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Crown of Thorns Starfish...
2008-05-11 05:42:00
This is a Crown of Thorns star. These guys are NOT a favorite critter of ours as they eat coral, and the spines are venemnous to boot. You can see this particular star has just finished off eating the cauliflower coral behind it and is moving on to it's next meal. Corals are a colonial critter, growing on top of the skeleton of previous polyps. The COT starfish will eat the live outer layer, and the coral may or may not ever recover.As far as the poison content of the spines of this star... it is not to be messed with. I've run into a lot of people who have tried touching it "just to see" if it's sharp or hurts.... It is sharp, will poke through gloves and skin easily, and will mess the contact site up for months, I know people who have visible damage years later - it's not a simple bee sting, it's nasty.We're in the midst of a busy spell (what a difference a year makes, last year we were taking the boat out of service for the rebuild and had 4 or 5 charters in May, this y...
More About: Hawaii , Kona

Frogfish everywhere....
2008-05-08 19:39:00
Perhaps it's just me, but it seems as though we're seeing a lot more frogfish these days... yahoo. There was a period a couple years back where it seemed as though I hadn't seen a frogfish in 2-3 years. So far this year we've been seeing them a lot (by lot, I mean several times a month). You never know why some fish seem to disappear for a while, I'm hoping seeing frogfish regularly is a trend that continues.I found this little guy at a divesite right outside the harbor. It was on a non-descript coral head, so there's little chance I'd find it again if I tried, at least not in the same spot. This one was probabaly about an inch and a half long, smaller than a golfball anyway. They can get huge and tend to pick up colors to blend into the scenery as they grow.One thing I didn't notice as I took the photo that I noticed after I looked at it later.... you can see it's little "fishing rod"!!!! Take a look at the center of it's forhead, above the mouth and between the e...
More About: Hawaii , Frogfish

US economic stimulus package = Ikelite AF35 strobe???
2008-05-08 10:11:00
So far, every picture that Pat or I have taken since we started going the digital route underwater has been with the onboard flash or with available light. We both now have Canon G9 camera setups and decided that we'll take the opportunity of the stimulus windfall to pick up the Ikelite strobe package linked here:This strobe isn't a high end strobe package, but it packs a fair punch for the price and might be ideal for our use. I'd been curious about it, as it offers a decent amount of power for macro and nearby pictures, say to about 3-4 feet, for the price. It just came out in the last couple of months so there's not a lot of them out there just yet, but a customer the other week had one and is quite happy with it so far. It's made to be compatible with most of the point and shoot camera setups currently available and has a sensor to make it more or less automatic once you get settings that give you an exposure you are comfortable with. Few, if any, strobe packages give ...
More About: Economic , Package

Here's another short clip of the manta rays from yesterday in Kona Hawaii..
2008-05-08 09:42:00
Manta ray night dive, Kona Hawaii May 6th, '08 from Steve on Vimeo.This is a short clip from the manta dive last night. This particular night there were roughly 50 or so divers sharing 6-7 mantas. This clip is a short uncut version of what can go on for 45-60 minutes straight on a good night. It's kinda funny, we get people who say "we've already been to stingray city in the Carribean" or "we've seen mantas on dives in 'X location'" as though they've seen it all and the night dive is going to be nothing special, then they do this dive and get 5,10,30,50 minutes (depends on the night, some nights we get nothing, many are just plain amazing) of continuous headbumping manta ray bombardment and come up raving about it being the coolest dive they've ever done. I've been leading this dive since late '99 and it's still a thrill for me. Aloha, Steve
More About: Clip , Manta , Yesterday

