Octopus, Frogfish, Turtles and more at Five Graves, Maui

The visibility at five graves, aka. five caves in Makena had been incredible the last few days so Heidi and I jumped at our first opportunity to grab scuba tanks and kick this new year off right. This is such a great place for green sea turtle sighting but this dive turned out to be much much more. We also usually spot very small nudibranchs here, but on this dive I brought my big lens, a 10-22mm super wide angle in hopes of some bigger creatures. We were in luck!

I found this octopus staring out at me from on top of the reef. It was one of the biggest octos I have seen here. After a few pictures of it under a ledge it took off in a cloud of ink. That is when Heidi realized that this octopus was missing some of its arms. Different wounds can be seen on the head and mantle of the octo as well. Their main natural predators are moray eels but this guy was so big that I think he must have had a run in with a hunter of the human kind. People love to eat octopus out here in Hawaii. It is called Tako, so be careful when you order taco at a restaurant, you might get a plate full of octopus. And while octo can be prepared in many tasty ways, I love these guys way too much out on the reefs to ever catch them. As with most fish and marine life I would much rather shoot them with a camera than a spear. This octo casually swam all over the reef with Heidi and me in tow snapping pictures as we went. At one point he came very close to an undulated moray eel sticking out of a crevice after which the octo picked up its pace.

As I was still mesmerized with my octo find Heidi sounded her tank banger wildly so I knew she had something good. I looked to where she was pointing and to my amazement saw a big volleyball sized frogfish swimming next to the reef. After a bit it landed in a spot, and used its modified fins like arms and legs to wedge into its new spot. Frogfish can be so hard to spot when they are not moving. Their camouflage makes them look just like a sponge. To see one swimming out in the open was amazing. Heidi found another similar frogfish a little farther down the reef so maybe these two were in some kind of frogfish courtship. Apparently not even that can take the grumpy look away. Still one of my favorite fish to see.

My dive buddy and "nudibranch spotter extraordinaire", Heidi