Well, we've had our first bigger surf of the season this last week. I didn't have anything scheduled after returning from vacation 'til the weekend. The surf was down and I did some intro dives for non-divers and a couple dives for a class I'll be finishing next weekend. Luckily the surf doesn't really affect the diving in Kona, except when there's exceptionally high surf, all that often as we generally are able to pull around a point and find good diving which is protected. It usually only really causes troubles, dive cancellations and such, in part of January and February. Some years it's not a problem at all, here's hoping for one of those years.
The schedule for this week is a class Wed, Thurs and Friday with finishing up the other class on Saturday with posslibly some intros on Sunday. I've had to turn down a bunch of work for next week as my wife is taking me to the spay and neutering clinic next Monday morning and I'm not supposed to lift anything or do any diving for a week-10 days afterward. I'll be taking that time off I guess, don't want any troubles down there.
The cold I picked up in Vegas has pretty much run it's course and so far I'm not having the allergy issues I had the last time I came back from there. It knocked me out for a couple of months last time as my sinuses were shot from all the dry air. Kona has a thing called "Vog" which is a volcanic smog/fog, which builds up on the leeward side of the island. Tradewinds come in from the east and pick up the sulfur dioxide from the volcano. As the wind streams around the island it sort of creates an eddy behind Mauna Loa, which pushes 14000 feet high, and we get a haze which builds up generally around the Kealakekua area on the Kona side. It often gets thick enough to obscure the view of the horizon if you are at altitude. If the winds switch and come in from the west, which seems to happen a few times a year, it clears out wonderfully here and Hilo gets socked in.
Well, that's about it for now, I really should get some work done today.
later,
Steve
Surf's up a bit.
