May 18, 2011

Manta Ray Madness once again! We went out for the night dive and had a fantastic show. A couple dozen Manta Rays, Jeweled Anemone crab, Undulated moray Eels out hunting and we found a Big Eye Squid! Awesome dive!!

May 17, 2011

I saw my first Kona Crab today! We dropped in at the Green Can in 130ft. Descended into thousands of Garden Eel at the bottom, where I was focused on a sizable something on the sand, scurrying about. At first I thought it was a large Jewelled Anemone Crab, but upon further inspection, I realized it was not. I hovered above it, watch it move along at a pretty good pace... finally I focused on it close enough to identify it as a Kona Crab. They're big! Like the size of a 7-11 crab... maybe even bigger. They have super long eye stalks, so as they bury themselves in the sand, which this one eventually did. They can still poke their beady little eyes out at the end of their long stalks and look around... you would never notice them. We also saw Spotted Eagle Rays and lots of fish and moray eels.

May 15, 2011

Today was fabulous. We celebrated Nikki's birthday and took some close friends to a secluded beach, where we anchored just offshore. The ocean was flat, calm. We BBQ'd on the back of the boat.. oysters, dogs and ono, steak, chicken and veggie skewers. We swam into the beach for games and swimming. We also did some underwater foot races and ballet, in the shallow sand, with no fins. It was so much fun! Thanks to all who came out and to those who didn't... you should not miss the next boat day!!

Happy Birthday Nikki

May 12, 2011

We went up to see the Manta Rays tonight. It was AMAZING! We had record numbers of Manta Rays at the night dive tonight! There were too many to count, but the official count came in at 36! That's unbelievable! Everyone was super stoked! Thank you Mantas for blessing us tonight. We love you!!

May 12, 2011

Thunder Reef was gorgeous as usual this morning. So CLEAR! It's so fishy... just like being in an aquarium! We found a Tiger Flat Worm, a Devil Scorpion Fish, Psychedelic Wrasses, a Gold Lace Nudibranchs, a HUGE male Green Sea Turtle that cruised along with us for a bit. Also in the shallows next to the boat we've been seeing a couple different pairs of sizable Tear Drop Butterfly fish,we saw both of the pairs today. They seem to be hanging around. Beautiful Kona!

May 11, 2011

We caught an Ono!! Yum... everyone got to take some home to enjoy! Thanks for reeling it in Scott, and thanks for cutting it up Danny! The highlights for today's dives were: We had a hunting party consisting of a dozen or so blue goatfish, blue fin travelle, a white mouth moray eel and a trumpet fish! They were zooming around, side by side, the eel would dive into a coral head and all the fish would cluster around waiting for a tasty snack to pop out. They'd go from coral head to coral head like a gang of outlaws! After following them for a while, we found a pair of black and white striped coris together! This is a rare fish which is usually seen solo. We also saw leaf scorpion fish, a huge 7-11 crab and another huge moray eel out swimming. And it was a beautiful, sunny, calm day in Kona, Hawaii!

May 10, 2011

First we dove Kaiwi Point where my group saw a little baby Spotted Eagle Ray and Mike's group saw a large adult Spotted Eagle Ray! We also saw a White Tip Reef Shark, A variety of Moray Eels and an Octopus. The highlights of the day actually happened on the next dive at Kaloko Canyons.

We not only saw a male Whitley's Box Fish in 35 FEET OF WATER!! (they are usually much deeper) We got to see (for my first time EVER!) A SPINY COWFISH!!!! An extremely rare fish that I wasn't sure I would ever see in Hawaii. It's also known as the "big" cowfish because it gets up to 10 inches when fully grown. This one was fully grown and blended in very well with the rocky substrate. When Mike first pointed it out to me I thought it was a Striped Belly Puffer Fish, because it was about the same size. However as my eyes focused on it I could clearly see its boxy shape and the thorns protruding from its eyebrow area, mid-back and also below its tail. So AMAZING!

May 8, 2011

At Nai'a Bay this morning we had friendly Spinner Dolphins! We got to hang out with them for 10 minutes or so. Yorin got really CLOSE to one. I wish I had a camera so I could've taken his picture! Something caught my eye as I was playing in mid-water with the dolphins, so I descended to the bottom at about 75 feet to inspect the critter in the rubble. It turned out to be a male Two Spot Wrasse. It gets its name for the two black spots on it's body, but this one was especially colorful. Once back on the boat I looked it up in the book, turns out the one I saw was in full courtship display! It had delicately colored spots and lines in pink, purple, green, yellow and blue! It was also fully grown according to Hoover's fish identification book. It was 6 inches.

