Capturing the Moment

Another fun snorkel here on Maui as we eagerly await the arrival of our first guests onboard the Safari Explorer. Check out this beautiful spot known as Coral Gardens.

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...

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...

 A couple hundred yard kick out from Wailea beach yields an expansive reef filled with graceful sea turtles, different coral formations, juvenile fish, and lots of hiding places for moray eels. Today the turtles were plentiful as I had the reef all to myself. No boats tied up and only the occasional fly over from a stand up paddle board which are become a hugely popular option with beach combers here in Maui. A couple of turtles were fast asleep in their caves, out of sight of any would-be predators in the area. And then I came across a couple of young turtles set atop the reef, covered with hovering colorful fish cleaning the algae off its shell. Surgeonfish, potters angelfish, and yellow tangs were all in on the feast, sharing the buffet of algae on the turtles shell.    Wailea Point is also one my of favorite nudibranch hunting reefs. Today was a bit light with only two Vericose phillydias, but while searching the nooks and crannies for slugs I came across ...