Capturing the Moment

Tiger Cowrie   Strange creatures abound at Sugar Beach after dark. This is one of our favorite night dive spots for some muck diving action on Maui. Not many people know about this place because it really does take some faith, especially at night, to get in the water here and hope for the best. It doesn't look like much at first but after finding the first few unusual creatures they seem to appear everywhere you look. From active cowries to unknown nudibranchs we delighted with each new find. Gloomy Nudibranch   Even the fish can look totally different at night, taking on new colorations and behaviors. But the big surprise of the night was a beautiful red-orange frogfish that Heidi found out in the open. Moorish Idol at Night Pokemon Nudibranch Shy Scorpoinfish Heidi's beautiful frogfish Reticulated Frogfish, very rare

   Oh it's good to be back scuba diving on Maui! Shortly after landing we grabbed scuba tanks from our favorite dive shop Maui Dreams. One of our first dives was a beautiful mid day at the old Mala Pier. It is an easy shore dive through the reef covered submerged wreckage of the old concrete pier. The reef habitat has brought in an amazing amount of sea life. There are resident white tip reef sharks and often sea turtles hiding among the overhanging wreckage.   It was a beautiful day and lots of divers and snorkelers were out and about. We even ran into our friend Drew underwater, who pointed out a rare gloomy nudibranch.   Turtles were the star of the show here at Mala today. We had many close encounters with many young turtles. At one point a turtle almost swam into my camera! Big schools of fish hung near the outskirts of the reef and Heidi found a beautiful frog fish camouflaging in with the finger coral. This has got to be one of the best dives for underwater photogr

  A rare day off matched up with glassy conditions on the north shore so I grabbed my boards and blasted off across the island. I wanted to check out a secret spot that only a few buddies of mine usually use. I saw a few people out catching some fun waves so I strapped on my leash and paddled out.   I was surprised to see that the  eight surfers out were all unkown to me. Guess the spot is catching on. Luckily there were plenty of waves to go around. It also seemed like the other surfers had been out for a while because pretty soon the crowd was down to three.    I wanted to play around with my new GoPro4 as well and the glassy conditions came out beautiful in the pictures. Add to the fact that it was extremely low tide and in some of the pics like the one on the left you can actually see the colorful coral reef lurking just below the window-like wave. I wonder how many more of these day's I have left here on Oahu's north shore...

Views along the trail Phoebe whale watching   There is a hike leading from the end of the road that is the only way to get out to Oahu's western tip called Ka'ena Point. Every winter we try to head out to see the albatross chicks as well as humpback whales and monk seals. This year's hike started off with a bang. Just as we left the car and got underway Heidi pointed just offshore to a disturbance in the water. Just then a huge mother humpback whale launched itself into a full breach, right were Heidi had pointed to! Trailblazing Albatross Nesting Area   Our good friend Phoebe joined us for this years annual trek. After the huge whale breach the mom and calf took off north, hugging the coastline. So we took off in pursuit focusing on our footing while trying not to miss the next big breach. I had my camera and long lens ready but it seemed that the mom and calf had switched to travel mode. It was all we could do to keep up with them as we speedily tackled

Climbing out of the notch Artist rendition of the Pali battle Life on the ridge line  High up in the Koolau mountain range here on Oahu sit two massive notches, carved out of the rocky ridge. The story is that the warrior chief Kalanikapuli had these notches cut out in 1795 in order to place western canons. This was all in hopes of stopping the advancing armies of another warrior chief name Kamehameha. The canons proved to be a huge force for the defenders of Oahu but victory in the end belonged to Kamehameha. With this victory high atop the Pali cliffs Kamehameha was able to unite all the islands and create the Kingdom of Hawaii. An artist's rendition of the famous battle of the pali cliffs still greets visitors at the lookout today. Bigger, steeper second notch Nu'uanu Valley   I have been to the lookout many times and have even hiked up to the ridge line on the north side of the lookout where the famous Pali Puka is, but I had never tackled the hike/scr