picture of a Redbarred Hawkfish (Cirrhitops fasciatus). They're fairly common but we generally don't pay all that much attention to them. Hawkfish either don't have, or don't use (I'm not certain which), a swim bladder. They spend thier lives perching on coral heads waiting for dinner. If you approa...
More About: Weather , Great , Diving , Ving

The curious wormfish of Kona Hawaii
2006-06-28 09:15:00
This isn't the best picture of one of these little fish, but it's the only one I have. They are interesting fish in that they have an almost eel-like flexibility that you generally do not see in freeswimming fish. Looking at the photo you can see the false eyespot on the tail - the real eye is on the right side in this picture. They do tend to dart into holes when you approach, we don't see them often. I took it today on a quick "captain's dive" (I captained the boat today, but one of my crew is also a captain, so I was able to sneak in the water during the surface interval) between dives one and two on today's charter.It was a quick dive, but I managed to see an eagle ray, a tiger moray that was burying itself into the coral before I could get there, a school of Heller's barracuda, the Curious Wormfish (Gunnellichthys curiosus), bunches of anthias and about a 40-50 pound Jack and ohter goodies. I was in a hurry and didn't get close enough to anything to get a decent shot...
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Hawai

Eel Cleaning Station....Cleaner shrimp clean eels of parasites.
2006-06-27 01:06:00
The last post was really long and spammy. Yuck.
More About: Cleaning , Clean , Shrimp , Station , Para

Scuba certification. How to become diving certified. Dive classes and inst
2006-06-26 23:51:00
I'm probably rehashing some older posts here, but I thought I'd talk a little about learning to dive. For those of you who are already certified, this will be of little interest, it may come in handy if you are not.For obtaining your scuba certification, you will have lots of training options. There are numerous dive training agencies (PADI, YMCA, NAUI, SSI, SDI... etc) you will find that offer training programs in the US, as well numerous more outside the US. Dive shops and instructors will be affiliated with at least one or more training agency. For recreational diving, in general, it's not so much the agency but the instructor you will personally be dealing with that's important. Find someone you are comfortable working with.The agencies have set up courses, course materials and training methods your Instructor will use to introduce you to this facinating hobby.There are a few different ways to take your course I'll mention here. I'm going to make some generalizations...
More About: Classes , Diving , Come , Certification , Class

A day off from my scuba job.... so I went diving again.
2006-06-25 23:56:00
I'm still trying to figure out the camera. I'm having fun with it. I went down to the Place of Refuge again for a shore dive and went back to the rock with the shrimp from the other day. Today there was an Undualte Moray (Gymnothorax undulatus) in being cleaned by both the scarlet lady cleaner shrimp and banded coral shrimp - it got crowded in his little hole. I took a pile of pictures, and that's sort of what it takes to get the one where most everything you want is in focus. This was one of two out of about 12-15 shots that came out fairly OK - everything else was either the eel or the shrimp out of focus, this one was close. Next time I'll try some manual settings, ratehr than the "underwater macro" preset on the Olympus sp-350, to see if that helps.This is a closeup shot of one of the christmas tree worms on that coral head shot I posted earlier. They are neat. I still need to get a real crisp shot of one. It might take some practice to get what I want. Aloha, S...
More About: Diving , Again , Ving , Went

Things to do in Kona Hawaii.....
2006-06-25 09:11:00
Well, besides watching turkeys - yes turkeys are gettting quite common at elevation here, we've got 2 hens with chicks up our road right now - you've got all sorts of stuff to do here. This particular shot was taken just up the hill from us, those are mac nut trees in the background. We tend to see more pheasants than turkeys in our yard.The two things that you can do here which I consider to be world class, as in you are unlikely or hard pressed to be able to do this anywhere else in the world, are the manta ray night dive and visiting the lava flow. The lava flow does happen to be on the other side of the island, which is a bit of a trip (2 .5 hours or so by car) but well worth it when the lava is flowing and you can approach it. The lava flow is also worth a blog on it's own, I'll leave that for someone else.Today Bob and I finished off a student's Open Water certification class. It was a very easy day as he was very well prepared and had better buoyancy control than man...
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Hawai , Things , Thing

