Scuba Diving Vacations

We've got solar hot water at home, so what this means is that it's been real sunny here in Kona the last several days. You almost couldn't ask for better weather. Lots of blue skies, flat water, and great viz (although today was down a bit even though being very flat - some kind of plankton bloom had the viz down).
We've been busy with a class and several certified divers the last several days. Yesterday was a long day for us, with dives in the morning and the manta dive at night. There were 20 mantas on the dive last night! The divers were STOKED! I've got dives in the morning, and we have two more night trips scheduled for later in the week... the manta dive has been very successful all month, hopefully it'll continue for a while.

The shot above is of an Arc-eyed Hawkfish. These fish are very common, you'll find them on coral heads, and are fairly easy to approach and get a picture of. I wanted to get a shot of one on a coral head, rather than a closeup shot on this picture.

Later,

Steve

Just checking air prices right now I'm seeing prices in the 320-360 RT range to Kona from all over the western US. This time last year it was starting to really climb, hit nearly 900-1000 or so by mid-summer. Hopefully flight prices stay low for a while. (Edit note: it was brought to my attention that prices are bumping up around mid-June. Must be that summer surcharge. The prices I'm seeing aren't like last year at this point anyways).

The diving conditions have become pretty good. No major swells right now, viz was great yesterday. The vog's clearing out right now... yahoo,it's been a bit thick lately. I can see the horizon from my house, according to the horizon distance/elevation calculator I just looked up that means we've got visibility of at least 38.6 miles topside right now. We'd been unable to see the horizon from this elevation for several days due to the vog.

Here's a pic of a Blood Star, also called a Spotted Linckia (Linckia multifora). Hawaii isn't loaded with large starfish like back in the Northwest US where I come from. We do see this one fairly regularly, but you rarely seem them over 4-5 inches or so across.

Later,

Steve

Here's a pair of White Margin Nudibranchs (Glossodoris rufomarginata) laying eggs. These nudibranchs get to about an inch in length, and are one of the easier nudibranchs to find on purpose. I typically look for them on overhangs, say arches or the lip of a lava tube. It can often be found by looking for the white spiral egg mass - if the find the eggs the nudibranchs are not far away. I usually find them in groups of two or three within several inches of an egg mass.

We've had lots of fun customers on board lately. Today was fun, we had a woman and her family that were out to dive for her 75th birthday today. She hadn't dove in a few years and wanted to do it while they were here. She's pretty experienced, got 58 minutes on the first dive but was getting cold on the second dive and came up with a ton of air. The group seemed to have had a great time.

We get divers in their 70s from time to time. The "oldest" student (calendar-wise anyway, he was rather youngish physically - still very active and strong) I've ever had finished his class 5 or so days shy of his 70th birthday. Plenty of divers that age do just fine, some may need to don or remove their gear in the water due to knees and such not making it up the ladders quite as easily in their younger days. It seems a lot of divers who are still diving into their 70s and beyond are very experienced and have been diving in many places... it's a blast listening to dive stories.

It was sunny on the water today, no clouds over the ocean, but the vog from the volcano was up. The tradewinds are down for the next few days, so I'm hoping it'll clear out.