Scuba Diving Vacations

I'm running errands, doing some boat maintenance and such today. Tonight I have 1 diver and 4-5 snorkelers for the manta dive. We've (Kona dive operators in general) been seeing 3-5 mantas off the airport site the last few nights.

I've got a couple of "not quite good enough to call keepers" pics, of some fish I've been wanting to show, that I'll post. All of these guys are fish that my camera's focusing system has a tough time tracking. Between that and the shutter delay in low light, it may be a while before I can post a "keeper".



The first is my best shot so far of a flame angel. We saw this one yesterday and I managed to get a shot of it as it came out of a hole. Flame angelfish are found throughout the tropical indo-pacific and are a popular aquarium fish. I'd heard during my aquarium shop days that the Hawaiian ones were a deeper red than what you generally saw in fish shipments from elsewhere, and this seems to be true from what I've seen diving here vs. what I had been getting when I was bringing in non-Hawaiian flame angels.

The second shot is of the fire dart fish I've been talking about seeing this year. These guys are just small enough that my camera tends to focus on the background rather than the fish.



Yesterday's dive was a blast. We had both of these guys, plus buterfly fish galore, including a Saddleback Butterfly I got a real lousy picture of, a tiger cowry, an unusual leaf scorpion way back in a hole that I really wish I could've got a picture of, and all sorts of goodies. Along with that, there were whales singing throughout the dive. It was great fun!

Well, I'm off to get some work done.

Later,

Steve