Went scuba diving for fun today.
2006-06-24 02:43:00
I went down to the Place of Refuge to play with the camera a bit. It does great for true macro, and is a bit off for lighting when the fish are just out of range.I popped down deep initially to see what was out in the sand. When you go out in sand patches in Kona, you'll generally find rocks, coral heads, or garbage like tires or cement blocks which become a little oasis of life.The shrimp above are cleaner shrimp, often called scarlet lady cleaner shrimp locally. In the tropical fish days I knew them as eel cleaner shrimp, as they are often associated with eels. These guys did have an eel waiting for them under the other side of the rock.Here's a picture of a little coral growth that is loaded with christmas tree worms. Lots of corals will have critters growing in, on and around them, so it's fun to take a close look every now and then.Water temp was 79 today. We still have a pretty big south swell, but the bay at the park was still quite protected. Aloha, Steve
More About: Today , Scuba Diving , Diving , Ving , Went

No mantas on the manta ray night dive tonight.
2006-06-23 12:41:00
Bummer. The last few nights have been off an on for the manta rays apparently. Toni ght was an off night. We had plenty of plankton, but no mantas to be seen. We usually set up for the mantas and if there are none in roughly 15 minutes we'll turn it into a regular night dive and check back every so often to see if any mantas have come in.Tonight's night dive was very nice though. We saw two good sized spiny lobsters, a regal slipper lobster, several common slipper lobsters, two Hawaiian red lobsters, a large anemone hermit crab, a smaller anemone hermit crab, tons of shrimp, loads of eels out hunting and other good stuff. We had two experienced divers tonight so I took the camera down. Right now it's not really set up for night shots, I probably won't take it down on night dives 'til I figure a few things out. I'm posting a couple pics that turned out.The fish at the top is a Stocky Hawkfish (Cirrhitus pinnulatus). We see these fish often at night and they have a neat ...
More About: Night , Manta , Dive

Urgent Kona Hawaii weather report....
2006-06-21 18:43:00
It's nice!!!!!Here's the underwater photo of the young adult phase of the yellowtail coris wrasse I pictured two posts below. They go from red with white diamond patterns to this. This is probably the most stunning color phase. Older adults will develop a more greenish-turquoise hue. This pic is my first known repeat on the blog - I'd posted it a couple months back using a photo host which is now down, you may or may not see it in the archives.Aloha, Steve
More About: Weather , Hawaii , Report , Kona , Hawai

A busy Kona diving day ahead....
2006-06-20 09:42:00
Tomorrow went from two passengers to five passengers in the morning due to a few phone calls earlier today, and then I have 3 or 4 on the manta dive tomorrow night. We're starting to pick up for the summer. Today was spent running errands and working on my web page. I started getting people telling me my pricing was well below several of my competitors so I had to check it out. I'd done the numbers recently and did realize that I litterally could lose money when I have solo students so that needed to be bumped up. After cruising through websites it appears most of the notable boats have had increases. I'm keeping things as close to what I've been charging as possible for now, a few things have gone up a few bucks here and there but no major changes. I'll need to keep a closer eye on the local market in the future, Kona seems to still be priced below Maui for most certified diving experiences.Here's another little white mouth moray eel from the other day. I am liking the...
More About: Diving , Head , Ving , Busy

No scuba diving today, cleaning our Kona vacation rental..
2006-06-19 04:13:00
It's been slow on the boat this last week, but from Tuesday on it gets busier with 5 charters booked between then and Saturday. The goal is to run about 8-9 charters a week and then hire another Instructor/boat captain to fill in the gaps, play extra crew if we have students, and give Bob and I a break. At that point I'll have decisions to make as far is whether to push for 2 charters a day, every day.We tented the house this last week. I'd hope to get a picture of it to show, but they pulled the tent down before I made it to the house. In Hawaii, we're pretty prone to termites. Every so often, say 5-10 years (and almost any time a house is sold that hasn't been tented within a few years), you are likely to have to tent your house and fumigate it with a gas that permeates everything and kills termite colonies and anything else it touches. It leaves no residue, but we're starting to lose our geckos. They seem to tolerate it initially, but then have troubles the next few d...
More About: Rental , Cleaning , Vacation , Today , Kona

