Capturing the Moment

Tiger Cowrie   Strange creatures abound at Sugar Beach after dark. This is one of our favorite night dive spots for some muck diving action on Maui. Not many people know about this place because it really does take some faith, especially at night, to get in the water here and hope for the best. It doesn't look like much at first but after finding the first few unusual creatures they seem to appear everywhere you look. From active cowries to unknown nudibranchs we delighted with each new find. Gloomy Nudibranch   Even the fish can look totally different at night, taking on new colorations and behaviors. But the big surprise of the night was a beautiful red-orange frogfish that Heidi found out in the open. Moorish Idol at Night Pokemon Nudibranch Shy Scorpoinfish Heidi's beautiful frogfish Reticulated Frogfish, very rare

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...

Turtle Town isn't just for turtles anymore. Today Heidi and I went to a well known turtle hotspot for a scuba dive. Knowing us we weren't there for turtle watching, we were looking for the small things like this iridescent blue striped Ewa Fang Blenny mimmicking the coloration of a juvenile cleaner wrasse in order to get in close to bite bigger fish. This frog fish on the other hand would not fit into the 'small' category. It was massive and very green. It was stationed just off the reef not moving, just waving its lure out to draw in unsuspecting prey. These frogfish are related to deep sea angler fish and have a very similar lure on their foreheads. As we were taking in the full size of this frogfish Heidi notice a small, brownish nudibranch crawling along the reef. It turned out to be a rare red spotted nudibranch. The color red is the first to go when you get deep in water but when I took a flash photo the red color really popped. Also showing off a bea...