Owner: a kona hawaii scuba diver blabbers on URL:http://kona-scuba-diving.blogspot.com Join Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:00:22 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Scuba diving and other life in Kona Hawaii. Lots of underwater photos in the blog. Site statistics:Click here
Still alive, haven't posted in a while..... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Howdy, Christmas season had us real busy with charters every day and chasing down boat parts. I had the boat in the shop the last few days to have all the shifting linkages repaired/replaced. That's on top of gettting a new carburetor. Boats are fun. Right now I'm rying to deal with my main website... if you see a white border around the blog and no background photos on the header, the website (not the blog, it has a different service provider) is down. My normal background comes directly from my website, so if it's not up, I know the website is down without checking directly. The last couple of weeks something attacked my e-mail server and I've been unable to receive or send messages regularly.. not good for biz. I've been back and forth with tecnical support from my provider and they seem to get everything working for a few minutes and then it dies again. If you've attempted to contact me in the last couple of weeks and not heard back, my apologies, I've got to figure
Brrr it's getting cold... We've had some rain, so there might be some snow tonight up the mountain. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Today we saw 59 degrees in the early morning at our place. We have a rather large sloppy ocean swell today and the water temperature was at 77... winter's coming. Viz was down to about as bad as it gets here... say 20-30 feet in the shallower portions of the dive, but on an upbeat note, there were several turtles being actively cleaned at Turtle Pinnacle today. The surf should improve over the next couple of days, the water temp will continue to slowly drop for a couple of months.Tomorrow we've got a pool session, and then later in the afternoon I've got to get together with the mechanic and do some adjusting on the new carburetor we had installed last week (running rough right now, but should be a quick fix, boats are so much fun) to make sure everythings in order before it gets screaming busy - the busy season seems to hit around the 20th-22nd of December, depending on which day Christmas falls. The underwater photo above is of a Zebra Moray (Gymnomuraena zebra). I may have al Read more:getting cold
Looks like I'm not the only one with website troubles 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Here's the latest response from technical support.... The server that your account is housed on (server####) has had one of its drives fail on the raid. The raid is currently rebuilding and should be back up and running just as soon as it builds fully. We have turned services on the server off in the mean time so that another drive would not be lost during the rebuild. We have dispatched a team of system administrators to the server farm where the server is located and they are working around the clock to restore services as soon as possible. We have not been provided an ETA as the server has massive hard drives with lots of data. We will be updating our customers as soon as we get more information. We sincerely apologies for the inconvenience and are working on a better technique so that this does not happen again. Well, at least that's some sort of answer. Here's an old picture I took at the manta dive a few years back. This may be a repost, but I can't recall posting it of Read more:Looks
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Big tsunami watch in Hawaii tonight. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Hi there, I've been getting phone calls from friends with boats giving me a heads up over the tsunamiwatch
we have this evening. There was an earthquake off Japan tonight and everyone is watching to see if there is a tsunami heading our way. If, and that's a pretty big "If", there's a tsunami it'd likely hit around 12:30 this morning. I've got about another hour or so to decide whether to make the trip into town to try to find a spot to move my boat uphill from the harbor. So far the type of surge they are talking wouldn't have an effect where the boat is parked, but if there's anything likely to make it this far it's probably a good idea to move it anyway. It's likely to be busy down at the harbor around 10-11 tonight. I've got friends who live down at the coast by Kealakekua Bay who are packing as we speak with plans to move everything up the hill a ways later tonight if they do say something's coming our way. The picture above is of a Freckled Snake Eel (Ca Read more:Hawaii
Tsunami watch update. The watch has been officially cancelled. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Tonight's news said the tsunami center has announced there was no tidal wave generated by the earthquake off Japan. We are warned to be aware of unusual currents overnight though, which is apparently common in this type of event. Read more:watch
Lotsa scuba diving coming up... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The Christmeas busy season is coming up. It seems to get really busy after about the 20th or so here. Starting tomorrow I'll be busy for a while. We had a couple charters earlier this week. I've got another tomorrow, with a class on Monday and more charters the rest of the week.We had our first rain in almost a month tonight, didn't get nearly enough to do much, but if we can get another evening or two it'll help keep things from gettting overly dry. The wet/dry seasons in Kona can be somewhat reverse of much of the rest of the state because of our being on the leeward side of a 13,000 foot mountain. We see much of our rain in the late summer and during the winter it can be quite dry some years.The picture above is of Pololu Valley, up on the north end of the island. It's one of my favorite short but brisk little hikes here. I don't get up there all that often, and I haven't been up there since the earthquake the other month. I've heard there was damage on the trail.