A bunch of mantas at the Kona manta ray night dive tonight...
2008-05-07 11:58:00
We did the manta dive tonight after doing the morning trip also. I'm making this post quick, gotta hit the hay for a few hours and get up for tomorrow's charter - we've been staying quite busy despite being the slow time of year.... How slow is it you may ask... this last Saturday the only other dive charters I saw on the water were the two companies that service primarily Japanese clientele and two companies that have been here for over 25 years. Saturdays seem to be generally a slower dive day because it's a travel day or "the last full day in Kona so I'll do something other than dive" day for a lot of people. We've been going out consistantly, be we are running a bit light (as far as number of divers on the boat) often, going out with a light load beats not going out at all though.Here's a scorpion fish I took a picture of on a night dive a couple weeks back. With the night time coloration it's tough for me to tell if it's a Decoy Scorpionfish or a Speckled Scorpionfis...
More About: Hawaii , Night , Manta , Tonight

A Bee's-eye view of Kona coffee....
2008-05-01 05:01:00
It's spring time again, we've had a little rain and now the coffee is blooming all around our area. We'll probably see the coffee load up with flowers at least a couple times a year depending on what the weather's doing. A couple months after the flowers are gone, the green coffee bean will start to show and then later as the coffee bean turns red it will be ready for harvest. Kona coffee is prized by many as some of the best in the world as it is hand picked, as opposed to machine harvested. This leads to a finer grade of coffee, surpassed only by the coffee bean picked by Indonesian marsupials - Click here if you don't believe me - Civet cats pick only the ripest coffee beans, eat 'em, then the remaining specially pre-treated bean is harvested off the ground by locals and sold in the US for upwards of $300 a pound - and to think people cringe at the price of Kona coffee! I'm personally not a coffee fan, but if I was hosting some kind of a coffee drinking party, it'd be...
More About: Coffee , Hawaii , View

David Blaine holds breath for 17 miutes and 4 seconds... wow!
2008-04-30 22:42:00
Ok, I usually don't post non-Hawaii news items, but this one's sorta related to diving, freediving anyway. He had to hyper-oxygenate (I think that would be the phrase) himself for 25 minutes first to do it, but it's still nuts.Here's the story....and a somewhat related video...I'd be happy to be able to comfortably hold my breath a minute and a half or two. Quick story, a few years back at DEMA, there was a freediving organization that held classes in the display pool offering to get people to where they could hold their breath for 4 minutes. I think 5 or 6 took it on and I saw the final round... one participant popped up 20 seconds short and took about 3 breaths and was fine, the others all made it and a couple said they were very relaxed and probably could've done another minute... Mamalian diving reflex is an interesting thing.I don't think I've posted this particular pic of a Ghost Shrimp (also called a "fountain shrimp" in some parts of the world) before. These are a...
More About: David Blaine , David , Breath , Holds , Seconds

Stout Moray Eel
2008-04-30 11:02:00
Here's a Stout Moray (Gymnothorax eurostus) from today. We see these on occasion, they tend to be smallish and less conspicuous so they may be more common than they seem.We've got a big south swell coming in right now. Our second dive today the viz was much more limited than usual, probably 50-60 feet at depth and 30-40 feet in close to shore- quite poor by Kona standards. In general we can just pull around a point and avoid sandy spots, but we may have to cover a bit more ground than usual to find a protected spot. The water temp was still 75 by my computer today... I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that the swell will bump the water temperature up. Later, Steve
More About: Hawaii

Orange Gumdrop Nudibranch....
2008-04-29 08:47:00
These little critters are something I can usually (OK, often anyways) find on our night dive at the manta site up north if the night dive gets longer because the mantas don't show. I have a shot from years ago with my old mx10, but hadn't seen one with any of my digital's in hand. I did a night dive for fun last week and found this one. They're pretty small and often overlooked. I'd like to get a different angle on them some day so you can see the horns more readily. Aloha, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Orange