April 7, 2011

Thunder Reef was gorgeous this morning! Beautiful visibility! As we descended over the ledge a large Manta Ray swam slowly past us. That was a great way to start the dive! We dropped down to 130 feet to check out the forest of Wire Coral. The individual, green corals were standing straight up out of the bottom, shaped like long wires. Most of them were 3 to 4 feet high but some were taller than me! As we cruised up the slope we saw a Zebra Moray and a couple of harems of Flame Wrasses, with the males in their mating phase with their colorful fins out in full display. Up on top of the slope we found a large, gorgeous Leaf Scorpion fish that looked like white lace. Later we found octopus, more eels, and a Tiger Cowrey. As we ascended back to the boat a school of about 200 Raccoon Butterfly fish came swarming all around us. We all just grinned at each other.... NICE dive!

May 2, 2011

Drift Dive around Kaiwi Point. It was a perfect day for it. The current was gentle but constant. It pushed us along for nearly 40 minutes. (usually it dies out after 15-20) It was gorgeous. Lots of fish and beautiful visibility. We didn't see any big animals today but we all agreed that it was a relaxing, beautiful dive. Dee found an extremely rare fish. And even more rare, she got a picture of the rare fish!! Well done, Dee! Here it is pictured below. We had to look it up in the book... a nearly SUPER Male Sunset Wrasse. ( "super" here not meaning, "really great" but, alpha, alpha male! )

April 28, 2011

We dropped in on the "Green Can" this morning. That is the channel marker in front of Honokohau Harbor. I hadn't been down there in a while. At the bottom of the chain there is a big cement block at about 130 ft. As we were descending we saw a couple Sand Bar Sharks cruising out in the blue. They made a couple of passes to get a better look and then they were gone. As we settled in on the sand at the bottom, we took a few moments to pan the horizon and take in the vast stretch of white sand with thousands of Garden Eels. They look like tall grass coming out of the sea floor, but they are actually long skinny eels. As we started to make our way across the expanse of sand towards the reef we noticed little patched of sand were moving. As our focus shifted we realized the moving sand was actually juvenile Peacock Flounders that perfectly blended in with the sand. Some of them were the size of a quarter, the biggest ones were the size of a dollar bill. (They reach the size of a dinner plate!) Then we realized they were everywhere. We probably saw a couple dozen! I have never seen that many together! It was cool. As we got closer to the reef we found a Jeweled Anemone Crab scurrying away to try and find a coral head to hide under. Up on the reef there was plenty to see. We found a Great Barracuda, two Hawaiian Octopus, and a teeny, tiny baby Frog Fish the size of the nail on my pinky finger! Too cute! Another great dive right in front of the harbor. We are so spoiled!

April 24, 2011

4-24-11

Went fishing yesterday with Rich Bauer. We passed by VV buoy around 6:am and hooked a spunky striped marlin that put on a great jumping display. Rich brought the fish up to the boat in about 15 minutes and we let it swim free. About an hour later we made it to C buoy passing spotted dolphins, beaked and pilot whales along the way. At C buoy we started catching 4-8# skip jack and yellowfin tunas for live baits. The first bait attracted a large bronze whaler shark that gave Rich something to tug on for awhile. Once the shark was free we resumed live baiting but started getting harrassed by a group of rough toothed dolphins. The pesky critters wouldnt leave us alone so we eventually gave up and started trolling plastics. Near VV we had a hook up that came off right away but we circled back and found a hungry spearfish that even made a few jumps. Rich had the spearfish to the back of the boat in five minutes and the fish unhooked itself.

3 days ago we had a similar trip and Rich caught a Blue marlin under 100#'s

April 23, 2011

Suck 'Em Up and Kaiwi Point. The South swell has been big enough to keep us out of these sites for the last couple weeks. It was nice to visit them again. Visibility was phenomenal! As good as it gets! There was a huge antler coral demolished right by the Suck 'Em Up mooring... couldn't tell if it was from the recent swell or an anchor drop.

Exploring the lava tubes was fun. We saw a White Tip Reef Shark, a variety of Moray Eels, Hawaiian Octopus and loads of fish at Kaiwi Point. Fun day!

April 22, 2011

Fishing trip today... So fun! We hooked a Pacific Blue Marlin almost right off the bat, and released him. He probably weighed in at around 100 lbs. We headed Southward and found a huge pod of Spotted Dolphins where we caught a few small Yellow Fin Tuna. (they were delicious, we later had them as sashimi) We then found a pod of Short Finned Pilot Whales. We also got one more special treat... a pod of Melon Head Whales come all around the boat.... CLOSE. It was amazing!!!