Latest status of snorkeling, hiking, kayaking at Kealakekua Bay and the Captain Cook Monument 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I went down the hill today to check on what all's going on at the bay. When we had our earthquake back in October and they had landslides, the state basically shut the bay down. It's been reopened for recreational use, but it is more limited than before the quake. The hiking trail down to the bay has been officially closed for now. The DLNR has had an officer down at the wharf and park much of the time. Someone has put up informative plaques (one is pictured) down at the bay, which is quite nice, and they also have a booth down at the old wharf with this informative video (I linked this back in September, but here it is again) on snorkeling and critter care. They've set up buoys in the bay approximately 100' from shore in front of the monument and inside towards the beach. No boats/kayaks/snorkelers are allowed to land or swim within the buoys and they had a boat out there enforcing that. I guess this is supposed to go on indefinitely for now. Kayaks and snorkelers are a Read more:Captain
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Madagascar Day Gecko - now common in Kona. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I took this shot earlier today. We've been living in our house since mid-'99 and we didn't see any of these little critters the first couple of years. Now they are everywhere, with resident geckos in every room it seems. Hawaii has lots of geckos, with most of them resembling the common "house gecko" you can pick up at most pet stores for a couple bucks. At some point somebody introduced the day gecko on the island and they have been spreading ever since. The day geckos are rather aggressive feeders, and not only compete for food with the other geckos, which generally come out only at night, but also eat the other geckos. We're hearing a lot less gecko barking (the original gecko barks/chirps often at night) around the house these days. Unfortunatly, no matter how cute these guys are, they are still one of the many non-native invasive species than now thrive on the islands.I've added a link on the right to my litte webshop at Cafe Press where I'm putting up some shirts a Read more:Madagascar
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Kona Hawaii octopus scuba diving underwater video 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Ok, stupid post title, I'm just giving the search engines something to digest. I keep forgetting that I do have some short video
s I can post... I'm running out of newer photos.The surf is quite up today. It'll probably be up again tomorrow and then will hopefully settle back down for a while, we've had a cold front hanging off to the northwest.Octopus are neat critters. Lots of DMs/dive guides will grab these guys 'til they're inked out and then hand them off the customers. I prefer to just lay low and sit back a few feet to see if they'll give a show. It's neat how they can change their textures and colors practically instantly. The video doesn't give it justice, but it does give you an idea of what they do. Good evening, Steve Read more:Hawaii
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Big surf expected in Hawaii for a couple of days... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I thought I'd post a couple
of sunset photos from this evening. Very orange. It tends to get that way when the vog is up a bit.Diving conditions have been excellent the last couple of days, but we're expecting swells to come up. They apparently had nice 15 foot surf off the north shore of Oahu today, but it's supposed to hit 22-28 foot faces by tomorrow.Our island is usually shaded from northwest swells by Oahu and the Maui county islands, but we can still be vulnerable depending on the angle the swell comes in at. We'll know tomorrow if the big northwest swells are coming in. More bothersome to us may be the big west swell they are expecting to fill in. They say we could have 15-18' faces off Oahu from the west, if that happens it'll likely hit here too and mess up most of our dive sites for a day or two. A little later in the winter, west swells are rarely a concern, we're just in that season right now where they can pop up, it usually affects shore diving more than boa Read more:Hawaii
Surf's actually not all that bad.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I took a shot of this cleaner shrimp on a fun dive yesterday. I had no charter so I went down to the Place of Refuge to get wet for an hour. Things were a bit more stirred up than usual in the shallows, but the swell they've predicted really hasn't disrupted the diving much at all. Water temperature is still quite nice. I was seeing 79 degrees yesterday morning at depth on the dive.We put a new carburetor on the boat the yesterday. It seems to be a never-ending money pit, that's the way boats are, but it runs noticeably nicer.It's still a little slow for us right now, but it's sort of the calm before the busy season. The last half of the month is starting to book up.. if you are looking at diving in Kona, get on my Wanna Dive website and e-mail me - I'd be happy to set something up.Well, off for now. Steve
