Scuba Diving Vacations

Today I was doing some academic work with some students. Afterwards I met Pat down at the Kona Brewing Company for some pizza and a porter or two.... yum, yum. It was pouring down rain when we left the Brewpub, one of those rains where you get a half inch in about 15 minutes. We kind of needed it.

Last night we did the manta ray night dive off the airport. Nice night. They'd been predicting 10-15 foot swells from the northwest off Oahu and the other islands the last day and a half, but we were pretty much shaded from that swell by the other islands and only had some slight rollers. There ended up being very little plankton at the dive site for some reason, so the mantas that were there weren't hanging around much, just doing flybys. They still had them off and on for the better part of 45 minutes so everyone had a good time, maybe not as nice a time as the night before when there were 13 mantas and plenty of plankton... the show can be pretty much determined by presence or absence of plankton.

Guess I haven't posted the current Kona water temperature since I've been back, mainly because I've been playing Captain 'til my cough from the cold goes totally away. Bob and the customers have been seeing 79-81 degrees, depending on who's computer, during the dives this last several days.

The pic above is of an undulate moray being cleaned by a banded coral shrimp. Once you find a spot where one is being cleaned, it's quite possible that you will see it, or other morays, there on a regular basis soliciting a cleaning.

I've got the day off tomorrow, we're going to try the buffet at the Sheraton Keauhou for the holiday - I haven't eaten there yet so it'll be interesting to see how it compares with others we've eaten at over the years.

Aloha,

Steve