Molo Solo Shark Dive

I always tell people that snorkeling is your window to a whole new world, and scuba diving is your door... You can walk through it, immerse yourself, even allow the timid and wary sea creatures a chance to get acclimated to your presence. For an underwater photographer it opens all kinds of doors. Not to mention scuba allows you to go deeper, for longer. At a place like Molokini the freedom to explore deeper opens alot of options.
Today I headed out to Molokini by kayak, surrounded by smooth glassy water only broken by the ripples made by surfacing bottlenose dolphins. The crater itself (Molokini is a partially submerged volcanic crater/ pressure vent) was crowded with snorkel boats. Very few people ever venture out to the crater on their own because its about 3 1/2 miles offshore from he nearest point on Maui.

 Dropping down one of the edges of the crater I could see the bottom from 150ft away. As I quickly drifted lower and lower I spied spotted eagle rays flying out in the blue and even one above me, silhouetted by the sun. As I hit my deepest depth around 130ft I could see two grey reef sharks working the strong current even lower on the reef. Unfortunately they didn't get closer so this one far off picture was all I could capture. An encounter with a young white tip reef shark would prove much closer though as you can see here to the right.