We're seeing lots of whales off parts of Kona right now. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Yesterday evening we went down to the picnic area to the south of the Place of Refuge and there were whales
right off the shore, maybe 30-40 yards off shore. I didn't have my camera or I could've had some nice tail and back shots.Today Pat and I did a shore dive up north of Kua Bay with some friends and there were whales everywhere on the horizon. Here's a simple little reef scene I took with my Olympus sp350 in movie mode. I took it in low resolution and Youtube compresses it even more so it's not much to look at... but turn your volume up a bit and use your imagination and you can hear the whales in the background off in the distance (no kidding). You'll hear lots of static popping, which is actually snapping shrimp in the coral heads, me breathing a lot, and something in the background that sounds like a cross between cows and cellos - that'd be the whales. Hopefully later in the winter I'll be diving where they are louder, we heard them all the dive today but it was fai
Kona Hawaii scuba diving... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 So here's a picture or two of me after eating at the Saturday night buffet at the Four Seasons Hualalai, which is a few miles north of the Kona airport. They have a steak and lobster buffet every Saturday night out at their beach grill/bar.We had a friend in town, actually one of our very first vacation rental customers who has since become a friend, who recommended it. I'd also have to highly recommend this meal if you are looking for a high end meal at some point if you are visiting, or living, here. The atmosphere is great. They set out tables on the beach, and being the time of year that it is you can watch the whales splashing offshore. They put out a sizeable buffet, with steak, baby back ribs, fish, steamed clams, completely delicious lobster tails that they barbeque in front of you, the usual cold seafoods and salads plus a sushi bar and deserts.... yum yum!!! They also had a smore station (you know - graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows and fire) where you could mak Read more:Hawaii
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Yummy.... Mango! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 This is our resident kitchen Day Gecko. Pat found out some time ago that it really digs dried mango, so we leave a litte piece out for it and spritz it down with a little water every now and then so it can lick away at it to it's heart's content.It's still windy as all get out on the water today. The cruise ship that came into town today turned right around. I suspect that's also why I saw one heading south yesterday morning... probably on it's way to Fanning Island (due to the Jone's Act, foreign flagged vessels are required to visit a foreign port at some point during thier tour here) a day early. We usually only have a handful of days in the winter the water's so rough the cruise ships can't tender. Aloha, Steve Read more:Yummy
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Using photos off the web without permission for commercial purposes is theft! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Aloha all, Man was today a wicked day on the water. I was up for a bit today without looking outside and a while after 7 a friend of mine from down Milolii direction called and asked if it was blowing here yet. I told him no and he said it would be soon. I looked outside and noticed some whitecaps (rare down here) and within a half hour or so it was whitecaps everywhere on the ocean. We have a growing northwest swell, but what made it messy was a very strong southwest wind. Watching the news tonight, they had high wind gusts for the day. I think it hit 43 or so off Kona, 60 something at a spot on Maui and 73 (one mile below "hurricane" force) at a spot on Oahu. This morning a cruise ship was heading south past my place, and nearly an hour later, it'd only made it a few miles... that's a strong steady wind. The cowry shell above is a Tiger Cowry (Cypraea tigris). These are technically not the largest cowry here, but in general are the largest we see. I want one. I am not Read more:photos
