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Woke up at 4am to a full moon over Hawaii this morning....
2007-07-01 11:50:00
For some strange reason I woke up at 4am today. The moon was full and I decided to try taking a picture with the little Olympus sp-350. It has a night function, and as long as I held it steady against a post it did fine... probably about a half second exposure, the first few attempts were blurry, once I figured out I needed to keep it flush against the post a picture finally turned out. Not much to report right now. Just thought I'd post the pic. Later, Steve
More About: Full Moon , Moon , Hawaii , Kona , Morning

Whoohoo!!!! Oregon State University Beavers just win 2nd consecutive Colle
2007-06-25 05:10:00
OK, I'm not a big baseball fan these days, but being a former OSU student this is even bigger than my "whoohoo" I gave them last year... Only three teams have repeated since the 60's. Congrats. I do feel sorry for UNC though, they lost the series twice in a row now, it's an accomplishment just getting there, not to mention twice.So I gotta admit, I knew the Beavs were to at least the quarterfinals and didn't realize they'd made it to the finals, but yesterday Pat and I ran errands, heard a radio commercial for Don the Beachcombers restaurant and Mai Tai Tiki Bar... and being the Tiki fans that we are we had to go check it out. Anyway, the first game of the series was on at the time so we got to watch it and had to watch the last innings of tonight's game. BTW... Beachcombers... big thumbs up for the visual improvements in the bar and diner. We'll have to do dinner there (I've heard lots of positive on the forums at Konaweb) but the bar was opened up, it used to be sort of sc...
More About: University , Oregon , State , Stat , Univ

Wanna Dive's "NEW" dive boat is coming along.
2007-06-22 05:41:00
If you've been following me, you know I've had the boat in for some major work. People who've dove with me lately know I've been wanting something different....so we've been rebuilding the boat essentially from the ground up.Well, the old inboard engine's out, and the 30 inch hull extension is essentially done. It looks as though I will end up with two swim platforms with two ladders towards the outside with the outboards off the center of the transom. They've started working on the inside today.. new bench seating with both dry and open storage, additional tank storage below floor in the existing fish hold, the engine box will be a thing of the past with additional light weight gear storage below floor level where the old engine was, we're looking at additional shelving in the cabin (leaving room for the dreaded porta potti - few small operators have one, nobody wants one - the goal is to never have it used). The goal is to up our storage as much as possible (but please...
More About: Boat , Ming , Along , Dive

Hawaii's otters have been migrating apparently....
2007-06-20 23:48:00
Over the weekend there were roughly 200 small earthquakes down at the volcano park and they closed Chain of Craters road and other roads around the park. The lava flow has been real active the last couple of months and they suspect magma is migrating beneath the volcano.... however they could be incorrect according to this video published by Dr. Tiki.... (warning - may contain alcohol, off color language and immature subject matter)...I stumbled on Tikibartv.com a couple weeks back and it's sort of a kick. It's a story of a group of thirty-somethings who hang out at a tiki bar and solve their troubles through alcoholic tiki beverages. It apparently started as a single episode joke by a scriptwriter who was poking fun at the fact he had a tiki bar in the corner of his living room. I saw an article yesterday which said it's become one of the most popular podcasts out there and it's now almost a full time job and has created interest in his other works he previously couldn't s...
More About: Otters , Rent , Otter , Appa , Been

Been getting some rain lately...
2007-06-17 13:31:00
We've been getting some rain lately in the afternoons all over Kona . They even had pretty good rains at the airport on Wednesday and Thursday eves, the airport might see 10-15 inches of rain a year. Today was quite nice though, although we've got north winds (I haven't watched the news lately, but it's probably from whatever front brought in the rain).Thought I'd put up a little manta update since I haven't posted one in a while. They apparently had three tonight. It's been pretty darned good the last few weeks. We went out the middle of last week and had 8-10 on the dive, and it hasn't let off much since, although tonight's number was a bit down. I've got a night charter planned for Tuesday on my friend's boat... can't wait 'til mine's finished with the rebuild.This eel is a Stout Moray (Gymnothorax eurostus). We see them relatively frequently on dives here, although not with the frequency of a few of our other species of eels. They're not as large as some, th...
More About: Rain , Lately , Late , Been

