Scuba Diving Vacations

This post is just mostly blabber. Those who have followed the multi-year Hokulia (A south Kona subdivision) legal battles will be interested to know that the Judge vacated a portion of his earlier ruling today. Hokulia has been attempting to settle this for a couple of years and there were 2 holdouts among the plaintiffs. The legislature has made strides to finally deal with some of our zoning laws and the settlement suddenly became more doable apparently. They're supposed to release the terms of the settlement tomorrow. At least we'll finally get our highway which was stalled by the original ruling back in '03.

I was looking through the paper the other morning and noticed an obituary ad - One of the interesting things here I'd never seen (or at least noticed) is that when people pass away, the family or friends often take out an 1/8th - 1/12th page ad with the deceased's picture and a bit of a tribute. In this case it was someone I'd met and really enjoyed on several occasions. He ran one of the Kailua furniture stores for years. My wife and I probably talked to him two or three times in the store while purchasing a dining set for our rental and that's about all it took. He sure could remember faces.... I'd see him in town busy talking to people and he'd go out of his way to say hi. He was genuinely full of Aloha. I doubt he could remember our names, but he always asked how the wife was doing and how things were going down Kealakekua way. Friendly, likeable guy. He was maybe 13 years older than I and always appeared like an active fellow when we saw him, quite a surprise to see his pic in the paper. I'm sure he'll be missed by many. RIP Kimo.

The weather has been quite cloudy still. We did get some sun yesterday and a bit today, with a few sprinkles up mauka (up the mountain), beats the weather they've been having on Oahu, Kauai and the east side of the Big Island.

I talked with my mechanic tonight. We met yesterday and he started working on the outdrive, turned out to be a different, but slightly bigger problem. With any luck it'll be back together and running tomorrow afternoon.

Here's a photo of an Ornate Butterfly (Chaetodon Ornatissimus). These are one of the most gorgeous butterflyfish around. Back in my aquarium shop days these guys used to come in as an "assorted" butterfly, that was a bad deal all around as they strictly feed on live coral polyps. I never ordered "assorteds" after seeing what was generally sent.

Aloha,

Steve