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Ewa Fang Blenny !!!! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I managed to capture a decent shot of one of these fish the other week. They're tough to get a good shot of because they are free swimming and dart around. When frightened they'll dive down and back into a hole, sometimes you can get a shot of their head while looking out of a worm hole or sponge.The Ewa Fang Blenny (Plagiotremus ewaensis) is one of the blennies that seems to mimic the cleaner wrasses. The have similar coloration as the juvenile Hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse (Labroides phthirophagus) and swim in the same fish enticing motion as the cleaner wrasses, however when a larger fish presents itself for a cleaning, they take a bite of scale, gill, skin or mucus. The fish don't seem to like that. I did see a Parrotfish chase one about 30 feet one time after the blenny took a nip of it's gill.We've had some cold clear nights here lately. It managed to get down into the upper 50's a couple of times at our place. The surf is finally down... big surf for a whole week this tim
Hawaiian flame angel (centropyge loriculus) underwater video... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 This is by no means a great video
, but I've spent some time trying to get a decent still photo of a Flame Angel (Centropyge loriculus) and had little luck. They tend to dart and dive into the coral anytime you get near them. As it was, I had to stay about 6 feet away from this little fish and zoom in, which makes for a shakier video as any shake is magnified when zoomed in. At least it gives an idea of what the fish looks like.I had the day off today from both jobs (yep, I've taken on another part time job that'll work around my schedule during the busy times) I found this one at the Place of Refuge this morning at about 65 feet, I was trying to get a shot of a pair of Potter's angls and this thing popped out in the middle of them. Other highlights of the dive were a manta, several eels, the turtle cleaning station and such.Water conditions were excellent at 10:30 am this moring, with a slight swell starting to pick up towards the end of the dive. Current Kona water temperatur Read more:underwater
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Live Whale songs from Puako? 1970-01-01 00:59:59 So I just ran across this. It's apparently a live feed from a sono bouy up in Puako. When I listened, the whales were singing away like mad - I almost wonder if it's a tape as I've never heard anything that busy diving.Here's the link: http://www.jupiterfoundation.org/live_cam.html The live audio on the page takes a while to load, so be patient, it's worth it if they're still singing like mad. Read more:Whale
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Perfect weather day in Kona today. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Today is one of those days where you look outside and remember why you've moved to Hawaii. No vog (volcanic haze), not a cloud in the sky, recent rain so everything's green, a light Kona wind (wind from the west) and whales jumping on the ocean. The video above is of a turtle cleaning station. This guy was a ways off so I zoomed in on him to follow him with my little digital camera. You can see the tangs approach him to eat algae off his shell. Aloha, Steve Read more:Perfect
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Kona Water temperature's sitting at 75 or so. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Hi there, we've had a bit of a swell the last few days. It's down again right now. I went out this morning for a litte dive before running errands. Next week they are expecting a big swell off Oahu. If it's big enough, they may even hold the Eddie Aikau Invitational surf tournament, which is held only in HUGE surf. Here's a write up from the tournament a couple years back. By the time it reaches here it may or may not be large enough to affect our diving much.We're tearing into the boat right now and replacing the fuel tanks. We've got to tear up the deck, yank out the old tank, order a new tank or tanks in and then rebuild the deck... how fun. It's slow right now so it's not a bad time to be doing this. When I picked up the boat a few years back it came with an aluminum tank that had it's share of corrosion, meant for lots of filter changes. We'd finally gotten to where everything was pretty clear and then the state went to 10% ethanol in gas. Ethanol is wreaking ha
Underwater housings for digital cameras.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 One question that we get frequently on our dive charters is about underwater housings for digital cameras. In many cases you do not need to purchase a dedicated underwater camera. Many manufacturers make housings for their cameras, as well as several aftermarket companies who make housings for various camera lines. You can often find a housing for a camera you already have, or you may find one available for one you want to get so you have a camera you can use both above and below the waterline. With a little research on your part, you can often find a camera and housing combination that will cost you less than a dedicated underwater camera AND may be more versatile than the typical prepackaged underwater cameras.If you already have a camera, you can go to Digideep.comwhich has a large listing of cameras and whether there are housings available for those cameras. There are several online companies who stock housings for various camera manufactures and Amazon sells underwater housings