Cool find today at the Place of Refuge...
2007-06-15 11:30:00
I hadn't seen these in about 4 years, but apparently there's a bit of a bloom of them right now, at least down at the Place of Refuge. I noticed them on the sand. You'll likely need to click on the photo to get the larger photo just to see them.These are Siphopteron quadrispinosum (I haven't found a common name). I thought they might be some type of bubble snail, but apparently they are a slug. They are very tiny, with the biggest ones probably running less than an eighth of an inch in length... real tough for me to get a picture of.I've been very busy lately, what with working at the airport 4 days a week, diving 4-5 days a week and checking on boat progress. I told my work to consider me unavailable after this Sunday. The boat and the business need to take priority from here on and once the boat is ready I can't let the airport job cost me charters. I tentatively have employee number 2 lined up, I think I can keep Bob, this person (to be named later) and myself busy once the...
More About: Hawaii , Cool , Today , Find

Water temp's climbing back up....78-79 the last few days.
2007-06-08 02:29:00
I'd been out of the water for a couple of weeks and have dove the last three days. I should have known by the rain we've been seeing in the afternoon up mauka that the water temp has jumped upward, but I had to see my computer to be sure. I had 79 degrees on my dives the last three days.I've been running charters on a friend's boat, mine's taken apart for the next few days. I can't wait to get it back, I've been turning away a fair amount of last minute business, and as it turns out, my frined is leaving town for a week and the boat won't be available. Right now the boat's up on stilts and the engine is out. I'm just waiting for my mechanic and the boat surveyor to get together and make sure we have a workable plan for extending the hull, then things really get moving on the boat.We had some really nice dives the last few days. Sharks, turtles, spinner dolphins on the dive (the divers even got to see them jumping in and out of the water from beneath) and a bunch more...
More About: Water , Back , Days , Back-up , Climb

Apparently the manta dive is hopping....
2007-06-01 12:33:00
I haven't actually been out on the night dive for a while, but it's started to pick up again and I thought I'd pass it along. They've been seeing good numbers lately after a very slow spring. They apparently had eight mantas tonight.Well, the boat work is scheduled and hopefully I'll be back on my boat by the third week of the month. It should be pretty close, but there's a ton of work we'll be doing. I getting pretty excited about it. This is a major job that'll essentially give me a new boat without having to spring for a whole new boat. We'll be removing the old engine, exhaust, outdrive and the engine box, removing all the wiring, ripping up the deck and replacing it then rebuilding the cockpit/deck area and adding bench seats, all new wiring, building the hull extension/swimstep/outboard engine mounts to the existing transom and putting on a couple of reasonable sized 4 stroke outboards. We replaced the fuel tank with twin fuel tanks earlier this year. In the end I sh...
More About: Hawaii , Manta , Rent , Ping , Appa

OK, the news is.... Pat and I are expecting.... Twins!
2007-05-29 06:38:00
One is not enough, so we're going for two!!! Twin engines that is. Remember a couple posts back I said I might have news. Well it's about the boat. My boat has a single inboard engine that has been a source of occasional frustration ever since I've had it. I've finally come to the conclusion that it might be better to have two sources of frustration than one, but the likelihood of them both giving me troubles at the same time is very very low... that'll be a huge relief in itself. I've been waiting on financing before knowing for sure I could do it... it's a big job, but not near as much as a completely new boat would cost.The financing's set so now it's time to get together with the mechanic and the fiberglass guy and get it going. When it's all said and done, it'll have a ton more room inside since the inboard engine will be gone. With any luck it'll also have a better ride and performance.. yet to be seen, but in theory it should be a nicer ride. While we're...
More About: News , Twins , The News , Wins

