Howdy,

If you haven't noticed, I've decided to see how my placement in google for the phrase "garish colors" stands in a few days.... just kidding, but it wouldn't surprise me if the blog places well in a search for that phrase soon.
So here's a quick shot of how it looks after today's painting fun. One more coat of red, and a bit of touch up in the teal and the current slatwall will be finished for now. By the time I'm finished, it'll look like someone's trying to put a small dive shop in. I've got a few T-shirts coming in, but that's about all it's gonna be for a while. It'll be nice to have a home of operations outside of my garage and pickup truck though.

Fast update... I just for the heck of it googled "garish colors" and the blog shows up near the top of the page.... this post could put it over the top.... If only I could place so well for "scuba".

Later,

Steve

.... I slept in 'til 7 today. I decided to start trying to offer the manta dive on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to keep up with the schedule, but I'm sort of getting used to it. After the charters and the cleanup I usually get home from the manta dive about 11:30 to 11:45, which is waaay past my bedtime, and I can't sleep right away. At first getting up at 6 am to do it all over again was really causing me grief - very tired - but I'm starting to get a bit more used to it. We ended up doing an extra night charter to accommodate a group of existing customers and it worked out fine, but I don't know if I'll keep the MWF thing indefinitely or not... sort of depends on what happens this fall when I'm running the office somewhat regularly. For now, as long as I stay away from caffeine in the evening I seem to be able to crash early enough to get enough sleep for now after the night charters.

If the phone doesn't ring, I've got a couple days off. I basically kind of need the days off right now anyway, relax for a day or two at least. I've been 30 straight days on the boat or working on the walls at the office for several hours. I'll still spend a couple hours down there today, but it won't be a 6-15 hour day like a lot of the last month's been. I'm finishing up the slatwall today and then will start working on the trim tomorrow. I've got to take the chopsaw down to the shop tomorrow and start cutting molding that'll cover my stripe in the middle of the walls right now. I'll still have a stripe, it'll just likely not be white.

The video slideshow above is pretty cool in my opinion. One of our customers came over for a bit and carried around a Sealife digital camera and took shots of many of the things she saw. I found this posted on her blog listed as "fish food" on my links on the sidebar and thought it was real neat. Mel's given me permission to post it here. One thing I noticed, she's got a nice picture of an Imperial Shrimp that's not labeled... Theyr'e tough to get a shot of 'cause they generally dart off before you can get the shot. It's on the first cushion star.... it immediately stood out for me when I first watched the video - I've been trying, pretty much unsuccessfully, to get a decent shot of one for years. Anyway, I think her video give a real good idea of what you can potentially see on a dive trip to Kona. Thanks for letting me post this Mel!

Aloha,

Steve

Remember I mentioned a couple posts back that we'd had a huge south swell that caused some damage to the reef in at least one spot. Here's a shot of a rather sizable lobe coral that was outright lifted up and turned over. So far I've only noticed damage in one spot, everything else I've dove recently was spared.

Been busy. Last night we had a manta dive. It was a bit slow to develop, seemed like we got one additional manta every 10 minutes... ended up with 4 mantas and a pretty good show by the end of the dive. The divers were stoked... heard the usual "best dive ever" comments. This dive is an incredible show and if you are in Kona and like snorkeling or diving it's just about a "must do".

Today a long time customer that has become a friend and I hung slatwall in the "office". My mexican food inspired colors are now offset by cardboard colored particle board. After tomorrow's charter I'll run out and buy some primer and more tropical/Caribbean brightly colored paint. After that's done, likely this weekend, we'll figure out what to do about the trim and the soon not to be white stripe across the shop.

In local Kona news: Target has opened. They had their VIP opening last night and "soft" opening this morning. They officially "Open" this Sunday, but for now they're keeping regular hours.

I haven't been blogging much the last month and a half as I've been real busy with Wanna Dive. I mentioned earlier that I've rented out a spot across from the harbor for an office/storage/classroom/meeting spot/place to hang my T-shirts.Here's a refresher look at the space.
I wanted to set up the spot in a way that I could display my shirts and whatever else I may have at some point. Originally I wasn't really thinking of painting it, just washing the wall and hanging some slatwall or gridwall. I was looking at one of the fishing charter stores in the area and saw bright red slatwall, found it curious and asked Pat of her opinion, and what would she think if I put in a sheet of slatwall and painted it red with a diagonal white stripe to do the dive flag thing... she said go for it. That's about all I planned at the time - white walls, a sheet of slatwall looking like a dive flag.... then I got to thinking, I'm gonna have this gosh-awful red thing on one wall of a not freshly painted white room. YUCK! I'm gonna have to paint the whole thing.

This was a couple of weeks ago and the swell came up huge and we decided to take a day off. I figured I'd head up to the Waikoloa resorts to take a look at what new retail establishments are doing these days (Pat has learned I like looking at stores when we travel - something about retail display intrigues me, it has since the days I owned a pet store long ago). I was hungry, then recalled that a couple of Mexican restaurants in town had somewhat wild color schemes. It was tostada time at that point... yum yum... in the course of eating the tostada I was really enjoying the color scheme... so you know what that means, of course... I had to drive across town to eat something at the other Mexican restaurant I was thinking of... It's taco time now... in the course of eating the taco I was really enjoying the color scheme...

Luckily it only took 2 restaurants to make my decision... tropical/Caribbean colors... or I'd have been eating yet again. So after picking up a bunch of paint chips at Home Depot, I had a basic plan. Of course I still get other ideas popping into my head. This shot is of what has happened so far.

I should be receiving my slatwall and a couple other fixtures tomorrow, then it's off to more painting of garish colors.

Aloha,

Steve

I did a dive last week at Pawai Bay out on the Kaiwi Point end. There's a bunch of cup coral on a large formation near the point and the current was screaming when we were down so the polyps were out bigtime.

We had a huge southwest swell during the last half of June. I'd heard people mention it was one of the largest in decades but I hadn't thought much of it 'til this dive. Everything on the west end of the dive was as normal, but in one area of the site there was noticeable damage.... large lobe coral formations were sheared off and tossed out of place, often upside down. Wow. The area between Carousel and the Body Glove mooring had quite a bit of breakage. I'm wanting to check out the reef more inshore and to the south to see if it was damaged also. All of our sites that weren't directly in the path of the swell are fine. Quite interesting, it's amazing how much power a little surf has.

later,

Steve

Here's a Leaf Scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus) I found under a coral head at Turtle Pinnacle a couple months back.

Pat's family flew in last night so we've got a full house for a few days. I've got today off, with charters the next few days. I've got a big project ahead of me... the "office". I've rented a spot out near the harbor where I'll be able to keep my gear (the business has pretty much been living out of the truck and garage for several years), hang my T shirts, and meet customers that want to meet or try gear on ahead of time. I've got no immediate plans for retail, no immediate money anyways, so it'll be "Open by Accident", I mean "Open by Appointment", only. I'm heading off shortly to start filling holes, sanding and washing the walls in preparation for a more funky paint job... gloss white's kinda boring... there used to be a travel company office in this spot, I'm shooting for a different look. I'll post a walk through tour once I'm done - Someone asked the other day when I'm moving in... my answer was "over the course of the next 8-10 months". I'm hoping to have it looking like an official spot in the next 2-3 weeks of working between charters though.