Current water conditions in Kona... nice.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Hi there, Just thought I'd catch up on the current water
conditons. We had some swell earlier, but it's quite nice right now. Water temperature is around 75 degrees, having cooled off quite a bit during the last month as the northwest swells came through. It's slow again right now for a lot of us newer operators, it can take years to build an everyday business in the scuba charter world. Even some of the big companies have days they aren't going out. Christmas season was quite busy for us, hence not a lot of posting on this blog by me right then. I've been working on the boat lately, we've replaced the carburetors and now all the shift and throttle linkages. I did have to outright cancel one charter, but every other charter that my boat wasn't available I've been able to find someone to take people out. It's a bummer when the boat goes down, but I'm not alone, I know of 3 or 4 other operators who had to take at least one boat out of the water during the last 3-4 wee Read more:Current
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Perhaps I should read the newspaper before I post.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I mentioned earlier today that Hooters opened in the last week.... well the county shut it down yesterday. That was fast. Apparently they did some plumbing and elelctrical work without the proper permits in place or signed off or something of that sorts Here's the link . 80 people are now out of work for a while 'til it all gets sorted out and everything is signed off.In other local news, the Kealakeua bay trail to the Captain Cook monument has been reopened and they are once again allowing kayakers to park their kayaks on shore. They do still have a portion of the bay in front of the pali (cliffs) closed off, but otherwise things are more or less back to what they were before the big earthquake.The photo above is of a mushroom coral (fungia scutaria). They are also locally referred to as razor coral. These are an interesting coral in that they are not attached to anything, often laying around on the reef. Since they are non-sessile, they can actually move around to some exten
Went for a little dive today... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I did manage to get a reasonable shot of a female Whitley's Boxfish (Ostracion whitleyi). These fish tend to hug the cracks between rocks so they are tough to track and get a clear shot of with a camera... you end up with lots of butt shots or partially blocked shots usually.The males of this species are few and far between, and they are spectacular. They can have anywhere from a deep navy blue, to an electric powder blue, along with white coloration. We rearely see them. We've got one dive site where I've seen a male 4 times in the last 7 years and that's about it. I did see what appeared to be a juvenile or female turning into male coloration last fall. Down at Honaunau the juveniles and females are fairly plentiful, so there's got to be some males around there somewhere, but I've never seen one there. The males are rare enough that early versions (maybe even the more recent ones) of Hoover's book didn't have a picture, and about 4 years ago I tried to find a picture o Read more:little
Blogging about Kona Hawaii Scuba Diving Blog.... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Stupid title, but I just noticed I've never really put the word "blog" in a title in my blog and I get lousy position results when doing a google for "hawaii blog" and such... just thought I'd see if titles mean anything to search engines.So this is a Cerianthus tube anemone. We don't see them all that often. I found this one about 120 feet out in the sand, and I've talked to a tech diver who said they're usually found at 150'+, which is beyond the standard recreational depth of 130' and shallower. We used to keep them in aquariums and they were fairly hardy, but they can take up a lot of space in the tank, clownfish generally won't go into them, and they are kind of nasty... I had a customer who said her's was actively hunting and eating her fish and I hadn't see that before so I went for a visit and saw it first hand. When a fish went near you could see the tentacles all move in the direction of the fish. There was no need to make contact, the tentacles would all sway t Read more:Hawaii
