Capturing the Moment

Jess: Local Knowledge Entry at Koloa Landing, Kauai    For shore diving the south side of Kauai there is one solid option that will satisfy beginners and experts alike.The name of the place is Koloa Landing. Located in between the resorts of Poipu and the famous blow hole, Koloa Landing provides an easy boat ramp access and gravel parking lot right next to the water. My friend Jess has been working as a dive instructor in Kauai so knows the waters pretty well. She agreed to take me out for a crepuscular/night dive to see what kinds of interesting creatures we could find. Potter's Angelfish   After a very easy entry and a short kick out we submerged to a find a large school of blue stripe snapper. Large boulders were strewn about the site with some nice looking coral sporadically among them. It was in and among the coral and crevices that we wanted to search for the rarer species. Leaf Scorpionfish Jeweled Anemone Crab   And fine them we did....

Yellow-headed Moray Eel   I've never had much fear sticking my camera in the face of moray eels, although lately there have been a couple of things that have given me pause to reconsider this. We saw a massive 7ft green moray in the Atlantic that was so wide and girthy that I didn't know what I was looking at at first. Then there are the stories. a rare Dragon Moray Eel   So in all my time underwater I've never been bitten, attacked, or even feinted at by a moray eel. But our friends over at Kona Diving Co. gave us a few stories of friends getting bitten, usually after pointing at the eel or something nearby with an extended finger. I don't take too much stock in stories about friends friends though so it took a little more, and a little more I got. Portrait of a White Mouth Moray Eel A Tiny Dwarf Moray Eel   One of the divers at the shop pointed to two small scars on her neck that looked like a vampire bit. Then she turned and showed us other sc...