Capturing the Moment

  It has been a long time since I dove Ulua Beach. For some reason it didn't impress me much early in my Maui diving career and I just always went to other places over it after that. But with time for one dive left before heading back to Vermont, Heidi and I decided to give it a try. And I'm so glad we did.    The set-up for shore diving here is some of the best in Maui. There are multiple showers, a bathroom, and even a couple of benches with tank holding spots near the car drop-off spot. You can drop everything off there and then head back a few hundred feet for parking. The walk down to the beach is very easy, and just like that you are wading out into the calm waters over a very sandy bottom.    This is a pretty shallow dive, following the rocky outcropping to the right of Ulua Beach. The coral is thriving here and forms a very dense reef. We were hoping to find frogfish and harlequin shrimp, but despite our best search, we came up empty. Yet the dive still ...

  If you are looking for a wonderful scuba dive, that you can do from shore on Maui, then look no further than the old Mala Pier. The colors underwater are out of this world, and the turtles and sharks are usually in plentiful supply. I've snorkeled here and dove here many times, and it never gets old. In fact, it is one of the 'must-see' places I take people to when they visit me here in Maui. Today I left the wide angle camera at home. I've taken lots of turtle and shark pictures here before. I was on the hunt for some of the more secretive animals. I was on a treasure hunt for things like nudibranchs, eels, frogfish, and whatever else I could find hiding amongst the corals and wreckage. Using a special macro lens on my Canon 5d, I was able to get in close, add flash, and bring out the true color of all of the marine life. Take a look at some of these photos below and see if you agree with me that this might just be the 'Most Colorful Dive on Maui!" A gloomy ...

  Today was a great day to go scuba diving in south Maui. We grabbed some tanks from Maui Dreams Dive Shop and drove down to Makena Landing. We were on the lookout for nudibranchs as usual, but also just eager to enjoy the pristine conditions. The visibility underwater was the best we've had in months, and we ended up with some pretty cool critter finds. Check out the pics below! We even got the Hawaiian state fish. This really is a can't miss shore dive when you are on Maui.

  I've always been fascinated with the giant shipwreck grounded on the shallow reef on the windward side of the island of Lana'i in Hawaii. The channel here is almost always windy and wavy, which means that you can't easily get to the wreck. You especially can't get close to it. But every once in a while the winds will shift... and today was one of those days. So I grabbed my crew and we headed out to explore the wreck with our small boats. The sun came out, really showing off the rusty red color of the hulking ship. It was a self propelled, Navy fuel barge, made out of ferro-cement. It is very strong, hence why it is still here. The ship was contracted out to a company that was supposed to scuttle it in the mid 1950's, but instead they lost control of it in the channel, and it washed up on the shallow reef of Lana'i, where it sits today. It looks like a ghost ship, and even more so when you get up close. The color of rust is everywhere on the ship. Steel rebar ...