Five Graves Night Dive, Maui

With a few free hours this evening I decided to head out to see what nocturnal creatures were inhabiting one of my favorite dive sites. The reef changes so much at night with animals like crabs, lobsters, moray eels, and other nocturnal creatures emerge. The sun was setting as I picked my way through four sea turtles feeding in the shallows. They didn't seem to mind me too much although they all did keep an eye on me as I kicked out of the small entry channel. It is always surprising how quickly the darkness takes over after the sun sets. I had my small underwater flashlight ready as I descended into the first cave.

Red soldierfish scattered as I broke up the darkness with my light. Red reef lobsters peeked out of crevices and two kinds of slipper lobster reflected my light back at me with their night vision capable eyes. The toughest thing about this dive was being a shallow dive, 20-30ft deep, the surge really moves you around. With a full wetsuit I wouldn't worry too much about glancing off a rock or boulder but as the coral here was covered with toxic spiny sea urchins I couldn't afford the tunnel vision that comes with using an underwater light. I managed to avoid the one on the cave ceilings, walls, and opening but did overlook a rare fine-spined urchin which I unfortunately found with my thigh. Not to worry, it looked like the urchin was undamaged. It quickly scurried off into a recess (well quickly for a sea urchin).

Navigating is another issue at night but I found my way alright through the familiar site. After spotting a few sleeping parrot fish and avoiding many more urchins I found a small octopus sucked onto the ceiling of another cave. I avoided the sea turtle leaving the cave to capture some more images of the beautiful octopus that was small enough to hold in my hand. Shortly after leaving the octopus I found an undulated moray eel, one of the nastiest eels around and then a tiger snake moray, which hunts and feeds on other morays!

Then came the strangest nocturnal creature I have seen yet. What looked like a tiny moray, about the diameter of a pencil, was snaking its way down the reef wall. I was looking at the head but when I tried to find the tail I was shocked to see the animal was over five feet long! It turns out this animals is called a ribbon worm. One specimen was found to be over 60ft long!
So after this encounter I was pretty satisfied, not to mention running low on air. So I headed back towards my entry point. Admiring the stars in the moonless night I was dismayed when my flashlight dimmed and went out. This is not what I would want as I am trying to find a small channel lined with lava rocks. Luckily a house on the shore was hosting a wedding party and had set up lights, casting just enough to show the opening to the channel. What a relief and what a dive!