Aquarium outer mooring and Eel Cove 5/4/21

 Weather forecast for today was rain.  And sure enough, at 4 am it was raining hard.  I rolled over and thought, "I'll be wet anyway, but maybe take the boatcoat."  Then I went back to sleep for an hour.

Amazing that at 6am the sky was clearing and there were fluffy clouds ,white with refllected light from the rising sun.  Looks like a great day on the ocean, which was calm and glassy, the south swell from the last two days subsiding.  Boarded Honu One and the Kona Honu Divers crew got us ready to go.

Once underwater it seemed clear that the fish were out.  So many surgeons, tangs, and corises; a variety of wrasses, and butterflies.   Below are Orangeband Surgeon, Bluespine Unicorn and pair of Raccoon Butterflies.

We headed first into Skull Cave looking for nudis but they must have been cloaked because everyone was 0-fer.

Back we go out toward the dropoff.  Here's a gaggle of Blue Goatfish, and near the mouth of Suck'em up, a nice Flowery Flounder.  The Yellowtail Corises were all over the undersides of rocks turned over by Rockmover Wrasses.
 

Blue Goatfish

Flowery Flounder

Yellowtail Coris

 

Rockmover Wrasse

After about an hour we were back near the mooring, just a bit north and there appeared about three or four beautiful Saddleback Butterflies.  They were a bit shy and ran away from my loud open-circuit breathing system.  I turned out my lights and chased.  Finally found 'em behind a big boulder.  Also, there under the boulder was a Straewberry Nudi.
 

Stoked on SI to hear we're headed for Eel Cove, or Fish Bowl.

Slight disappointment that our group with Rob wiffed on finding Gooseberry.  Apparently he was at about 90 feet  today.  I remember seeing a bunch of the Janine's group circled around a spot in the deep rubble.  I headed down there thinking they had found him, and they had, except that when I got there they, and he, had departed.  OK, let's head back up to the shallow pinnacle and find Vinnie (or Vickie) the Viper.  Hmmm, strike two.  He or she's not there either.  OK, now just cruise and see what we can find.  Oh, look, a Barred Filefish...  Oh look, it's Laura... Oh look, a Ringtail Wrasse.
 

Barred Filefish

Laura

Ringtail Wrasse

Juvie Blackside hawkfish

Suddenly I see Laura going after a nice Dragon Wrasse...but, wait!.. There's a bunch of them, and some are juveniles and one was an adult.  Three different developmental stages of the same animal.  Cool.

Adult Rockmover

Juvenile Rockmover

Baby Rockmover aka Dragon Wrasse

Just as I noticed that I hadn't seen an eel, as we headed for safety stop I ran across a small Whitemouth Eel.