Thursday, February 22, 2018

Golden Arches and Aquarium 2/21/18

Today was my day for small creatures, notably nudibranches.  I found four nudis, one I hadn't seen before, and Katrina found a Bubbleshell.  Here they are.




I especially am happy with the White Margin nudi in the above shot.  I'm back to using the 60mm macro instead of the 105.  I get more depth of field, and have less trouble locating smaller animals in the finder.  Have to be closer and can't get some things hiding in cracks, but overall the 60 seems a better overall choice.

Here are the rest of the critters I found today.




Garden Eel cove and Kaloko 2/20/18

Garden Eel cove is best known as the northern Manta Dive spot in Kona, but the spot is really a great day dive site too, with a super healthy reef, that drops to a sand bottom at about 100 ft.  Lots of Eels, and very fishy, with robust hard corals.

Then up in the shallows there are boulders and gravelly bottom which is great for ambush predators like Devil Scorpions.  Here's what I found today.










Devils Doorway and Kaloko 2/9/18

Not often do I find both male and female Whitley's Boxfishes on the same dive.  Maybe happened once before, but then again today.  Seems this year I'm seeing lots more Witley's than in the past, so maybe there's been a Whitley's babyboom here in Kona recently.  Here are the two from today.

Here are the other cool denizens of the deep my camera caught today.










Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Aquarium and Crescent 1/30/18

Not gonna be bummed because the Locust nudi Corrine found was half out of focus.  Underwater photography is hard.  I am happy when it works out, which it did with the Spotted Boxfishes, both male and female.


 Here are the rest of the critters out today:
Taape
Cleaner Wrasse

Second Frogfish

First frogfish

Guard crab

Orange spine Unicorn

Whitemouth Eel

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Hoovers and Wackys 1/25/18

Hoovers never fails to amaze with day mantas and so many others exotic critters.  Here is the video of our Manta, Kai-Zed. Kai-Zed with divers Sarah Bergeson and Tim Ugalde. 

We hung around the mooring with Kai-zed for a while, and actually ended up never leaving the immediate area because there are so many pinnacles, canyons, walls and critters to see.  Here are a few of the smaller ones we found, including a Trembling nudi and a Bubbleshell (good eyes, Sarah!)
Banded Coral Shrimp

Bubble shell

Goldlace nudi

Juvenile Yellowtail Coris

Lei Trigger
These octopuses were very romantically inclined, though I couldn't show both of them together because I was using the 105mm narrow field of view lens.  Did get a video of them. Octopus love





Female Psychedelic Wrasses

Close detail in rough spined urchin

Varicosa Nudi

Trembling nudi

Urchin emoticon

White spotted Toby
Red stripe pipefish