I think I finally worked out the bugs in my camera system and was eager to get it underwater. My attempt over the weekend ended up in an aborted boat trip because of lightning, so it was great to see clear skies and a calm ocean this morning.
The biggest surprise of the day came when, on the boat, I turned around to see Corrine C, the dive pro who has shown me almost every south Kona dive spot I've seen over the past 5 years. Because of the pandemic people have had to scatter and find new jobs, or jump industries, and Corrine is one of those. So it was great to see her after at least 1 1/2 years.
One of the best things about diving with Corrine is that she swims slowly. This is an awesome plus for photographers who are often left in the haze by DMs who want to show their divers a lot of territory. With Corrine I always know that when I come up from a shot she'll be close by, and today she was.
We started the day at Shark Alley, or Wackies. The shark was home at the end of the alley, but we first went deeper and circled around. Here are the fish we found.
A Gold Lace nudi, a nice Octopus out in the open, Rough Spine Urchin and a Strawberry nudi
We made it through the shallows and the White tip reef shard was hanging out under the ledge. I got a video that includes him in a short clip, https://youtu.be/2bl0bNCigrQ .
On to Rose Garden, which is unusual to dive during the winter because it's so exposed. There was another boat on Eel Cove mooring, but i really like the shallow reef tops at Rose Garden.
Our plan was to go find Gooseberry, the Thornback Cowfish, then circle up to the boulders and see the battle between the Indo Pacific Sargents and the Butterflies. And finally to go find the big Viper near the Eel Cove mooring.
Alas, we didn't find Gooseberry because we didn't look below 60 feet. Rob found him at 70 out in the rubble but closer to the Rose Garden mooring than we usually find him.
The boulders are always so fishy, and today was no exception. I was very stoked to find a Firedart that stayed still long enough for he to get a shot. Then a very large Dragon Wrasse, in the same area where a very large adult Rock Mover was flipping rocks like popcorn.
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| Firedart |
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| Dragon Wrasse |
The butterflies are constantly trying to get at the Sergeant's eggs, a purple veneer on the rock faces. They were at it as usual. Here are a few butterflies and an Indo Pacific Sergeant.
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| Four Spot Butterfly |
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| Indo Pacific Sergeant |
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| Threadfin Butterfly |
Out in the rock pukas we found a number of nice eels. Here's an Undulated Eel and a Yellow margin.
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| Yellow margin Eel |
We didn't find the big Viper in his usual pinnacle but were rewarded with the critters below. Including a tiny Cushion Star shrimp that Corrine found, A kind of Hermit Crab that I couldn't ID, a Moorish Idol and an Ornate Butterfly.
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| Cushion star shrimp |
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| Moorish Idol |
Such gorgeous photos. That camera is GOLD!!
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