Capturing the Moment

  Snorkeling under the rainbow off the coast of Maui. So that is why they call this the 'Rainbow Isle!' The first thing I saw when I jumped in to our snorkel was a broad stingray swimming below me. This is a very rare sight out here in Maui. The fish were plentiful today at our snorkel sight. Here is a school of a thousand yellow fin goatfish. A green sea turtle hovering over the coral covered wreckage of the old Mala pier. A sea turtle hovers mid water as some of our group looks on from above. To get this shot I swam down below the turtle until I could angle the camera up at the snorkelers. I'm not sure if this turtle knew I was above it. It was drifting up higher right at me. This is the same turtle, coming right towards me. Two sea turtles hovering at the cleaning station. Face to face with a green sea turtle. This is my colleague, Sam, who is posing perfectly for this turtle shot. Turtle diving down with snorkelers behind. Tichelle was our kayak lifeguard today, and got...

  Incredible Snorkel at Mala Pier, Maui This may be one of the best kept secrets of Maui. Just outside the bustling port village of Lahaina, there is an old concrete pier, lying at the sandy bottom after hurricane Iniki wrecked it with massive waves back in 1992. Since then it has become a magnet for marine life. Corals cover the wreckage of the old pier, giving it a bit of a shipwreck feel as you hover at the surface. Fish have come to live in the coral, and sea turtles also call the area home. Today was one of those lucky days were the water was flat calm, the sky was sunny and blue, and the site was uncrowded. The reason this is such a great spot to know about is that you can actually get here without a boat. If you know where to swim out you can easily reach the snorkel site from the beach. I often grab my scuba tank and do shore dives here, although today was all about snorkeling with my guests. And what a snorkel it was! Check out the description below each picture for a litt...

Descending under the pier, Mala Frogfish on the Coral Reef in Maui   Ever since Heidi and I found out about the existence of frogfish when we first moved to Maui they have been one of our favorite fish to search for on our scuba dives. But it is not easy to find them as they are one of the best camouflagers on the reef. Close up side view of a frogfish The last thing fish see    Frogfish are in the same family as deep sea angler fish. They sit motionless on the reef, waiting for unsuspecting fish to swim by. Then they swallow them whole in a movement which is almost lost in the blink of an eye. On our first two days diving here on Maui we were able to find three different frogfish. Two at the old wreckage of Mala pier, and one at white rock. Heidi and her big find....see it?   You can see how excited Heidi is here, posing with one of her favorite finds. These beautiful Commerson's frogfish come in a variety of colors. There are m...

Five pictures of frogfish, five different colors. This is typical to see here in Bali after just a few dives. We did six dives in Tulamben and came back with five wildly different colors of frogfish. They are ambush predators so they camouflage in with their surroundings, and then with one of the fastest movements of any animal, they gulp in unaware fish passing too closely by. These frogfish that we found ranged in size from the size of a quarter (white), to the size of a fist (yellow).    Next on the list were scorpionfish. They are also an ambush predator, lying in wait for prey. My favorite scorpionfish to look for is the leaf scorpionfish. It camouflages itself as a submerged leaf, gently swaying in the current back and forth. Just like frogfish they come in all colors. We found a few yellow ones, a beautiful white one, and a couple of their bigger giant scorpionfish relatives.    These scorpionfish are beautiful, but deadly at the same tim...