Kona – Page 4 – A Darker View

Diving the Naked Lady

A different sort of dive. There are few wrecks to dive on the Big Island, the Naked Lady is one of the few. An Easter Sunday morning spent out on the water, enjoying a beautiful day. As we came back across Kailua Bay from diving at Casa Cave we decided to dive the wreck as our second dive of the day.

The Naked Lady is a sailboat that burned and sank in Kailua Bay. Apparently the Naked Lady is not the vessel’s real name, simply the name acquired as a result of how it arrived on the bottom of the bay. Hard details are difficult to come by, but the story goes something like this… The sailboat was moored in the bay when the lady aboard needed to eliminate the “little green men” infesting her boat. The result was a burning sailboat and the lady arriving on shore minus her clothing.

It is 110 feet to the sand where the Naked Lady lies on the bottom. This is a short dive, at this depth our bottom time is limited to less than 20 minutes due to nitrogen absorption. Even with the safety stops on ascent the entire dive was about half an hour, I surfaced with over 1200psi of air left in the tank. Considering I often last over an hour with a 80cft tank this was a short dive indeed.

Deb and I did not bother with the mooring line as we dropped to the bottom. The water was clear enough we could see the wreck on the sand 100ft below. With no current we simply dropped, in the clear water this was a surreal, slow motion free-fall. Seeing the sand approaching I did not bother to trim buoyancy, but allowed myself to hit the sand a few feet from the hull. The gauge read 109ft as I knelt on the bottom. I took a couple photos, trimmed for neutral buoyancy and started exploring.

Sky at the Naked Lady — Sky exploring the wreck of the Naked Lady

The hull is more or less intact, with the mast lying to the port side. The entire upperworks are gone, consumed in the fire one would assume. The bowsprit and stern railings lie in the sand in front and aft of the wreck. Inside a few pipes and other fitting are all that remain of the interior.

Aside from a few colonies of cauliflower coral on the wreck itself there is no coral visible, simply a flat plain of sand that stretches in all directions. A swarm of fish surround the wreck, snappers and dasyllus the most numerous. Oddly there are numerous rough spined urchins on and around the hull.

There is little sign of life away from the wreck, the sand seems sterile from a distance. Upon closer examination even this sand desert teems with life. Burrows and tracks betray numerous residents. I take a few photos of a colorful goby I have yet to identify, it does not appear in the usual guidebooks.

The Atlantis Submarine that gives tourists a ride in Kailua Bay often tour the Naked Lady. The submarine was present when we arrived at the mooring, but had moved off by the time we dropped to the wreck. It would have been fun to wave at the tourists.

A lot of photos got taken, mostly of each other as we orbited the wreck. The remains of the sailboat on the sand makes an interesting subject, particularly with the divers poking about. Pete was diving his new 5DMkII rig with a wide angle lens. The wreck was a perfect wide angle target, I found myself wishing I had brought something wide angle like the GoPro. At 110′ there is only blue and more blue, so that the photos turn out rather blue. It becomes interesting to convert the photos to black and white.

The location results in a different dive profile as well. On this island we usually dive deep and then spend the rest of the dive slowly working our way back up the reef, ending in shallow water. A slow ascent eliminates the required safety stops used in recreational diving. Here there is no sloping reef, simply a drop to the bottom. Time to remember those safety stops and monitor the dive computer closely. This ascent required two stops, one at 50′ and another at 15′ to allow the nitrogen to transpire out of our tissues.

With two dives done it had been a great day and we were ready for more. Alas we had a pile of empty tanks and a distinct lack of full. Nothing left but a return to harbor, clean up the boat and an early dinner at the fish market. A great Easter Sunday, far more fun than sitting in church.

Postcard from Hawai’i – Drying Coffee

Rigging scuba gear at the old airport park, a nice place for a Saturday morning dive with the guys. Just in front of my vehicle a couple is spreading large tarps on the pavement. Setting up a party pavilion? Then the bags of beans get unloaded… They are drying coffee! The old runway with hot asphalt in the sunlight is a good place, those beans will dry fast!

Only in Hawai’i…

Coffee Drying — Drying coffee beans in the hot sunlight at Old Airport Park.

Postcard from the Reef – Crown Toby

Postcard from the Reef – A Beautiful Sunday

A very nice day. True, the weather was not great, scattered clouds and vog in Kona. It was a great day to be underwater. We dove Pipe Dreams and Hoover’s Tower, for a pair of pleasant dives on a Sunday.

Pete was playing with a new toy, a very nice Fix housing for his G12 with a wide angle dome. The results are some very nice photos…

A Day with the Mantas

Mark has done it again… Put together a great video on our diving with the Aqua Safari! The footage chronicles an absolutely fantastic day of diving back in July, the day before Tropical Storm Flossie rolled over the island, a day when the mantas danced with us…

Kakapa Bay

Access is through the Hualalai Resort. You must check in at the security shack just off the highway at the southern entrance, just 1/4 mile south of the main entrance to the resort. There you get a beach pass from the guard and head down to the public parking area. Get directions from security, you have to double back and take a right. There are only so many public parking spaces available, to ensure entry just get there early, arrival before 8am is pretty much guaranteed access.

