Here's a couple of Bandit Angels (Desmoholocanthus arcuatus) from a dive the other week. Hawaii only has a limited number of angelfish species on their reefs, most of which are dwarf species ranging to only 2-4 inches in length, Bandits however reach about 7 inches in length. These guys are not real common, but we've got a couple of spots where there's a good shot at seeing them.
So the latest on the boat is... it's still being worked on. Longest 3 weeks of my life... Anyways, it's really starting to shape up. It sat once again for a short while but we've got someone working on it now. We're fabricating new hatch covers, moving fuel lines/vents/etc, finishing the interior grinding/sanding/fiberglassing and such and it should be ready for paint hopefully sometime next week. After that it'll need about 6-10 hours of work - that's probably a week in mechanic's time - and it'll be done. I've got all my charters pretty much set for the rest of the month on my friend's boat and then hopefully I'll be able to hit the ground running after a couple days of runnning it. Pat and I will probably be in the poor house when the final bills hit, but the rebuild beats building one from scratch. When it's all done you'll likely be seeing a big post with lots of pictures... early on I thought I'd post pictures while it was all being done, but frankly it looks pretty horrible when you are in the middle of it.
Other Kona news. The NEW HIGHWAY is open - sort of. They've been working on a new highway coming into Kailua, starting at about the harbor, for about a year and a half. The new section opened up about a week ago, and they promplty redirected all traffic on to it and have torn up the existing highway to rebuild it, so we're still operating on basically a 2 lane road (one in each direction) for a while. At least you can tell what the plan is though.
Gotta hit the hay, I've got a charter in the morning. Later,
Steve
Bandit Angels from Kona Hawaii....
