Capturing the Moment

  In a previous post I talked about the 'Big 3' scuba dives in Maui. These three are Molokini Crater , Cathedrals , and Mokuhooniki Rock for hammerheads. I got the chance recently to revisit one of the Big 3, Molokini for some good old fashioned exploration of the deep time. The crater rises strait up from the submerged slope of Haleakala Volcano 300 ft down. This easy access to depth, along with some of the clearest water in Hawaii provides a rare opportunity here in Maui where shallow shore dives are more the norm. Early morning dive at Molokini   My buddies Jack and Lucy from Maui Dive Shop joined me on their day off to do some fun diving of their own. Our first dive was on Reef's End. This is one point of the halfmoon shaped crater which gradually slopes down to the abyss. Schools of pyramid butterflyfish and garden eels greeted us about 60 ft down, then a school of grey reef sharks found us around 120 ft down. The sharks stayed a little too deep to get good pi...

 Ever since I started exploring the underwater coastline of Maui I have been searching for people who have shared my passion and that have local knowledge of the lesser explored Maui reefs. We have amazing shore diving opportunities but much fewer deep diving sites that can be reached easily from shore. So I have been asking around the dive shops and with fellow divers about who visits some of the more advanced, deeper sites and everyone has referred me to one place, Ed Robinson's Diving Adventures. So I finally made it in time to check out their shop (it closes at 2pm) and talk with one of the Dive Masters and with Ed's wife. They could really see my passion for diving and they invited me and Heidi out on one of their Adventure X dive trips which Ed still comes out on and leads.    There have been a few fish that have eluded us so far mainly because they are found in deeper water. Things like bicolor anthias and long nose hawkfish are found at sites a little farther f...