We have the time from the hotel to the dock time to the second. Out to the lot a couple of minutes late and the lineup on the road is horrendous. I don’t get it!!! Kona is a small island and it is major, and I mean major, rush hour. As tourists we would not normally have to deal with rush hour, but we have a date with some fish and the boat leaves at 7:45. The road out front of our place is the main road into town so at the first stop sign we jump up a level thinking we might beat the system. Nope. There is just as long of a line on this road too. So we try the highway, I mean highway and there is a traffic jam on that as well. Who the hell would live here if they want to live in paradise? Paradise does not have traffic jams! We’re 15 mins late. The dive guys are all good. I think they must allow for this as we did not get off the dock until 8:00 yesterday either. Our down to the second just went out the window and tomorrow we leave at 7.15 as we did yesterday and hopefully avoid the cars and rush hour.
When we finally did arrive on board, the guys had an electric vest/rash guard sitting on the camera table and it had Debbie’s name on it. Flossie spent about 30 minutes describing the benefits of staying warm while diving. Debbie resists and dives the first dive without it. 30 minutes in she is cold and on the second dive the vest is firmly in place under her wet suit. What the hell, it’s only money. AND a warm Debbie is a happy Debbie. Good with me.
Octopi are not something we see all the time. They don’t come out in the day and their method of camofloage is really good. Last year we saw a number of them. Flossie seems to have a knack for finding these 8 legged creatures and we find 3 on the first dive. The guys here don’t mind stirring things up a little and one of them squirts ink at us as he leaves. One of them is quite big and a small one jets away, attaches itself to a rock and goes into camo mode, changing color and texture and it sits there trying to hide from me. Had I not followed him to his hide out I would never have seen him.
To and from the dive site, at the entrance to the harbour we motor slowly and watch as a large number of dophins play. Jumping and spinning and generally having a good time. Ah, it’s a dophins life.
Debbie is warm on the second dive until the battery runs out and then the cold water seeps into the suit and starts to cool the core temp. This is 50 mins into the dive we are near the end and she only has to shiver a short while. The guys will check out the batteries to see why they conked out early.
In the 4 hours we are out on the water the traffic has dissipated and we drive back to the hotel in much les time than it took this morning.