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Taxis, shuttles, the bus and rental cars.... getting around in Kona. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I've probably already posted this picture a long time ago, it's of a black phase long nose butterfly. While long nose butterflyfish are found in most of the indo-pacific, Hawaii has two species, one of which is endemic (lives here only) and has a longer nose. Occasionally you will see a black phase, which is considered very rare, in Hawaii, mostly in Kona. We do have spots where you can see several of them on a single dive.Back to the topic of the title... gettting around in Kona: I've always recommended getting a rental car when you come here, but there are many people who do want other options, so I'll discuss them here. First thing one needs to know when coming to Kona is - there is no walking to anywhere from the airport. I had someone asking me how long of a walk is it to the Fairmont Orchid from the Aloha terminal last week, and while I'm not exactly sure, it's something in the range of 27-34 miles or so (a longer distance than most people want to roll their luggage). The K
Fabulous day on the water today, lots of whale action... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 You couldn't ask for a nicer morning in Kona this morning. It was bright and sunny and the ocean was FLAT. We did our first dive at Golden Arches with our afternoon dive at Kaloko Canyons (some call it arches or just plain Kaloko also). We did have a west swell bump up for the second dive, but it didn't affect the diving. I stayed up top on the boat all day. The other day I was getting to a store for a single 1.5 inch bolt at closing time and they closed the front door just as I hit the parking lot... stupid me decided to make a run for it and got about 6 steps before I felt a pop, sort of like an electrical shock or someone kicking your calf, in my calf. I hopped to the door and at least they let me in to spend my 26 cents. I didn't have blood pooling up in my foot and the pain is going away more every day so it's not a major tear, but I won't be diving 'til it heals enough that I don't have to worry about cramping up while leading a dive. I'm hoping to be back at it n Read more:water
Hawaiian Spanish Dancer Nudibranch 2007-03-02 07:29:00 So last night we did the night dive and came across a SpanishDancer
Nudibranch (Hexabranchus sanguineus). These are the lagrest nudibranchs found in Hawaii. I was quite excited and pulled out the camera and took a few shots.... I could tell they turned out looking at the monitor, but it got better.... I saw something else. Spanish Dancers can grow to up to at least 15 inches according to John Hoover's book "Hawai'i's Sea Creatures" (linked on the sidebar of this page, it's the best invertebrate book you'll likely find on Hawaiian
critters). They have fairly large eye stalks (the two red things on the lower part of the picture) and an impressive frilly gill structure (nudibranch translates into "naked gill"). Occasionally, and this is the really exciting part, they pick up hitchhikers. If you click on the picture above to view it in larger mode and look at the frilly gill structure, you might notice something slightly out of place with a large white patch... look closer....
Coris Wrasse.... one heck of a colorful fish. 2007-03-06 06:59:00 Good Evening,Boy have we been busy on the boat. I had the fuel tanks replaced and was basically down for a month, but turning down little business, and suddenly were going out every day. I've had one day off since the 15th of last month between the two jobs, and only 3 days off on the boat since then with the next off day on the boat tentatively scheduled on the 16th.We've been seeing lots of neat critters on our dives, sharks (mostly sleeping reef sharks, but the divers saw a hammerhead off Kaiwi point a couple days back), rays (we had one at a cleaning station for several minutes today), scorpion fish, turtles,etc. I saw a thumbnail sized yellow frogfish the other day but didn't have the camera... bummer, left it at home. Today we hit the site with another group and I looked for it and it wasn't there... also a bummer, but the manta ray coming in for a cleaning more than made up for it. I took a poor quality video of the manta circling that I'll post later.The leg's feelin
A stinker of a day... 310 bucks for 23 gallons of gas was only the beginning... 2007-03-08 07:44:00 With every business, there are good days and there are bad days. The other day was expecially poor. Luckily, those days are few and far between, and I've seen other companies have their share of "bad" days too......So I'm fueling up the boat, and when I walk around the back of the boat I heard a "tink". I looked around and didn't see anything on the ground but did notice I'd walked over the parking lot drain grill. After I finished I paid and went back to the truck to take off and found I had no truck key... apparently it was 7 or 8 feet down in the parking lot sump along with several inches of oil and other yuck. We couldn't get the grill up, looked like it hadn't moved in years, so it was time to call Bob and let him know what happened and let the customers decide if they wanted to cancel the day or stick around. They were all good humored about it and waited for the locksmith to do their thing (darned electronically chipped keys these days) and eventually we were off, wa Read more:stinker
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