Scuba Diving Vacations

Howdy. Here's a shot from the bay outside of the Place of Refuge in Kona. The bay itself is one of the more popular shore dives in Hawaii, not this day though as surf was quite up. In the background there's an old temple that's been refurbished. It's all part of a National Park.

The park has quite a history. As I've had it told to me, so please don't quote this as completely correct... Places of refuge were established along the coast line in several spots. Back in the day, they were places of worship and also apparently places vanquished warriors and criminals could go to seek refuge. The Hawaiians had a "Kapu" (basically meaning law) system I think was established by the royalty, and if you broke Kapu, you were often subject to the penalty of death. Kapu could involve any number of offenses, from stealing to casting your shadow on the King's path, all sorts of interesting offenses. If you broke Kapu, your options were to basically be stoned to death, or run as fast as you can to a Place of Refuge and turn yourself in to the priests. They could absolve you of your crimes and then send runners out to tell everyone your cool, and then you'd be welcomed back to society. I need to actually do some reading so I'm not guilty of telling it improperly, but it is facinating.

Today was spent cleaning the vacation rental. We've been quite busy with it and are actully fully scheduled through the end of March at this point... if you are interested in a nice place to stay in South Kona later next spring and beyond click on the link on the right side of the page or check out
our vrbo.com site for more information.

Divewise, Bob's off to the Galapagos tomorrow so I'm scrambling to make sure I have coverage for several days of diving while he's gone.... part of the hazards of being a small operator at this point. As the business grows I'll have more regular employees, but I've been lucky that I know a bunch of good guides that can step in when needed.

Well, that's about all for now.

Aloha,

Steve