Capturing the Moment

Mala Pier  The sun was out and the wind was light as usual on Maui's west side. This bode well for a couple of scuba dives that I had planned to show off a bit of the Hawaiian underwater world to my friend Corie. The first spot we hit up was the wreckage of the old Mala pier, just north of Lahaina. This has always been one of my favorite sites to dive for underwater photography. The water here is almost always clear, the wreckage covered in beautiful coral, and charismatic megafauna abounds.  Bleached Coral Head  Imagine my surprise when I drop down and the first thing I see isn't clouds of fish, or turtles, or beautiful colors....it is a big vibrant white coral. It had almost entirely bleached. There has been a lot of news surrounding Maui lately with the increase in water temperature leading to mass bleaching events around the island. This happens whenever something like increased water temperature, sedimentation, acidification stresses the coral causing it ...

Dive 1: Ukumehame Michael with a Titan's Trumpet Snail  With the hope of finding manta rays and the thought that it may be the only time I get to dive with Michael we geared up and swam out from Ukumehame beach park despite some unruly looking water conditions and murky water. Sunset is supposed to be the time to see the mantas so add low light to the list and you've got yourself a very challenging dive. Zero visibility greeted us and stayed with us all the way out to the drop down spot, about half a mile offshore. The viz became 30' or so out here so we did get a chance to see some fun fish amongst the finger coral and a couple of moray eels as well. The mantas seemed shy this time and we didn't have a spotting until the last second, when a big beautiful manta silently swooped into my view. I furiously banged my tank banger and got Heidi and Hunter's attention so they could see it. Unfortunately Michael was already out of air so forced to stay at the surfa...

Getting some insider information Roxy and Julie got my contact info and sought me out to take them on a dive somewhere in Maui. Roxy was certified while Julie wasn't, so I had to find a place where she could snorkel at the surface and still stay with us. I also wanted to go somewhere with great wildlife and near where they were staying, in Lahaina. So after discussing a couple of options we decided on Black Rock. This has been a favorite dive site of mine on the west coast of Maui. On this day we got lucky, first with parking (which can be the big downside to this site), and with weather conditions. After snorkeling out to the point, past the cliff jumpers, Roxy and I said 'see ya later' to Julie and descended to the sandy floor. After a few minutes getting back in the feel and working on her buoyancy Roxy was back at it. And lucky for me the wildlife just kept showing up. Roxy and Juliet The water was crystal clear as we had numerous sea turtle encounters, n...

Being underwater for an hour is possible with scuba gear. Scuba diving can be very safe but things can go wrong during the dive which is why all scuba divers are highly encouraged to dive with a buddy. But even this won't help unless you and your buddy can communicate without talking. If any of you have played a game of charades with your friends you know how difficult it can be to get your point across using only gestures and movements. This is exactly what underwater communication is like. For this reason you go over a few signs with your buddy and their meanings before going underwater. Things like; "I'm low on air", "Lets go up.", "I'm ok", "How much air do you have?", are common signs to go over for common issues that arise. Today our problem was a little different. The current was going in the wrong direction for us to get back to the beach. This was the first time either of us had dove this site before. I downloaded th...