Nocturnal Delights: Night Muck Dive on Maui

Caloria indica (Indian Nudibranch)

Unidentified Flatworm

   Sea slugs, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, flatworms, and weird creatures galore can be found just off the beach here in Maui. And you don't even have to go to a beautiful coral reef to find them. In fact I think you will see even more if you go to a muck diving site like this one where all of these and more can be found on one dive. We never really know what to expect when we go muck diving here. There are almost always surprises. On this night the surge from the south swells had finally died down which meant we only had to deal with the clouds of plankton that would swarm your light if you stayed in one place for too long. This does make taking pictures very difficult as you have to get a good picture on the first or second try or else the plankton move in and ruin the shot.

Guard Crab

Baby slipper lobster, about 3inches

Looking inside coral for creatures like this little guard crab can lead to great finds but the beauty of going out at night is that all the nocturnal creatures come out of their hiding spots and crawl daringly across the rocks and sand.

Baby Milletseed Butterflyfish

So all you need is a light and some good navigating and you will almost always be rewarded with rare and unusual creatures. If you think about how few people get to scuba dive, then take that further and think how many get to scuba dive at night, it really puts you in a exclusive group.

Exceptionally blue Gloomy Nudibranch

Nudibranchs are always a treasure to find in the muck and one of my favorites is the gloomy nudibranch (Tambja morosa). Usually here in Hawaii they are very black with a few dark blue patches but Heidi found one on tonight's dive that had much more blue on it. It made me want to travel to other places where you can find completely blue ones!

Unidentified tiny green shrimp

Another first for us was this tiny little green shrimp. I still don't know how Heidi spotted it but I had never seen it before. It is rare enough not to be in our invertebrates of the reef ID book so I will have to look more into what it might be. This frilly marbled shrimp however are all over the reef and rocks at night. They look drastically different during the day but put on quite the show at night. The imperial nudibranch pictured below goes to show you just how beautiful and vibrant these sea slugs can be.

Imperial Nudibranch closeup