Capturing the Moment

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...

A beautiful swallow tail slug Gloomy Nudibranch in the sand   Magic Island, Oahu   One exciting thing about exploring a new island is finding new wildlife. Even though Oahu is less than 100 miles away from Maui, there have been underwater wildlife sightings here that have never been seen in the waters off Maui. Almost all of the fish are the same, but what we are looking for can be a whole new ball game. Nudibranchs. In the definitive underwater invertebrate guide book, Hoover's "Hawaii's Sea Creatures, a Guide to Hawaii's Marine Invertebrates", many of the more rare nudibranchs were spotted here on Oahu. And many of those were found at Magic Island. So that is where we headed for our next exploratory Oahu dive. Leaf Scorpionfish Saddleback Butterflyfish   We started our dive in the Magic Island boat channel in about 5ft visibility. We have found this muck to be good nudibranch habitat in the past, but after finding only one gloomy nudibranch...

Two Ornate Ghost Pipefish  When I talked to my dive guide at Malapascua about finding rare small underwater creatures he told me about two nearby places; Calanggaman Island and Gato Island. Calanggaman, he said, is a long sand bar dotted with coconut palm trees that drops steeply off into the abyss. Gato on the other hand, was described as a solid rock topped with jungle surrounded by nudibranchs and sea snakes. I immediately added both destinations to our dive plans during my stay in Malapascua. First on the list was a two dive day trip to Calanggaman Island. Denise's pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus denise) Can You Find the Sea Horse?  I was already impressed by J.N., our local dive guide and creature finder by his skill in spotting wildlife on our first few local dives. When we dropped over the underwater cliff edge on the outskirts of Calanggaman, J.N.'s critter vision went into overdrive. He found pygmy sea horses no bigger than your pinky finger nail. Ornate gh...

Scorpionfish standing guard over the reef at Isla Verde   Isla Verde, the Green Island    Isla Verde was incredible. It is Puerto Galera’s ship rock or molokini. An offshore pinnacle just breaking the surface goes down   to an untold depth just a quarter mile off nearby Verde Island. Soft corals, hard corals, huge gorgonian sea fans, massive barrel sponges and millions of fairy basslets cover the steep wall. Leaf scorpionfish and an incredible amount of nudibranchs also dot the wall. I was pretty amazed that no big megafauna comes by but I hear from Amil that it is very very rare. Still an incredible two dives. The boat ride over from Puerto Galera takes about 45 minutes and we lucked out with a calm smooth crossing both ways.    The currents here can be quite tricky. Amil told us of being caught in a down current here that took him from 10meters down to 50meters. He was kicking as hard as he could but still was pulled down in the cur...

Gloomy Nudi Holding Tight   As we donned all of our scuba gear in the parking area of our favorite muck dive spot here on Maui a big truck with dive flag stickers all over it rolls up and the man driving says, "Are you guys going from shore here? Never seen anyone dive here before." Word of our findings from this spot spread like wildfire but I'm glad that it is still a somewhat secret spot. This treasure trove of nudibranchs and other rarely seen creatures still shows us something new every time, even after 20 dives here. Kangaroo Nudi Portrait   Gloomy nudibranchs were everywhere we looked on this daytime muck dive. Some where in mid water, caught in some shallow surge from above, while others held fast to the substrate as they crawled over the rocks. Some crabs and fish hid out deep within branching corals waiting for night time to come out and scour the reef for food. We saw a half dozen different kinds of nudibranchs which usually would be considered...