Island Fever??? Living in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii....
2008-04-28 07:04:00
I'm soliciting questions, and blog reader Mel asked this question... "Do you ever get "island fever" living on the Big Island ?"For me it really didn't hit for several years, but I'm starting to notice it more now, my wife said it really didn't hit her for 4-5 years.If you live here, you're fairly busy with everyday life... working, cleaning, cutting down the fast growing green stuff if you have property - all the usual things you deal with everywhere else.... you can go quite a while without noticing any feeling of being cooped up. The one thing where it's completely different from life back on the mainland is that if you really want or need a break from the routine, getting in your car and driving to a location that is totally different is more or less impossible. The circle island tour is fun, to a point, then it gets the same. You can't get in a car and in a day or two or five be a world away. I think it took Pat and I three days to drive to Texarkana, Texas from Corvallis...
More About: Living , Hawaii , Kona

Ask Steve a question????
2008-04-25 23:38:00
Just for fun, I thought I'd solicit questions and see if anyone actually asks questions. I may or may not be able to answer them, but I can give it a try.A few basic guidelines: Question s can be about the dive biz, my dive biz, Kona, Hawaii , diving, living here, opinions on places or activities here, and things related to them. I'm not going to answer questions about other specific dive businesses, you'd need to contact them to answer questions about them. Personal questions may or may not be answered. I'm staying away from religion or politics, there's plenty of other blogs for that. I reserve the right to not answer anything I feel inapropriate... or that I just don't want to answer for whatever reason...and repetitive questions may be dealt with as a single response.Getting questions from outside sources may help me cover some different, yet related, subjects... so ask away. Before you ask, I do ask that you look at the very top of the blog, where you'll find a sear...
More About: Steve

I've enabled comment moderation on the blog...
2008-04-25 20:56:00
Just a quick note. I've been getting a lot of SPAM the recently, primarily from 3-4 companies trying to sell thier product via my site, and I'm tired of cleaning it up after the fact. From now on, all comments will have to be approved by me before they appear. Don't be afraid to comment if you are not peddling something or are just plain obnoxious (only had that happen once or twice so far). I will approve and respond to comments as quickly as I can. Aloha, Steve
More About: Blog , Comment

Took some underwater video with my Canon G9 on the manta ray night dive ton
2008-04-23 12:14:00
Kona manta ray night dive April 08 from Steve on Vimeo.Tonight we had two mantas show up for the night dive. I took my camera down to see how it does with video in low light - I'm quite pleased, it seems to do better than the other point and shoots I've had.Water conditions were pretty good today, it's still cool though... 75 degrees. I was hoping the big south swell we had the last week would bump it up a bit higher. later, Steve
More About: Video , Canon , Hawaii , Night , Manta

It's "slow season" for a bit....
2008-04-22 22:18:00
I looked back at my calender a couple days back and realized I'd had charters scheduled most every day the last 60 days. I did have 4 cancellations in that stretch because of the ATA and Aloha airline closures. Now I'm into a 10 day dead period with little (I have a charter tonight) scheduled and then I have another stretch where I'm working at least 10 days straight. A couple days off now and then is fine, but it's always fun to be working. So far though, it's been a busier spring than in years past and May is looking much better than last year.I have had a couple of inquiries for charters this week, and I guess it's maybe a mistake to say "I'd be happy to dive with you, I'm wide open so let me know when you'd like to go out". I guess some people are afraid to be the only one's on the boat, like they'll get shortchanged or something, which is the just about the opposite of reality as when we have our lightest loads are the times we can really cater to the individual dive...
More About: Hawaii , Season , Slow

Just discovered Animoto slide shows...
2008-04-22 11:22:00
this is a quick test of animoto.com's slide show programThey give you a 30 second slide show for free, longer ones cost something supposedly (I haven't tried it to find out). By the looks of it I tossed on a couple too many photos so everything went by real fast. I may have to see what the longer ones do, as well as if there is a cost involved, at some point. It's pretty interesting as far as a slideshow product goes... lots of action. later, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Slide

