Capturing the Moment

Tiny baby frogfish   Frogfish and nudibranchs were both high on the list of animals to find while on our scuba dive vacation to Maui. We checked some of our favorite dive sights like mala pier, five graves, and white rock, as well as doing a bit of muck diving and it paid off with 4 frogfish and countless nudibranchs. I love diving in Maui. Wire coral goby    Maui can be an underwater macro photographers dream. Tiny gobies like the one above live on wire coral on the fringes of the reef. Moray eels of many shapes and patterns can be found hidden among the cracks and even within the branches of live coral. White Bump Nudibranch Big Fin Squid   Nighttime brings out the unusual critters like flatworms, rarely seen nudibranchs, and squid. This big fin squid pictured on the right is the biggest one Heidi and I have ever seen in Hawaii.   And of course no trip to Maui would be complete without a few nudibranch hunts. We found some old favori...

Kahuna nudibranch  After our first successful nudibranch search at Honolulu's Magic Island dive site we decided to head back to see what else we could find. The water viz is usually pretty low at the entrance, around 15ft, but opens up to 30-35ft as you round the corner. We explored the Ala Wai boat channel, which you can see to the right of Magic Island in the aerial picture, on our first dive. This time we skipped most of that and jumped in almost all the way out of the channel. Indian Nudibranch Kahuna Nudibranch ( Thorunna kahuna)   Before rounding the corner of the breakwall we stumbled upon our first nudibranch finds, a Kahuna nudibranch. This beautiful nudibranch is white with a brilliant purple fringe. We have found it a few times already here on Oahu, however it was very rare to see on Maui. It's funny how shifting 80 miles away can have a noticeable impact on wildlife. Heidi spotted an Indian nudibranch shortly after. These are one my favorite nudib...

Dwarf Moray Eel White Mouth Moray Eel    Moray Heaven!   Back on Maui for a quick visit we had to fit in a dive at one of our favorite shore dive locations, five graves. This is the same location that all the tour operators have dubbed to be "Turtle Town", but we weren't going diving for turtles. Instead we look for nudibranchs, frogfish, and other hard to find creatures that may escape the usual glimpse from the snorkel masses.   Our dive quickly turned into a moray eel bonanza. We had several dwarf morays, cute little 6-8 inch fully grown, and some huge white mouth moray eels about 3 ft long. An undulated moray showed off its razor sharp teeth and a zebra moray contrasted with its toothless grin. As I tried to get a picture right down the mouth of the undulated a large fish swam in between my camera lens and the eel. This happens sometimes as I concentrate on getting the picture, but this time the fish stayed there, which is a little abnormal. So I glanc...

Colors of the deep, who knew?   Scuba Diving Gato Island, Philippines    Since the discovery of a thresher shark dive near Malapascua Island, adventurous divers have been flocking to the golden sand shores of this little tropical island north of Cebu, Philippines. Everyone wants to see big animals like the threshers. Those in the know come here for two reasons; thresher sharks and tiny macro critter hunting. The place to go for the latter is a nearby rock, jutting straight up out of the clear blue water, covered in dense jungle. Terns squawk as they fly in and out of caves and overhangs, but the real wildlife lives just underwater. Gato is famous for sea snakes but also houses treasures like sea horses, nudibranchs, frogfish, and even little white tip reef sharks.    Colors and patterns of all kinds shock the senses as you dive around the island. The shallows are best for nudibranchs and frogfish, while the sea horses like it a bit deeper. Wi...