Fly inter-island for practically free - super low airfares...
2007-05-28 12:14:00
OK, I generally don't post this kind of stuff, but this price Go Airlines just announced is almost plain silly. 9 bucks! I'm almost tempted to buy a couple of tickets just to do it. I figured I might post it just in case anyone might benefit, the sale only lasts a couple more days.This is a Redspotted Sandperch (Parapercis schauinslandi). They hang out on coral heads in the sand down at depth. Later, Steve
More About: Inter , Free , Super , Kona , Island

Just a quick note....
2007-05-26 12:22:00
I've been busy working at the other job this week. I actually have to get up in a bit over 5 hours to go at it again, so I'm keeping this short. I wanted to post a quick note to anyone who's been trying to contact me through my Wanna Dive e-mail in the last week or so... my webhost went through a server change and it buggered up my mail. I was able to get most of it earlier today, but I lost about 3 days of messages altogether that I never even saw (three days usually equals about 1100 pieces of junk mail and a couple of legitimate inquiries). If you've attempted to reach me and haven't heard back, I do think it's working OK now so you can try again if you'd like.This picture is of a goatfish working the sand. They have barbels which they run through the sand that stir things up that they might be able to eat. Aloha, Steve
More About: Note , Quick

Who needs men????
2007-05-23 10:12:00
OK, so no news yet, but I was just looking over today's newsbits and saw this... Apparently they've pretty much proven Parthenogenisis in Sharks from a case in a Nebraska aquarium. There was apparently a suspected case in Detroit a couple years back also. Parthenogenisis means "who needs men" in latin... OK that's not true... but it essentially means "virgin birth" in greek apparently. No male is involved and is relatively common in the insect world, and has been seen in many species of creatures outside of mammals, this was the first known proven episode in sharks.The photo above is of a Goldrim Surgeonfish (acanthurus nigircans). They are a neat fish which strongly resembles a Powder Blue Tang (acanthurus leucosternon) in a sort of night time pattern. They are not one of our more common tangs (a.k.a. surgeonfish), but we do see them from time to time. This is my most recognizeable pic of one. Aloha, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Needs

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched....
2007-05-22 05:18:00
In the spirit of that, I'm sitting on some news. I've been waiting on something and I'll probably know the outcome one way or the other in a few days, so next time I post I may be happy, disappointed, or somewherre in between (if I'm still waiting to find out the outcome).It's been cool and wet up mauka today, with rain most of the day... a rarity here in Kona at our elevation. I talked with Bob earlier today, he was out with another company, said it was pretty nice on the water as long as they stayed out of the south facing spots. We've had a pretty good south swell the last couple of days, apparently yesterday was particularly nasty and the best diving was up in the Sand Chute and Garden Eel Cove area off the Kona airport where we do our night dive.It'll be curious to see if the swells bring our water temps up. It's about the time of year the temperatures start to bump back up slowly.The picture above is of a Pebble Collector Urchin. The common form is dark blue and l...
More About: Hawaii , Count , Fore

Cool and wet up mauka today...
2007-05-15 04:09:00
I spent today pretty much around the house. It's cool (71 degrees at 4 PM today) and damp up at the house, I'm sure it's warmer down at the coast.. it was yesterday and the weather was much the same.I've been busy working the other job the last little bit. I do have a couple of charters this week, but it's still rather slow. I already have 15-16 charters tentatively set up for next month, and most of the booking inquiries won't even start 'til the month begins, so I suspect I'll probably be working through the summer.... 7 days a week is the goal and then the airport job can likely disappear, but it's nice having it during the slow months.We re-carpeted the vacation rental this week and are just finishing touching up the paint, after the next couple of guests we have a few days off to re-upholster the couch and love seat and then I'll post a couple of new pics of the place (there's a link on the right side that goes to the older photos). We were looking at the booking sch...
More About: Hawaii , Cool , Today

