5 Graves, 5 Caves, Turtle Town, Scuba Dive, Maui

 Searching the walls and ceilings of overhangs and caves is a must at this scuba site known locally as 5 caves or 5 graves, or turtle town after the abundant reptile residents. While most scuba divers are watching for turtles and other mega fauna Heidi and I were on our typical hunt for smaller creatures like nudibranchs. 5 Caves is a stellar nudibranch dive, day or night. We get the usual suspects here of phyllidia, white margin, and fuchsia flatworms, but if you looks very hard the dedicated nudibranch diver can be in for a real treat. Today it was that and more!
 After seeing a big octo on the kick out to the reef Heidi got the sightings started with a Tom Smith's nudibranch. As I was taking this picture of it I noticed just to the right a gold lace nudibranch almost perfectly blending in. That is usually the way of nudibranch spotting. Once you stop and really look at an area you will find more and more. Heidi also found another gold lace on the sand, two yellow noumea which we rarely see, and then the real find, a white spotted nudibranch. We have only seen this species once before so we were very excited.

To add to the excitement of all these nudibranch finds I saw this turtle swimming away from the reef out over the sand. I did a double take at the turtle's face and recognized it is an endangered hawksbill sea turtle. I have only seen this species four other times and never before at 5 Graves. The dark scutes (scales) under the mouth are a dead giveaway. Green sea turtles only have dark colored scutes above the mouth. The serrated shell and sharper beak also give this turtle away as being a Hawksbill. After a year and a half of scuba diving out here in Maui Heidi was pretty shocked I raced off to chase a turtle. She understood later when I said it was a hawksbill!

This is Heidi's gold lace nudibranch she found crawling over the sand. I love the way it looks like electricity going from point to point on these nudibranchs. Once it crawled onto Heidi's hand it didn't want to get off.