Tried my Olympus sp-350 camera underwater for some photography today...
2006-06-17 08:02:00
SMILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I am. I picked up an Olympus sp-350 and it's housing for use underwater, with hopes of renting it out if I had good results. Today I did a short dive (my first with this camera) during our surface interval and took several shots... I was quite happy with the results.We had some pretty Kona experienced divers today and took them up to a spot north of the northernmost Kona day use mooring to do a live boat dive. It was a very nice dive, lots of canyons and topography. They apparently saw 2-3 mantas (daytime), depending on who's counting, and one diver swore they saw a marlin off the dropoff. After the dive we moved down to "Hoover's" and I took a "Captain's dive" during the surface interval to see if I could find that frogfish from last week. Bob described the location and off I went. No luck. I decided to play with the camera using the "underwater macro" setting. This setting is really nice. I have to figure out exactly what it is and try it manua...
More About: Photography , Camera , Water

More Kona Hawaii scuba diving talk....
2006-06-14 05:51:00
Here's a nice photo of a Whip Coral Goby which Pat took the other day. These guys spend pretty much their entire lives on a whip coral. Today we had fun diving with some recently certified divers and another diver who hadn't dove in a couple years. Everyone did fine. There was a bit of a swell from both the north and the south today, that's fairly unusual this time of year. We do sometimes see that in the March/April timeframe. It knocked the viz down to mediocre for here, maybe 40'+ on the second dive. Highlights of the day were turtles... and hearing "that's the coolest thing I've ever done" from one of the new divers - Diving can be a totally new and exciting world. Aloha, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Kona , Talk , Hawai , Scuba Diving

Frogfish photos from the other day.
2006-06-11 23:03:00
Here's a couple photos Pat took the other day of a rather large Commerson's Frog fish (Antennarius commersoni). Pat figured it was roughly basketball sized. For those of you not familiar with frogfish, they are a member of the angler family. Frogfish will basically sit motionless on a rock and wiggle a small appendage above their mouth which acts as a lure for small fish. They have a hinging jaw and they can gulp down any small fish that approaches, some frogfish are capable of eating fish as large or larger than themselves. Frogfish are also known to be the fastest eaters on the planet, according to the website of the Shedd Aquarium, they can swallow their victim in 6 milliseconds !!!! That's faster than I can eat a Burger King whopper. These guys start off bright yellow, and as they grow they tend to slowly get multicolored ugly (is that a color?) to match their surroundings. You may even have to look twice to see it in the photos, they can be real hard for divers to spot...
More About: Photos , The Other , The O

Kona's water temp has bumped up quickly...
2006-06-11 20:50:00
In the course of 4 days the temp readings on all our computers (Bob's, mine, and our customers') jumped 4 degrees. I've been getting readings of 79 from the old airport diving area up to Garden Eel Cove and slightly north. This was looking to be a very cool summer of diving last sunday, but it appears our last south swell brought in the warmer waters. I haven't seen it jump that quickly before.I haven't posted the last few days. On tuesday's night dive we saw 4 manta rays. That night we did a dive early with a customer who I certified last year. He hadn't dove since, but did great, getting around an hour on the dive. After his dive we dropped back in the harbor and picked up the divers I've had earlier in the week for the trip out to the Kona Airport for the manta ray night dive. It was a good dive, nice and warm for me... I've been getting quite cold on the night dives 'til the temps started bumping up. Next year I'm going to need to get a thicker wetsuit when t...
More About: Water , Quick , Bump , Temp

It's a beautiful morning in Kona today.
2006-06-06 22:03:00
We've got nice flat water conditions right now. This evening we're doing a two tanker. We'll go out and do a dive with a passenger who hasn't dove with us in a year, and then swing back into the harbor to pick up those who've already dove with us the last week and head out to just off the Kona airport to do the manta ray dive. Should be a nice evening for it.Here's a picture of Ho'okena Beach park in South Kona. The Big Island, being some millions of years younger than much of Hawaii, isn't loaded with beaches, but there are still some nice ones to be found. Hookena is one of my favorites. It's an old cattle wharf area with a nice local beach surrounded by cliffs. In the past few years they've fixed it up substantially. I was afraid they'd mess up the local feel, but it's quite nice. The beach park is multi-purpose, with camping, a nice beach, decent snorkeling and such. It can make for a nice shore dive, but you may have to dive it a few times in different dir...
More About: Today , Beautiful , Morning , Beau