Saturday morning lizzard convention
2007-05-13 01:09:00
We've got a bunch of these guys hanging around outside our kitchen these days. We hung some bananas out for the cardinals and finches to pick at and we also get about 8-10 madascar day geckos at a time showing up.This morning we went to U-top-it down in Kailua for breakfast on the way to picking up carpet for our vacation rental we're recarpeting. U-top-it's located in behind Lava Java off Alii drive. Lava Java is quite known for their breakfasts, but U-top-it doesn't play second fiddle to anyone. It probably puts out the best breakfast I've had in Kona. I had their Loco Moco Attack... lots of fried rice, 1/2 lb hamburger patty, 2 fried eggs and grilled pepper slices, all smothered with a curry gravy (you get a choice of gravies), all on a large taro crepe (not a traditional crepe, thicker, more like a thin pancake). This meal was $8.95 and filled me, many people wouldn't be able to finish it I'd suspect. DELICIOUS. A big thumbs up from me, and I generally don't like...
More About: Hawaii , Saturday , Morning , Convention , Vent

Leaf Scorpionfish Taenianotus triacanthus
2007-05-11 11:37:00
This is a picture of a face of a Leaf Scorpion. You kind of have to look at it twice to see it. I do have some very nice pictures of leaf scorpions a year or more back in the blog if you care to explore the archives (linked on the right side of the page if you are on the home page). Leaf scorpions spend most of their lives just sitting around gently waving with the currents, pretty much looking like a leaf, 'til something edible happens by, then it's a matter of a very quick distending of the jaw and they've had their meal and they go back to just sitting there. These fish seem to be very attracted to antler corals, placing themselves in or under the corals, so you'll often notice the divemasters checking out every antler coral they come across for this critter and a few other things.Tuesday's night dive turned into a non-happening. My group was all snorkelers but one and when they called on Monday I'd filled them in on the relative lack of mantas and they decided to do o...
More About: Hawaii , Tria , Thus , Cant

We're doing a manta ray night dive tonight...
2007-04-30 20:53:00
The mantas have been around the last couple of nights and we're going up with a group tonight. Yesterday we had some interesting dives. We had a small group on who had to change their schedule from morning to late afternoon and wanted to do two dives right outside the harbor at a site that has a lot going on... a lot going on was definitely the case yesterday. I missed out on most of the fun because I played captain, but I did manage a "captain's dive" in between (Bob's also a licensed captain, as as long as one of us is on board at all times everything's cool). During the first dive, they were swarmed by a sizeable group of uluas (jacks), Bob said there were maybe 30-40 in the group - this is just something we don't see here, I think I've maybe seen 10-12 at a time before. Also seen over the course of the dives were leaf scorpion, a reticulated frogfish that I'm dieing to get a picture of (I couldn't find it on my dive), longfin anthias, 2 dwarf morays (along with sever...
More About: Hawaii , Night , Manta , Tonight , Toni

It's Kona's slow season again...
2007-04-29 07:04:00
Howdy, People do on occasion ask what our slow seasons are. I've covered it before but it never hurts to repeat it. At least in this biz, it seems the slowest months are May, and September through late November (excluding the week either side of Ironman). I've been on the call list for jury duty the last couple of weeks and it appears that Tuesday is the day for jury selection. I do have charters tomorrow and Monday, as well as earlier the last couple of weeks, so it seems the timing is right if I do get picked. I'll be going back to my part time job at the airport 'til it gets crazy busy again, they've been real flexible with me during the time I've been busy and I haven't worked with them in about 2 months. Here's a school of tangs (surgeonfish) I ran across the other day. Tangs are herbivorous and do a good job of cleaning algae off the corals. We've been reasonably busy with charters lately. We had a week of pretty crummy water - swells from both the north a...
More About: Season , Again , Slow , Seas

How to pronounce humuhumunukunukuapua'a....
2007-04-22 20:30:00
The Hawaiian name for a couple of well known triggerfish is humuhumunukunukuapua'a. People love to mispronounce it, as it's easy to do. Here's my best shot at sounding it out...who moo who moo new coo new coo ah poo ah ah Now say it real fast and you'll impress your friends. This particular fish pictured above happens to be called a humuhumu lei (also called a Whiteline Triggerfish- Sufflamen bursa). Hawaiian names for triggers are usually humuhumu followed by a descriptive section. Leis happen to the be the floral garlands you wear around your neck here, so I'm not exactly sure how the description fits on this fish unless the vertical bars behind the head are thought to resemble a lei. The Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, shown earlier in the month (could be lower on this page or you may have to check in the archives for April/March) aptly translates into "trigger fish with a nose like a pig" humuhumu - triggerfish ; nukunuku - nose ; pua'a - pig Aloha, Steve
More About: Pronounce , Pron

