Scuba Dive Site: Magic Island, Oahu

A beautiful swallow tail slug

Gloomy Nudibranch in the sand

 Magic Island, Oahu

  One exciting thing about exploring a new island is finding new wildlife. Even though Oahu is less than 100 miles away from Maui, there have been underwater wildlife sightings here that have never been seen in the waters off Maui. Almost all of the fish are the same, but what we are looking for can be a whole new ball game. Nudibranchs. In the definitive underwater invertebrate guide book, Hoover's "Hawaii's Sea Creatures, a Guide to Hawaii's Marine Invertebrates", many of the more rare nudibranchs were spotted here on Oahu. And many of those were found at Magic Island. So that is where we headed for our next exploratory Oahu dive.

Leaf Scorpionfish

Saddleback Butterflyfish

  We started our dive in the Magic Island boat channel in about 5ft visibility. We have found this muck to be good nudibranch habitat in the past, but after finding only one gloomy nudibranch we decided to resurface and kick out to clearer waters.

Commerson's Frogfish in flight

Commerson's Frogfish

Dark colored Leaf Scorpionfish

Scorpionfish hiding deep in a head of coral

A rare nudibranch known only as Elysia sp.#7

Imperial Nudibranchs

 Around the corner of the boat channel, into the open ocean, the water cleared up nicely. We had at least 60 feet of visibility. Heidi spotted another gloomy nudibranch trudging across the sand from far away while I spotted this yellow Commerson's frogfish from even farther. More nudibranch and fish spottings commenced as we searched for about an hour and half. Our big new find came when Heidi called me over to take a picture of this tiny nudibranch on a vertical face of a rock. It took some patience but I managed to get a decent enough picture to get a positive ID on the new nudibranch. I had to send the picture into our local expert over at www.seaslugsofhawaii.com and she sent back that it is the first time this slug, Elysia sp.#7 has been seen on Oahu. So another picture is going up on her official site. That is always a bonus.

    The dive site itself is not that amazing, especially after living and diving in Maui for years. It is mostly rocky with only a few scattered coral heads. We didn't see anything too big, no turtles, white tip reef sharks, etc. But it is a pretty easy entry and exit, just a long, long walk to the parking lot with all of your gear. We did see some scuba lessons going on when we first walked down to check out the entry/exit point. And being right next to Ala Moana park we passed 3 or 4 Japanese wedding photos shoots going on. Heidi saw one couple get out of a van for all dressed in wedding gown and white tuxedo and as soon as they were out of the car another married coupled got in. Someone has that business dialed in.

  Seeing a new species for us always reinvigorates the explorer inside. I can't wait to see what else Oahu has laying in wait for us to see.