Capturing the Moment

Frogfish Camouflage   I've been so busy the last week and a half working my new gig as expedition leader on the Un-Cruise Hawaii itinerary that I have just now gotten around to going through some of my last dive photos from my week in Maui. I took my friend Jackie out for a stellar dive at one of my favorite spots, 5 Graves, off the South Maui coastline.    I was pretty shocked that I didn't find any nudibranchs, usually it is a hotspot for those marine treasures, but we lucked out with two great frogfish sightings. It was funny watching Jackie shake her head, telling me she doesn't see what I am point at, until the last second when she separates the camouflaging frogfish from its environment. We see frogfish in all colors and sizes here in Hawaii, but these two were particularly beautiful. Since they trust their camouflaging ability so much they let me get very close in for a couple of good shots.    The rest of the dive we focused on the charismati...

A beautiful swallow tail slug Gloomy Nudibranch in the sand   Magic Island, Oahu   One exciting thing about exploring a new island is finding new wildlife. Even though Oahu is less than 100 miles away from Maui, there have been underwater wildlife sightings here that have never been seen in the waters off Maui. Almost all of the fish are the same, but what we are looking for can be a whole new ball game. Nudibranchs. In the definitive underwater invertebrate guide book, Hoover's "Hawaii's Sea Creatures, a Guide to Hawaii's Marine Invertebrates", many of the more rare nudibranchs were spotted here on Oahu. And many of those were found at Magic Island. So that is where we headed for our next exploratory Oahu dive. Leaf Scorpionfish Saddleback Butterflyfish   We started our dive in the Magic Island boat channel in about 5ft visibility. We have found this muck to be good nudibranch habitat in the past, but after finding only one gloomy nudibranch...

  This morning I grabbed my macro setup to try and find some small underwater wildlife to photograph. Sometimes when you slow down and really look it can be amazing how many little creatures start showing up. I went to a dive site called five caves, aka five graves. It is a spot very famous for sea turtle encounters which means these little animals get passed over even more often than most.   Nudibranchs, harlequin shrimp, scorpion fish, and even peacock flounders showed themselves on this dive. It wasn't until I saw a couple of neon yellow juvenile frogfish that I knew who was going to steal the show. Surrounded by a cloud of tiny plankton the frogfish would open its mouth and gobble up some of the goodies.   These are Commerson's frogfish and will grow to about the size of a volleyball if they get old enough. Right now they could easily fit into the palm of my hand. Once they get bigger they will graduate from eating plankton to eating fish. They are one of th...

  Nudibranchs are a macro photographer's dream animal. They move slowly and boast some of the most vibrant colors and patterns of any underwater wildlife. Yet with all of their brightness it is still quite easy to miss them thanks to all the other colors in the reef. Our eyes are trained to look for movement so we glance right past the hiding octopus, the camouflaged scorpionfish, and even the ostentatious nudibranch....but not on this dive. Baby frogfish number one was tucked down into the rock, peering up at his reflection in the lens as I got in close for this shot on the left. Heidi found another wedged in amongst coral polyps. These juveniles will someday grow into volleyball size adults one day if they can avoid all the dangers on the reef. Now this guy was a real tough find. Once again master spotter Heidi pointed him out to me. I initially saw the fin but only the fin. I was amazed when I focused on the entire area and realized it was all one big scorpionfish! I h...

Saddleback Butterflyfish Slate pencil urchin    Diving at Makena Landing here on Maui is one of the easiest shore entries on the island. A calm, protected sandy beach lets you wade out until you are all geared up and ready to go. Usually I bypass this easy entrance for a quicker but more dangerous drop off the lava rocks but we had reports of baby frogfish on the Makena Landing side so that is where we headed. We swam by a shark and a few turtles while listening to humpback whales singing in the distance, but we were on a mission to find the elusive frogfish. With a little bit of searching and a great find from our friend Dav, we actually found two! Both frogfish were adults, about the size of a small dinner plate. They have amazing camouflage and I am sure we swam by a few that we didn't see. I have gotten to the point where I can search for their eyes which can give away their location. Their body shape and fins are another clue. Luckily they trust their camou...

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....