Kailua-Kona, September 2010

[disappearinjon]

My wife Laura and I recently spent just a couple of days in Kona, diving with Wanna Dive Kona. Three days diving (of four, total), and a mere six dives.

Diving with the Wanna Dive crew - Steve, Cathy, and Bob - was a lot of fun. It's not a big boat, but it's comfortable enough, and we never had to share a site with other boats. Our days had 2, 0, and 4 other divers, respectively, and with a single divemaster we got lots of neat stuff pointed out to us. I would very much dive with them next time I'm in Kona.

That said, I did have some problems: I don't know where all of the weight was, and I wasn't sure how to dive without a drysuit, hood, gloves, multiple lights... My computer reports that my SAC was about half of what it is in Seattle, and my average bottom time was almost exactly 60 minutes on an AL80. (My last dive was 75 minutes.) I constantly felt like I was missing something, or even some things. (On the plus side, my buoyancy control was better than typical.)

The locals were complaining about the viz, which was something like 80 or 100 feet, depending on who you asked and how you measured. Many of the fish were bright and easy to see, though the enormous frogfish at the end of one dive was tricky to find -- at least until it came out and started locomoting across the bottom. And of course that was one of the dives I wasn't taking pics.

I took pics on about 1 1/2 dives (the latter after Laura shoved the camera at me), and I took something like 150 pics, of which all of 19 were good enough to post. (Or, alternatively, only 19 were not so terrible that I had to delete them.) I put the whole set on Flickr here: http://bit.ly/deZPth

Some favorite pics:

You can see I was moving the camera while I took this picture, but I think it turned out kind of neat:

Blurry Fried Egg Nudibranch

Not a hand signal I recognize

Some kind of wrasse?

My other problem: my new DUI drysuit arrived while I was away -- I got the call from UWS as I was checking in to the hotel. And I haven't managed to dive it yet, though I will on Saturday... (and, hopefully, Sunday too!)

[ArcticDiver]

My wife Laura and I recently spent just a couple of days in Kona, diving with Wanna Dive Kona. Three days diving (of four, total), and a mere six dives.

Diving with the Wanna Dive crew - Steve, Cathy, and Bob - was a lot of fun. It's not a big boat, but it's comfortable enough, and we never had to share a site with other boats. Our days had 2, 0, and 4 other divers, respectively, and with a single divemaster we got lots of neat stuff pointed out to us. I would very much dive with them next time I'm in Kona.

That said, I did have some problems: I don't know where all of the weight was, and I wasn't sure how to dive without a drysuit, hood, gloves, multiple lights... My computer reports that my SAC was about half of what it is in Seattle, and my average bottom time was almost exactly 60 minutes on an AL80. (My last dive was 75 minutes.) I constantly felt like I was missing something, or even some things. (On the plus side, my buoyancy control was better than typical.)

The locals were complaining about the viz, which was something like 80 or 100 feet, depending on who you asked and how you measured. Many of the fish were bright and easy to see,...)

That was my experience too when I first went to the warm water equivalent of a desert. But I've gotten used to it. In fact, baring something unexpected happening, I'll be in HI in a bit more than a week. Now, I enjoy the freedom so much that I'm cosidering abandoning the cold water scene that has meant so much to me over the years. No decision yet. But my dry suit hasn't been used this calendar year.