Capturing the Moment

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...

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...