June 17th, 2011

private charter today

left the harbor looking for dolphins and hooked up with a 25# mahimahi about 15 minutes out. we found a large group of friendly spinner dolphins in front of kona town and swam with them for about an hour. cruising offshore for marlin we found 2 groups of pilot whales and hopped in hoping to hook up with some oceanic white tip sharks. no luck with the sharks but the whales did come over and check out the snorkelers. scout(our dog) was a great snorkeling guide all day!

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!