Capturing the Moment

I am always looking for a new place to dive and explore so it was a thrill to try a new site along the south Maui coastline known as 'White Rock'. It is a little trek across some beautiful beaches and some sharp lava outcroppings to get to the entry point but it was definitely worth it. Right off the bat we had a white tip reef shark hanging out in this great swim thru. Then we started finding our treasured nudibranchs. The gold laced nudibranch on the left is always one of my favorites. Our big new find came when Heidi checked some Spanish Dancer eggs which look like a velvet rose and found some egg eating nudibranchs on one of the 'petals'.  You can see how small the nudibranchs are. They get their red color from the eggs they are feasting on. This is one of those times when it pays to have done your research. Who would have thought to look on nudibranch eggs to find more nudibranchs!?  One of the benefits of going slow and checking all the nooks and cr...

 I've been to Molokini many times but it never fails to surprise me. The beautiful water is almost always a constant but whats in it can vary greatly from day to day. Molokini sits a few miles offshore from the Maui coastline so swim bys by big pelagics are something I always hope for. Today I was in for a treat! Right when I jumped in I looked down to see a 16ft whale shark cruising by under me. A whale shark! I always hope to see something like this when I jump in at Molokini but this time I was totally unprepared. I quickly grabbed my camera, let air out of my BC to start descending, tried to catch my breath, realized I still had my snorkel in instead of my regulator, kept descending, switched my reg to my mouth, kicked hard after the quickly disappearing whale shark, snapped a couple of pictures, and then it was gone. Phew. I also glanced at my dive computer and realized I was at 94ft. What a way to start a dive! I couldn't believe it. There was a much smaller (4ft) grey...

 Last night Heidi and I decided to try out some new scuba equipment by tackling a night dive at Makena Landing. Things started out a little hairy as a purge valve on Heidi's BC popped off and started leaking air plummeting her to the bottom (about 3ft down.) But it turned out to be an easy fix...even in the dark, so the dive continued.   The water was so filled with plankton that it was looked like warp speed on Star Trek. All kinds of small drifting organisms sped past us in the current. I managed to snap a shot of this wild looking jelly as it drifted by that couldn't have been bigger than my thumbnail! Finding this Hawaiian Starry Octopus was a huge payoff early on in the dive. I always love finding octos and this is one that is quite rare, endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, and nocturnal. You can see the mass of plankton above it in the picture on the right.   We checked out a few caves on our dive and not surprisingly they were filled with resting turtle...

 You never know what you will find if you look. There has been a full moon lately which means high high tides and low low tides...the latter great for tidepooling. This nudibranch would have escaped notice if we hadn't been searching for similar creatures. Heidi found the first of these guys by spotting the two green tipped rhinophores. It still took some careful inspection to make sure that this was in fact a nudibranch, and not some sea weed waving in the moving water.  After some in depth research in our books and internet Heidi located this species of nudibranch which is scientifically known as Marionia hawaiensis .

 I am always looking for great shore dives here in Maui. Being able to go scuba diving from the shore is a great way to have a laid back, flexible dive where you don't have to worry about catching a boat or paying alot of money to charter a dive cruise. $4 a tank is all you need if you have all of your own gear like I do.  The wreckage of the old Mala Pier is one of my favorite shore dives on the west side of Maui. The water is always clear, is doesn't get much more than 35ft deep, which means you can stay down for a long time. Plus there is the added benefit of seeing turtles, sharks, and eagle rays on almost every dive. Maybe I have just gotten lucky.   The wreckage at the site makes it very similar to a shipwreck dive. The hard concrete pillars from the old pier gave the coral something to attach to which in turn attracts all forms of life. With all of the big animals roaming around sometimes it is hard to remember to look for the small stuff. But here at Mala th...

 Ever since I started exploring the underwater coastline of Maui I have been searching for people who have shared my passion and that have local knowledge of the lesser explored Maui reefs. We have amazing shore diving opportunities but much fewer deep diving sites that can be reached easily from shore. So I have been asking around the dive shops and with fellow divers about who visits some of the more advanced, deeper sites and everyone has referred me to one place, Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures. So I finally made it in time to check out their shop (it closes at 2pm) and talk with one of the Dive Masters and with Ed's wife. They could really see my passion for diving and they invited me and Heidi out on one of their Adventure X dive trips which Ed still comes out on and leads.    There have been a few fish that have eluded us so far mainly because they are found in deeper water. Things like bicolor anthias and long nose hawkfish are found at sites a little farther f...