Capturing the Moment

  Art in nature - the wrapped up arms and spines of a crown-of-thorns sea star. I love spending time underwater. Especially in a place like Maui, Hawaii. I have logged hundreds of scuba dives here, all around the island. This dive took me back to one of the places where I have dove before, a place called 5 Graves or 5 Caves. Snorkel boats come here often, looking for sea turtles. But the snorkeling miss a world of small and unusual creatures living in the cracks and crevices and caves down below. That is why I geared up for scuba diving and went out for a hour-long underwater search for charismatic micro-fauna. The entrance for this dive is down a gravelly path, past a small graveyard on an tradition coastal access trail. It would be very easy to drive right by if you didn't know what you were looking for. The entrance into the water is a small, rocky cove, that can be quite tricky, especially if you have heavy scuba gear and a large camera. The waves surge into the bay, sending th...

  If you are looking for a wonderful scuba dive, that you can do from shore on Maui, then look no further than the old Mala Pier. The colors underwater are out of this world, and the turtles and sharks are usually in plentiful supply. I've snorkeled here and dove here many times, and it never gets old. In fact, it is one of the 'must-see' places I take people to when they visit me here in Maui. Today I left the wide angle camera at home. I've taken lots of turtle and shark pictures here before. I was on the hunt for some of the more secretive animals. I was on a treasure hunt for things like nudibranchs, eels, frogfish, and whatever else I could find hiding amongst the corals and wreckage. Using a special macro lens on my Canon 5d, I was able to get in close, add flash, and bring out the true color of all of the marine life. Take a look at some of these photos below and see if you agree with me that this might just be the 'Most Colorful Dive on Maui!" A gloomy ...

Swim-by on Dive 1 Kona Dive Company   Kona Manta Ray Night Dive Now known as the "#1 Night Dive in the world", the Manta Ray Night Dive in Kona, Hawaii is something not to be missed. It can be done as a snorkel if you are not a certified diver , or as one of the most spectacular scuba dives anywhere on Earth. Diver, Manta, and Bubble Ring     I take people snorkeling here once a week and I still can't get enough. In fact, this dive is one of the first things I looked forward to doing after getting off the boat. It is right up there with grabbing a cold beer (no drinking on the boat), and having a good surf session. People often can't believe that all I want to do after leading people through the Hawaiian Islands for work is to get back in the water.   The crazy thing about this manta dive is that there is no pattern to let you know when there will be lots of manta rays or when there will be none. It doesn't seem to matter about moon phase, cu...

  Today was the last day of our six day scuba liveaboard in the Komodo Islands. The crew of the Amalia and the boat itself took very good care of us. Usually on the last day of the liveaboard you just chug towards harbor to unload, but I was pleasantly surprised that we were going to have two more dive before lunch and then head back to Labuan Bajo to disembark. Cristina and Nelwan asked us what we would like to see and if we had a preference of dive sites and we all agreed...more mantas! Rhinopias! First Dive Site: Mauan This turned into a really fun sandy muck dive with nudibranchs, mantis shrimps and a very rare rhinopias scorpionfish. These scorpionfish take camouflage to a whole new level, with wild filaments adorning their entire body. They are considered to be the 'holy grail' of fish for aquarium specialist as well as underwater photographers. Nelwan had gotten word that there was one in the area so we were quite pleased when we were able to find it. Pe...

Ghost Pipefish  Day four of our liveaboard found us in beautiful south Rinca. We were the only boat in sight and during breakfast we could see a large school of mobular rays breaching out of the water. The visibility of the water here in the south was a bit worse than up in North Komodo, but better than the forecast we were receiving from the days leading up to today. But it wasn't going to affect our primary goals for being down here which were macro critters, adventure, and dragons...and we got all three. Orange Cup Coral on the Yellow Wall    We had a four dive day including a night dive. Our dive sights included Cannibal Rock, Jimmy's Rock, Yellow Wall, and a night day at Torpedo Bay. We found a ton of wild and crazy nudibranchs that Heidi is hard at work identifying. Beautiful shrimp and crabs abounded, but what really shocked me was the color and coverage of soft coral. Yellow Wall definitely lived up to it's name but every site was packed with live c...