From the parking area a nice concrete path leads to the Kukio Bay beach, a few hundred yards further north along the shoreline. The beach is not where you want to go! The beach is on Kukio Bay, we want Kakapa on the south side of the point. Divers only need walk a short distance to the dive entry into Kakapa bay, a good thing when weighed down by tanks, weights, and in a wetsuit.

A small sign noting the presence of public restrooms at the beach is the marker to turn off the path and head straight to the water. Head to the little inlet where a small point of rock creates a protected pool where you can finish gearing up and swim. The pool is deeper towards to the right and the small rocky point.

Continue reading “Kakapa Bay”

Killer Tacos

Killer Tacos is not a tourist place. Hidden back in one of the little business strips in the old industrial park it is not likely to be found by wandering visitors.

We often find ourselves looking for lunch in North Kona. Target, Pet Smart, and more, this is where the stores are, this is where we go shopping. There are a number of eating places in the Kona Commons shopping center, where we have often eaten in the past. This time Deb remembered another option, why not give it a try?

You can find Killer Tacos a couple blocks behind Target on Luhia, just past the four way stop at Kaiwi. Look makai for a busy little place in the middle of a strip mall of other, more industrial, businesses.

The shop is a little reminiscent of mainland chains like Chipoltle Grill, with much the same basic concept. Bins and tubs of ingredients served in either tortillas or tacos, assembled in front of you the way you like it. It is a good formula, it works. As long as the ingredients are good the end product is good. No problems at Killer Taco.

When asked what meat I wanted my burro filled with I said “carnitas”. This received a funny look. Pork? Oh! I found it fun that staff serving Mexican food did not know the Spanish names of the items they were selling. Years past I often enjoyed eating Mexican meals in south Tucson, sometimes at places where you could not order without ordering in Spanish. This is however Hawai‘i after all. I continued to order in Spanish, it became a game, the gals behind the counter having fun trying to remember what each of the items was. Mexican food not made by Mexicans? It didn’t matter, it was still good food.

The food was a nice surprise, the prices were also a pleasant surprise. I suspect that not having to pay rent in a fancy neighborhood is an advantage. A meal for two cost us about what I would have expected to pay for myself alone. Fourteen dollars for two lunches and drinks. Good food, decent prices, and substantial portions… I may just be back here if I need a meal in North Kona.

Brush Fire near Kaloko

A big brush fire in Kona today, just north of Kaloko. We were in the area for some diving and a few errands in Kona. A lot of fire department equipment responding, plus the helicopter doing air drops.

Banded Coral Shrimp

Christmas Eve Diving

What else would I do on a Christmas Eve? Go shopping? Not really my ideal plan for the day. What about going diving? Not a bad idea at all…

Pete and I had already planned to go diving, but the plan had been to go shore diving somewhere. Then Dennis extended an invitation to join him on the boat, a gracious invitation we quickly accepted. As a result, the morning of the 24th saw us leaving Honokohau Harbor looking for a dive site to try.

Facing the Deep — Pete attempting to photograph garden eels at the base of the reef at Eel Cove

The surf was definitely up a bit, with a long swell rocking the boat and breakers hitting the rocks. Conditions in the water were pretty nice, visibility to near 100ft and just a gentle surge to be felt nearer the shore.

We did not go far from the harbor. First choice was a dive site called Sharkfin Rock just off Old Airport Park about two miles south of Honokohau. It is always a good sign when you can see the bottom 60 feet below through the blue water. Just inshore from the mooring a few surfers enjoyed the breaks along the park. Except for the one bodyboarder who was yelling at us to stop blocking his waves, as if a mere boat can have any significant effect on waves of any real size!

Strobe Effects — Pete imitating an old fashioned photographer with his strobe held away from the camera

The second site was a spot even closer to the harbor, a site called Eel Cove. The little indent in the shoreline that is right at the tip of the peninsula that protects Honokohau Harbor from the south. It is a very exposed site that drops off steeply. The cove offered just a bit of protection from the southerly swell and gave access to great diving conditions.

A typical Hawaiian dive profile, start deep and work your way up

The sites we dove this day allow access to deep water, we dropped to the base of the coral reef and explored our way up the slope. At Eel Cove there were indeed garden eels below 80ft on the sand slope. We dropped down to see them for a few minutes before heading back up the slope.

We found nothing truly unusual.. There were a number of nice encounters with reef regulars, some uncommon species of butterflyfish, a large day octopus, a young whitemouth moray. The second site at Eel cove was definitely one of the fishiest sites I have seen in quite a while. A lot of young fish to be seen. I expect the the more exposed site offers good feeding opportunities and less abuse from the aquarium collectors. I got a few good photos, particularly of the octopus. I have not seen what results Pete got from his efforts.

The day was simply a nice day to be out on the water, with good dive conditions that provided two nice dives. In the end I did do a little shopping. A stop at Costco was convenient as it is right above the harbor. There I grabbed a quick lunch and a couple things to keep our refrigerator stocked over the holiday.