Sharks, Turtles, Nudibranchs and more at Mala Pier

I do most of my scuba diving along the south shore of maui but I do like to get out to the other sides of the island and see what differences in life and topography I can find. One of my favorite spots on the west side of Maui is the old sunken pier at Mala Wharf. The old concrete pier fell apart and sunk down in a jumble of pilings and platforms about 30ft down. This makes it a great place to find turtles, sharks, and those beautiful little sea slugs, nudibranchs. We had plenty of all of those on this dive with Paul and Ben.

This was an extra fun dive since Paul, Ben, and I all got our dive master certifications down in Utila at a place called Cross Creek. It was great to dive in a different location with very different animals. We saw 6 or 7 turtles, with 1 overly curious juvenile with a bright white number 5 written on its shell. Must have been a release from the aquarium. I was busy finding nudibranchs; 3 trembling, 2 imperial, and 10 white margin. 7 of these white margin nudibranchs were all together. I laughed to myself underwater thinking that they looked like a little nudibranch family with all sizes accounted for. More likely a mating frenzy going on knowing these guys.

As I searched for the tiny marine life Paul and Ben were busy finding some of the bigger animals in the wreckage, sharks. Paul found two big white tip reef sharks hiding under a big platform. I told Paul to swim to the other side and I would take his picture. Not knowing exactly how dangerous these sharks were he was a little too nervous to get right in their way as the bolted but I managed to snap a picture as they did. He is hiding off to the left behind the wreckage.