Upwellings: Wacky's and High Rock, then Aquarium and Suckemup

Today Honu One was cleared with all her fire supression bonafides so Kona Honu put her to sea with a crew and 10 divers. Divers were all locals except for a great couple from Maui. It was a DM's wet dream: holoholo but being paid for it.

North to Wacky's - or High Rock - I wasn't sure which mooring we were on. It looked like Honu Iki was on north Golden Arches with a few divers getting in the water.

Finally temps hit 80 degrees today, but I was still chilly in the 5 mil at the end of the second dive.

Right off the bat at Wacky's we found a Zebra Eel in a hole. Was tricky to get the shot way down in there.

Zebra Eel

I didn't look for an urchin to feed him, partly because I'm ambivalent about intervening in nature, except when I do it. But this time I didn't.

This was the first Eel I stumbled onto, but the rest of the day's theme was Eels and Coral Shrimp. Here are some of the coral shrimp, including a cool Flameback Coral Shrimp. These are often in holes with Eels but they were all social distancing today.

Banded Coral Shrimp


Flameback Coral Shrimp

Here are some of the Eels. There big and small ones, and small ones in deep holes. These are some of the bigger ones, including a yellow Margin Eel with bite marks around his head. I've seen this before–something very large and hungry had got the Eel's whole head in his mouth. How to get away from that is a good trick.

I spent some time at Aquarium looking for Pom Pom Crabs, but no luck. Present however, were the usual rubble feeders including a group of maturing juveniles. These were a juvie Star-eye Parrot, a Yellow Tail Coris and what looks like a juvie bluespine Surgeon.

Here's a friendly mature Yellow Tail Coris

There was a lot of surge at Aquarium and i was unsure we'd be able to transit Suck'em Up. We cruised through the lava tube and at the exit it appeared calm. I've seen this before and been burned, but today there was no danger of being polarised onto the rocks above. We all made it.

One of the stars of the day was the 7/11 Crab at Pinetrees somewhere between Aquarium and Suck 'em up.