Flatworm Night Dive
Last night Heidi and I decided to try out some new scuba equipment by tackling a night dive at Makena Landing. Things started out a little hairy as a purge valve on Heidi's BC popped off and started leaking air plummeting her to the bottom (about 3ft down.) But it turned out to be an easy fix...even in the dark, so the dive continued. The water was so filled with plankton that it was looked like warp speed on Star Trek. All kinds of small drifting organisms sped past us in the current. I managed to snap a shot of this wild looking jelly as it drifted by that couldn't have been bigger than my thumbnail! Finding this Hawaiian Starry Octopus was a huge payoff early on in the dive. I always love finding octos and this is one that is quite rare, endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, and nocturnal. You can see the mass of plankton above it in the picture on the right. We checked out a few caves on our dive and not surprisingly they were filled with resting turtle...