OK, I'm excited about white balance... just stumbled across...
2008-04-19 05:54:00
a blog by a guy who's into photography and diving and found this post. Apparently Photoshop has had a white balance, a black balance and a gray balance dropper in their program all along... go to image>adjustments>levels and then look for the droppers in the lower right of the box that opens... whohoo!!!! You can experiment using this on photos that are bluish and get them much closer than you'll likely get them by other means unless you're really talented at Photoshop. I managed to "save" a few old photos in just a couple minutes' time that I couldn't do a whole lot with earlier. Save your originals! You never know when you'll find out something that'll help you fix a problem you didn't think you could overcome. Later, Steve
More About: Hawaii , White , Balance

Current Kona water and air quality conditions.....April 18th, '08
2008-04-19 02:18:00
We've got a huge south swell right now. I should've taken my camera with me downtown today to take a picture in Kailua Bay... lots of water pounding against the sea wall. The winds have been coming up the last two days also so it's been pretty sloppy on the water.The volcano is still actively putting out lots of gasses. They've been off and on issuing voluntary evacuations in communities near the park the last couple of weeks. Wednesday morning they even had a sulfur dioxide alert in HOVE, which is on the west side of the island, and were calling for a voluntary evactuation of the whole area... luckily that was shortlived and called off in about 2 and a half hours. Here in Kona we haven't had the sulfur dioxide issues, but the vog has been very thick for the better part of two weeks now - yuck, we haven't had a good horizon in most of that time and sunsets have turned into a big orange ball with orange sky.Here's a pair of Banded Coral Shrimp I found the other day. They...
More About: Hawaii , April , Current , Water

Hawaiian Yellow Margin Moray eel....
2008-04-18 07:46:00
We saw this guy on a dive a couple of days ago. It swam right across our path and into a hole on the wall, then turned around to watch us pass. This was a big and thick eel. You can see the yellow margin on the tip of it's tail quite nicely in this pic. Later, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Margin , Yellow , Hawaiian

We were skunked on the manta dive the over night...
2008-04-15 02:44:00
It was a fun dive, but alas no mantas a few nights back. As much as we'd like to, we can't guarantee mother nature. Bob sent me a couple of pics from the other week of a good sized frogfish he found on a dive. This guy's still got a fair amount of yellow in it despite pushing 7-8 inches in length. Bob reduced the size of the photo for email to send it to me, by the time I reworked it for my blog posts the resolution leaves a bit to be desired, but you still get the drift of what the fish looks like. They're neat looking critters. Aloha, Steve
More About: Hawaii , Night , Manta , Dive

Been busy....
2008-04-13 09:54:00
Aloha, I've been reasonably busy with Wanna Dive the last little bit, so I havn't been posting as much. I've been doing more of the diving the last while, which has been very fun. Today we had a couple of very nice dives, lots to look at and pretty reasonable conditions, although the last little while the water temp has cooled off a hair (I'm seeing 73-75 on my computer). We had several nudibranchs, banded coral and ghost shrimps, a male psychedelic wrasse and it's harem of females, a pair of flame angels (in a spot there was only one last year... dating is alive and well in the reef world), several eels and other neat animals. Here's a baitball of opelu we saw today. It was a pretty thick swarm of opelu. Fishermen catch them for use as bait for larger fish or for smoking, they're a popular snack item when smoked. I'll try to post a bit more frequently (I'm five or six photos ahead right now so even if the post is worthless there'll be an OK picture). Later, ...
More About: Hawaii , Busy

First Aloha Airlines shuts down, now ATA does the same....
2008-04-05 09:02:00
Hawaii has just lost roughly 15 percent of it's mainland arrivals in the last few days... that's pretty big news here. I've already had to juggle my schedule next week to accomodate divers who were delayed a couple days trying to get here, may lose a charter or two out of it. I currently have customers who are diving with me who just found out today (from Cathy and I) they might not have a way home set up at this point... the ATA flights are going to be tough to replace right away. Apparently Hawaiian is trying to add what flights they can, but they can only do so much.It'll be curious to see how this all shakes out. It was very quiet at the harbor today, several of the boats I see regularly at the boat ramp and boat wash at the end of the day weren't on the water today. I know at least one of them had to cancel today's charter as they're customers were caught up in the closings.Interesting times, so far other than a little schedule juggling I'm not feeling the sting too ...
More About: Airlines , Hawaii , Aloha

