Friday, May 12, 2006

6 or 7 manta rays at the night dive last night.


We did another two tank manta ray night dive off the Kona airport last night. The two tankers aren't necessarily two tanks at night though, what most of the dive operators here do is a late afternoon dive and then follow it up with the night dive after it gets dark. This allows people who haven't dove in a while to get used to the gear they're wearing and get a dive in before doing the night dive... it generally makes for a better experience for everybody.

This was likely the last outing before my break. Pat and I are heading to Maui to relax for a week. We'd hoped to do something real exotic, but it's not in the cards this year.

Yesterday morning I finally was able to get a chance to replace my fuel pump on my boat. I'd been waiting a week or so for it to come in. It seems to have done what I'd hoped. I'm still going to change out some valving between the tank and the pump, I've replaced everything else so I might as well change it out too just in case it's a bit worn - it's something which shouldn't really wear out, but what the heck.

Here's one of my early attempts at a pseudo-artsy closeup. It's one of the pencil urchins. Could be a slate pencil urchin, but I've seen so many different pictures of urchins credited as "slate pencil" urchins that I'm not sure, and my killer invertebrate book (see the Hawaii's Sea Creatures book linked in the side bar) turned up missing. There are many types of similar pencil urchins here.

Aloha,

Steve

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