Capturing the Moment

It is absolutely amazing being out on the water every day. It changes from week to week, day to day, and even hour to hour. The trade winds are usually blowing hard, funneling between the two volcanoes, but there are always some spots that provide great snorkeling. I love finding little sea creatures like nudibranchs and juvenile moray eels like the little whitemouth in the picture below. But every once in a while something big will swim through and steal the show. I swam with dolphins a few times off the coast of california but I hadn't gotten the chance here in Maui yet. We have a few different species, spinner dolphins, bottlenose , spotted, false killer whales, etc., but we see them pretty infrequently on my trips. But I still hoped... Yesterday we got lucky. Really lucky. As we pulled up to our second snorkel site we got word that there were spinner dolphins in the area. I ran to get the microphone and looked over the water to find them. I was surprised to see them very cl...

It has been unusually calm on the north shore of Maui lately. My surfboard has been sitting up in my house unused for weeks. So, if for nothing more than to spite the waves for not showing up, a couple friends and I headed into the heart of the big surfing spots for a little snorkeling. I've always wanted to see what exactly I have been surfing over and I was not disappointed. Our spot was turtle bay, which is one bay past famous Ho'okipa and before Jaws. The entrance is a bit tricky with slippery rocks and little breaking waves but once in we were transported to a different world. Instead of coral and sand, it was boulders covered by all colors of algae. From bright red to iridescent blue-green. Moray eels slid between and under the rocks and fish like this scorpion fish above camouflaged in by staying perfectly still, waiting for a tasty morsel to swim by. As we swam out deep the bottom turned into a honeycomb of deep channels, huge rock formations, and tunnels which connecte...

Part of my job here at Pacific Whale Foundation in Maui has been to take underwater photos of Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles at several locations while scuba diving. It is absolutely amazing. There are tons of turtles, some of which I am getting to know after seeing them on several different dives. And there are always lots of other fish and invertebrates to catch my eye as well. On the dive today we saw 11 turtles, 3 species of moray eels, and a Vericose nudebranch . The eel in the picture is a small Undulated Moray Eel and the fish below is a Yellowtail Coris caught in between the juvenile red and white phase and the adult phase. I was diving with Heidi and Nick and I was able to snap their picture behind this one turtle who seemed fine with posing for a few pictures on the sandy bottom. Maybe he thought all the sand on his shell camouflaged him.

We get to go to Molokini Crater almost every day but we had not been around to the backside of the crate. It is a sheer dropoff, nearly 300 feet straight down to the ocean floor. Being 3 miles offshore the water is crystal clear although the currents can be very fast and dangerous. I participated in an underwater Easter egg hunt put on by a local dive shop and found a winning egg, so Heidi and I decided to cash in the prize (a 2 for 1 dive trip) and do a backside Molokini dive. It was amazing. We got out early and immediately after jumping in we could see how beautiful it was underwater. The wall just dropped away into the deep blue and it was crawling with fish. So we descended to around 100ft and kicked along the wall. Its fun looking close up at the wall to see colorful nudebranchs (sea slugs), moray eels, and lobsters and then looking out into the deep blue just in case something big swam by. After finishing up the backside dive we did another dive at Molokini called 'Reefs End...

A large school of fish streaming through the clear waters at Honolua Bay. An Ornate Butterfly Fish, finally staying in one place long enough to get a picture. Even though Green Sea Turtles can reportedly hold their breath up to 5 hours, they are air breathing reptiles, so eventually they will come up to the surface, just like this little guy!