Scuba diving at the Place of Refuge in Kona Hawaii
2008-04-02 09:49:00
Scuba diving off Kona Hawaii from Steve on Vimeo.Here's a quickie underwater video of part of the drop off at the Place of Refuge taken with my Canon G9.
More About: Scuba Diving , Diving

Adios Aloha. Aloha Airlines just announced tomorrow (March 31st) will be t
2008-03-31 05:04:00
It's the end of an era of over 60 years. It'll be curious as to how this all shakes out. The State will ask the bankruptcy court to not allow the closure but that may not have any effect. Expect another airline to come in and purchase what remains of the company in a short time... hopefully.Aloha and Hawaii an had attempted to merger a few years back to attempt to create a larger, healthy company. The state wouldn't allow it despite pricing lock guarantees. When that fell through prices went up and the two companies have been struggling to do well since. Go Airlines came in a couple years ago and has offered artificially low prices which has weakened both companies. While benefitting passengers for the short term, it's made it tough for everyone to operate. Both companies have sued Mesa, the parent company of Go. Hawaiian won thier suit and was awarded 80 million, Aloha's suit is ongoing.Hopefully someone steps in soon to service the interisland traffic or things could ...
More About: Kona , March , Tomorrow

Did a three tank dive trip today...
2008-03-27 07:22:00
Today we did a three tank dive trip up north. We did Kua Bay and Makalawena dives along with a dive closer in to town. Kua Bay is a very nice dive, especially when you've done all the closer in dives. Makalawena is an exceptional dive (I don't want to describe it 'til I dive it... let's just today's divers said there were about 10 swimthrough archways within 100 feet of the boat) we'll probably start doing more often as the weather and swell conditions improve. I'd heard about the Makalawena dive but had never actually done it. Today's group was a bunch that had dove with Bob over the years so he did the diving, but I managed to snorkel the site and could tell it's really quite something. It's a bit of a haul up there so I'm trying to figure out how to work it charge-wise since I often just go out with two or three divers and that trip would make a break even charter into a money loser between fuel and extra time.Speaking of pricing... just a note to anyone who's t...
More About: Hawaii , Today , Tank , Trip , Dive

3 whales sighted underwater by our divers today....
2008-03-26 08:09:00
Man I wish I was leading that dive. I was up on the boat and just as my divers went down a few whales went by. They (the whales, the divers had no idea what was coming) turned themselves around and passed outside of the divers as the divers hit the edge of the reef at "Hoover's" then turned around again and headed directly to the divers. A female and her calf went directly overhead while an escort whale passed about 50 feet outside of Cathy and the group.All were thrilled. 2000 or so dives here and I've yet to see a whale underwater, bummer.Anyway, it was a good day of diving. The whales were definitely the highlights, but Cathy also found a yellow frogfish she's been watching grow over the last month or two... and at the end of our second dive (at an undisclosed location) she came up and said she needed to borrow the camera again. This is what she found..... Despite not being familiar with my camera, and also in a pretty strong surge, she was able to get these shots of a Re...
More About: Hawaii , Today , Divers , Whales , Underwater

Hawaii volcano update....
2008-03-25 09:03:00
This is a Potter's Angelfish (Centropyge Potteri), one of the dwarf angelfish species we have. They're a tough one to get a shot of because they dart into the coral as soon as you get reasonably close to them.The volcano has been particularly active the last couple of weeks, first spewing great amounts, several times the usual, of sulfur dioxide into the air, then having it's first explosive event, along with large amounts of ash now, since the 1920's. No major danger yet, although they've considered evacuating nearby communities due to toxic gasses. All of the sulfur dioxide has brought tremendous amounts of VOG (volcanic fog) to the Kona side the last 8-10 days or so, although it was a hair less thick today and yesterday in comparison to earlier.
More About: Hawaii , Update , Volcano