Bird songs at dawn... What we wake up to here in the Kealakekua / Captain C
2007-04-21 05:46:00
I don't have anything that records sound other than my cameras, so here's a "video" of the bird songs we get every morning. The video is dark because the camera picks up light rather poorly and youtube darkens it even more - if you look real hard you might see some sky against the trees, it's not really this dark in real life.Pretty much anywhere you have trees/jungle in Hawaii you'll have birds. They are quite active in the morning as the sun comes up and in the evening nearing sundown. I generally sleep right through the real heavy activity unless I've been traveling and come back... our sounds aren't like typical morning sounds back on much of the mainland. This was taken this morning as the sun comes up, turn up your sound and pretend you are waking up in Hawaii..... Good morning!
More About: Songs , Wake , Here , Dawn

Can you say aaaahhhhhh?
2007-04-17 22:25:00
This eel looks a lot like me when you hang fried chicken in front of me... Eels have a reputation that is much more fierce than they actually deserve. Eels spend their lives crawling in and out of corals, and in order to be able to back up they can't have large operculums (the gill plates most fish have covering their gills). They basically have very small gill openings and they have to actively pump water through their gills by opening and closing their mouths. Now in this case, they do tend to open thier mouths a bit more when you get real close, but it's strictly to look fierce as a defense mechanism.Speaking of fried chicken, I finally made some fried chicken that I actually really liked. I've tried making fried chicken for years and never had figured out how to actually make the chicken meat itself taste all that good.... something to do with needing to read recipes I guess... No more having to resort to Banquet out of the box (yuck) to get chicken with any flavor any ...

Local News... Legendary Hawaii singing personality Don Ho passes away today
2007-04-15 06:42:00
Here's the article.Rest in peace Don.
More About: News , Hawaii , Today , Don Ho , Local

I'm off today, so hey, let's get a headache together....
2007-04-15 00:40:00
This is a 3-d photo pair of a fuchsia from our porch. If you are a long time reader, you might remember this post from last year with a 3-d iris photo pair. I'm thinking the iris one is a bit easier to see, so for more thorough instructions and practice you might want to click on the link and look at that one first. What it all boils down to is that your brain normally sees two separate images (one from each eye) from slightly different angles and then puts them together so you can perceive depth. You can do the same thing with photographs by taking an image and then taking another image from slightly to the left of the original viewpoint, and then reversing them (first image on the left and second on the right) as you look at them. At that point you need to cross your eyes to where you see three separate images and the middle one will be in 3-d. Once again, the linked post explains it better, and a couple of the commenters mentioned a trick that helped them focus to get the ...
More About: Today , Together , Head , Headache

What's more interesting... American Idol or Moorish Idol?
2007-04-14 00:57:00
This is a Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus). This is one of the fish that seems to hold the interest of both snorkelers and divers the most. They are very elegant looking as they swim across the reef. The do a pretty good job of keeping just out of flash distance with my little camera, so this is about all I've got so far. I had to touch it up in photoshop, so it doesn't look quite natural but it's close.We did the night dive again last night. Still have fairly light plankton levels, but there was a manta there for the whole show.Right now I'm having fun... not too much really... we're having the boat trailer rebuilt. They tend to go real fast in a saltwater environment, a little salt water can turn a chunk of steel into a crumbling brown mess faster than you'd ever think. I've had to rent a slip for a couple of days to keep the boat in while the trailer's beeing worked on... Makes for more excercise for Bob and I since we've got to carry tanks to the slip and such. T...
More About: Interesting , American Idol , American , Kona , Interest

Whitemouth Moray Eel - gymnothorax meleagris
2007-04-12 03:05:00
The last few posts were very wordy.
More About: Item , Mouth , Hora , Thor , Mora

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