havecarryonwilltravel

There are dolphins that hang around these parts, they do their sleep thing in the daytime. They keep half their brain turned on and cruise around while the other half sleeps, at some point they switch sides and side two gets a rest. That’s what we’re told. It is of little relevance to us when we jump in the water, swim for 15 minutes and all of a sudden there are dolphins everywhere. They are 40 ft above us but the visablity is good and the image is clear as a bell. One of the wishes (no expectations) for this trip is to see the dolphins and today is the day.

The second dive is all about eels. We are looking for the ever elusive Dragon Eel but today he is just that, elusive. David, divemaster extraordinaire, has a hay day and finds maybe 7 different types of eels this time. There is a Snowflake, Tiger, Yellowhead, the standard Whitemouth, and a few others I can not ID.

As our first dive progresses the dolphins return not once but twice and then in the distance we hear someone banging a tank. David points to the blue and OMG there is a big, very big, shark on a swim by. This is not the time of year to see tiger sharks but there it is 100 or so feet off my port side, taking up the entire field of vision of my mask. We are not more then 100M out of the harbour on our first dive of the day and if we had to we could head back right now totally in awe. Bingo!

I have a new underwater camera. My old one was a Canon S95, new one is a Canon G7 X Mark II. Similar, but different.

On day one of diving, I choose settings for the new camera like I chose for the old one. A review of the photos later in the day revealed most of the photos to be out of focus.

Since day I, along with Murray’s expertise, have been playing with the settings trying to take photos that are in focus and that have enough, but not too much, light. It is sometimes very frustrating to get back to the hotel after seeing great creatures, to find out the photos are not salvageable. GRRRR!

Aperature Priority is not good. Speed Priority is better but not perfect. Manual aperature and speed seem to be the best setting but I have to check my speed to make sure there is enough light. Sometimes this is hard for me to figure out underwater, and to remember! Fortunately, Murray uses Photoshop to process all our pictures so he can do amazing things with a photo that is too dark, or too light.

Frogfish

Hopefully by the time our dive trip is over I will have figured this new camera out and will have, once again, some fabulaous photos.

“Whale!” shouts D from the bow of the dive boat. “Which brownies are you eating?” calls Shaggy from the aft. Everyone laughs. We all rush forward and watch a humpback whale spout and then show us his tail. Magnificent creature!

As we motor into the harbour, a turtle surfaces for a breath or two of air. A large mottled brown beast that everyone loves.

Pulling into the dock, David calls “Eagleray!” and we all look to the port side then to the starboard side to watch a spotted eagle ray glide under the boat looking for tasty treats left by fishermen.

Cruising to our dive sites we often see a pod of spinner dolphins frolicking in the water. Oohs and ash are emitted when a dolphin treats us to a jump and spin out of the water.

We hear there is a tiger shark in the area and one day coming into the harbour we see a black shadow swimming below us, which the crew indicates is the shark, himself. Looks like a moving black rock to me, but hey, a tiger shark it is!

Going scuba diving is not just what we see underwater but also what we see from our perch on the boat above the water.

Last year, one of the dive masters suggested I try a 63 cu ft tank instead of using the normal 80 cu ft tank. It is shorter and weighs less, but the volume of air is “less”. I tried it and loved using it. My air consumption matched Murray’s almost exactly. Until we got to the shallows, and then I seemed to sip air whereas Murray still gobbled it, which still allowed me to stay underwater slightly longer than him.

Last year I had a 91 minute dive on a 63 cu ft tank. The dive masters were teasing me, and shaking their heads, about this ability. This year, again using the smaller tank, one of them said to me that I was actually allowed to breathe underwater. Today, Kerry, the owner of Kona Diving Company, and I stayed under for 94 minutes! (She used an 80 cu ft tank, MS)

Wonder how long tomorrow’s dives will be?

It is amazing how long it takes to get back in stride and begin to find the small animals you know you can locate. 5 days in and I think I am getting close to finding the things I should find.

The first day the big things are easy to see. Loads of the small fish are easy to decern, though I can’t remember what their names are. Then gradually over time I find a few nudibranches and then some unusual fish, small ones that are rare and camoflage well. Most of it is luck, being in the right place at the right time but sometimes I can even scoop the divemaster.

Today I find several different nudi’s, a couple I have never seen before. Debbie finds one really nice one at the end of the dive but the pic is suffering from new camera syndrome and is a bit blurry.

We still have a few days underwater and I expect to get even better. But I would trade the vision of a few nudibranches for the sighting of a tiger shark. We’ll see what the future brings.

It took all day but we circumnavigated 1/2 of Kona island. We have been diving a lot and have 6 more dive days left so today is a break. We have heard this island has two distinct personalities. One lush, green and rainy and the other barren, black and arid. The side we are familiar with, the arid side, has the good diving so to satisfy curiosity we have to see how the other half lives.

Reasonably early, 9ish, we are headed north-west on the highway across the middle of the island. Hilo, is our goal. It is still pretty barren until we hit the downslope on the west side headed for the ocean. We don’t have a proper map, only those supplied for tourists and they are a little short on information, we kind of have to feel our way to the centre of town. A small city much like any other. On the surface it does not require much investigation and without spending a week or so there we would not be able to determine if the place is indeed worth more time.

Thought we should stop at a few beaches on our tour so we try to find some on the west side. We finally found signage leading us to a ‘beach park’. Park yes, beach no. Laupahoehoe Beach Park has a wonderful grassy park area with facilities and shade from the surrounding trees but as best we could make, you would need to be mad to attempt to swim there. Since our goal is to get in the water we hang out with the 100 0r so bikers present for a short while and then continue on our way north on the west coast highway. Along this section of the highway many different types of trees are present, making for an interesting visual texture to the dense green landscape.

Laupahoehoe Beach Park
Pretty rough beach.

Heading away from the coast, at the north end of the island, we encounter an area of ranch farm land. Reminds me a bit of our home with slightly different trees and grasses but much the same feel as the prairie and rolling foot hills of Alberta.

Trip across north end of island.

Descending again back to the ocean on the east side of the island the vista is again of large expanses of black lava rock and tufty yellow grass.

From our travels north and south along the coast highway last year we know there are some good beaches along this streatch of road. It is getting on in the afternoon and we need some water time. After all, for us flat landers, water time is the main reason for visiting a tropical island. On a whim we follow a beach access sign into a gated development, Mauna Kea. It is a stroke of luck. The beach is, I think, the best beach we have found so far on island of Kona. It is quite large, fairly sheltered and has wonderful sand 50 M wide right out into the water. We ensconce ourselves there and spend the rest of the afternoon playing in the waves.

Never boogie boarded before. Our hotel has several ‘water toys’ people have left over time and we obscound with the boogie board this morning. Didn’t do great but both Debbie and I got a few good rides and the time flew by.

Boogie boarding.

On the way back to town we stop at Kona’s flagship beach, Hapuna. Nice beach but fairly crowded and they expect you to pay for parking, poor form in my opinion. We want to show D & C another place. The appeal to this beach of course would be the shade that is available close to the water. We may yet swim there.

Although the day is not really that strenuous we are all beat so we pick up tacos ‘to go’ from Killer Taco and head back to the hotel to eat dinner on the pool deck overlooking the ocean. Ah, life is rough.