Amazing Black Rock, Diving Maui

Today was a big west side day off here in Maui. The waves were getting smaller and smaller which made surfing tough but created perfect conditions for diving. We had hot and sunny conditions at Black Rock in Ka'anapali. This is my favorite dive site on the west coast of Maui. Even though the last time I dove here was only a week ago I saw totally different things today. 

  Thomas Shelby, Ben Eisenstein, Alana Yurkanin, and I hit the clear water behind the Sheraton on the south side of Black Rock. There was a little current, a lot of moray eels, and even a few rare sightings on this dive. The rarest of which was this Hawaiian spotted flatworm. Known only from the Hawaiian islands this flatworm usually is only seen at night. I had never seen one before.

   Something that I always look for, often find, but have failed to get a good picture of are the tiny commensal shrimp that live on pin cushion sea stars. I found a purple red star with a dark red and white striped shrimp on it and got an ok picture. The shrimp is so tiny I will need a better lens to capture it fully. It is neat to get a close up view of the surface of the pin cushion sea star.

Another big find and one of the first things we saw on this dive was a leaf scorpionfish. They wave in the current looking like a leaf. The body is so flattened that it is easy to miss these guys. I have only seen a handful but all different colors; purple, black, yellow, green, and this almost translucent one.



Always on the lookout for nudibranchs I couldn't help but stop and take pictures of some of our more common nudibranchs the white margin and the imperial.