April 21, 2011

Kaloko Canyons and Turtle Haven. Today's dive highlights: Mating Hawaiian Octopus that couldn't care less about us. We hung out with them watching them change color and texture again and again. Too cool. We had a close encounter with a large Manta Ray. We saw a Spotted Eagle Ray, a couple Green Sea Turtles, more Hawaiian Octopus and a variety of moray eels

April 19, 2011

Pyramid Pinnacle and Nai'a Bay. Great vis today! Today's dive highlights: Spotted Eagle Rays, Great Barracuda, Green Sea Turtle, Leaf Scorpion Fish, Hawaiian Octopus, Snowflake Moray Eel.

April 15, 2011

Aloha All! Check out our new Facebook page! Been diving with us in the past? Please share photos, video or stories on our new page. ENJOY!

March 15, 2011

Whale Shark!!

What a great moment for all of our open water students. We were conducting Open Water Dive 1, for the PADI program. We were all just off the boat and headed up to the mooring line to begin our descent when we look over and see a Whale Shark! It was a young male, only about 15 feet long. He was so beautiful. He hung our with us for about 5 minutes and was scratching his back and belly against the mooring line. Then he slowly swam off into the blue. We all took a moment to compose ourselves and the continued on with these lucky individual's FIRST DIVE EVER!

I can't remember what we saw on that dive!

August 14th, 2009

Got to Torpedo Dive with Marcie today. We went to Kaloko Canyon and dove for 78 minutes. We saw a Viper Moray, two different groups of Psychedelic Wrasses, each with 1 male and about 7 or 8 females. After we dropped off the heavier breathers, Marcie and I went cruising out over the sand flats and saw about 8 different octopus, 2 large Indigo Dart Fish, Flagtail File Fish, Dragon Wrasses and a huge, terminal male Yellowstripe Coris. Awesome. Mike did dive #1 today at Nai'a Bay. It was the usual crowd pleaser with the typical after dive remarks, like "that was the best dive I've ever done." So all the usual critters were there. Maybe Marcie will list them for us. Marcie? You out there?? (Actually, a new client today, Doug, whose been out diving with our competitors this week said, "This was the best day of diving I've ever had!" Thanks Doug, for giving us the opportunity to show you around... hope to see you again!

August 13th, 2009

Fishing trip today. Went out to OTEC Buoy. (12 miles offshore, over 10,000 feet deep) Loaded up with small Big Eye Tuna. YUMMY!! My favorite dinner, and the folks from Texas got to learn why!!! Also saw a lot of Mahi Mahi's but couldn't raise them. We also saw Short Finned Pilot Whales and Beaked Whales. Beautiful day with flat, calm water. Kona has returned to normal following Tropical Depression Felicia.

August 12, 2009

Tropical Depression Felecia brought us rain all night. We awoke to a soggy boat. A beautiful sunny day and strong winds out of the South today. Tomorrow, things should return to normal.

Three tanks planned today with the first stop being the Naked Lady. Crazy with critters... Didn't find the frog fish or the shark today, but lots of other fun stuff to keep us busy. 3 Leaf Scorpion Fish, Long Nose Hawkfish, 8 Green Hawaiian Lionfish, Bicolor Anthius, Helmet Conch, Lantern Tobies, gobies, nudibranchs, shrimp, and much more.

Dive two and three we hid from the South wind at Nai'a Bay and Turtle Pinnacle. The snorkelers hung out with that big, male Green Sea Turtle for quite a while at Nai'a Bay and then swam with Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins at Turtle Pinnacle! The divers got to enjoy a Spotted Eagle Ray, about 50 Cornet fish, puffer fish, a couple big Yellow Margin Moray Eels, turtles, octopus and more!

Underwater, visibility was well over 100 feet. I wonder if they can say that in Florida and the Caribbean when a Hurricane, turned Tropical Depression, rolls on through. I doubt it. Kona is so awesome! 

August 11th, 2009

Tropical Depression Felecia has finally arrived. A beautiful sunny day in Kona with gusty winds coming out of the North. We hid from the wind along the south facing shores of Pine Trees. No fishing offshore today! Skull Cave and Freeze Face were both really nice underwater. We saw octopus, a nice variety of eels, including a Tiger Moray and Garden Eels, nudibranchs in Suck-em-up lava tube, a Seven Eleven Crab, Reticulated Cowreys in Skull Cave, and a Frog Fish.