Happy National Corndog Day!
2008-03-22 20:11:00
Yep, that's right, today is National Corndog Day. It all started back around the early 90's when a couple drunk basketball fans in Corvallis, Oregon (where I lived the 20 years previous to moving here - I don't know the guys though) realized they were hungry... It sorta took on a life of it's own after that, Google it for more history.Pat and I are celebrating it by not eating corn dogs, although going down to the Roadhouse Cafe in Kainaliu to see if they have one of their delicious Louisiana hotlink pastry wraps (they bill it as a corndog for adults) sounds tempting.Yesterday was a fun day of diving. The water was flat in the morning so we headed down south towards the Kealakekua Bay and Red Hill area. We dove "Chimney", which is a cool site with a vertical lava tube that starts at almost 50' of depth and once you are in it goes straight up to just shy of the surface - it's not a site for people with ear or buoyancy issues as you have to get negative and head straight back...
More About: Hawaii , Happy

3 tank boat dives in Kona Hawaii
2008-03-20 21:46:00
The standard morning dive outing in Kona tends to be a two tank outing, diving one tank at each of two locations. Some operators do offer a three tank day on occasion. I'm not aware of any at this point that offer a regularly scheduled 3 tank trip, but several will do it when there are enough customers to make a go of it.We did a three tanker yesterday. Our first dive was up north above the airport at a spot a handful of us go to on occasional basis. It's a great live boat dive with both deep and shallow reefs so we can do a deeper multilevel dive and still do a long dive. Highlights of that dive were a manta ray right off the bat, and the reef structure of the dive... lots of grand topography.Our second dive was at Pipe Dream, which is right off the westernmost point of the island on a large dropoff. There are a number of large pipes in the water. The one pictured above is basically a 6-8 foot diameter culvert that begins at about 60' of depth and goes down to about 120'...
More About: Hawaii , Tank , Boat

It's not the photographer... it's the camera....
2008-03-14 21:40:00
Well in general it's usually the photographer, not the camera, that makes for a good photo... but a good camera doesn't hurt. I lent out my camera to Cathy under the boat and without any practice she got some good pictures of that puffer several posts back. I lent my camera (Canon G-9) out to my wife after her batteries pooped out on the first dive and she comes up with this right off the bat. Oooh, I've been trying to get a good shot of a Hawaii an Flame Angel for a long time and she gets it five minutes into the dive with an unfamiliar camera. OK, it wasn't the camera... it was her... and some luck - these fish are very flighty and usually dive into the coral the moment you get close enough to get a shot. Anyway, Pat really liked the camera (largely because of the large 3" LCD screen) and I wouldn't be surprised if we have a second Canon G9 in the household soon.We've got a ton of diving coming up for about a month straight because of spring break stuff. It pretty much ...
More About: Camera , Photographer

Places to stay, finding a vacation rental in Kona, Hawaii and elsewhere....
2008-03-13 23:03:00
I get inquiries through my business about places to stay when coming over here fairly frequently. Kona has lots of hotel options, what many people do not realize is how many condo, home and apartment options are available. Many people put up their unoccupied residences (there are a ton of part timers here) for rent through vacation rental services. There are many companies that do this, as well as many websites where the owners themselves list rentals. We are big fans of www.VRBO.com. We list our rental on it and have used it several times to book rentals for our own vacations. In many cases, if you are going to a resort/tourist area you can often find apartments or homes for comparable or lower pricing than many hotels. We just used it again to reserve a spot in Vegas for the dive show this fall... to my surprise, there are actually a few strip properties avaialable on VRBO.com. We were able to book a unit at the MGM Signature (their luxury condos behind the hotel) for about...
More About: Las Vegas , Rental , Hawaii , Vacation , Places