Crescent and High Rock 5/25/21

 South swell came up overnight so our choices were limited today for a suitable dive site on Kona coast.

The easy choice, which we took, is to drop to a mooring right outside the harbor at Crescent or Nai'a, and go out to see Garden Eels, Bicolor Anthias (I missed them) and big Tigers (they didn't show).  The reef is healthy and drops considerably from the mooring, where the goatfish school shimmers like a moving curtain, and ends in the flat sand at 80-100 ft depending on tides.

Right under the mooring there was a nice Clumpy Nudibranch.  Cool! 

On the way down the gradient I found a couple of big White Mouth Eels.

 

 

Once on the sandt here were some Garden Eels, but you can't get close enough to them to get pics because they sink into their little holes as you approach.  Predictably, when I got to the little rock patch where the Bicolor Anthias live I was too late.  they'd already hid away.  Later Janine said she'd hang out with me while I wait for them to come back out.  Thanks J9, I'll take you up on that offer.

Out by the Green Can anchor chain I heard some heavy boat traffic churning by 80 feet above.  I was reminded of the time out there years ago that a diver near me had an out-of-air emergency..  Oops, can't go up, can't go down...maybe go south to the shallows.  (She was cool and everything worked out.)

Now some cool things:  A bunch of juvenile Dascillus were flitting around in a coral head.  Then in a sand patch we found what looks like a crab of some sort.  And another mystery critter.  Here's a flatworm or nudi that I couldn't ID.  Help?

 

 

More nudis:  Strawverry Nudi and a nice Bi-Color Nudibranch that Janine found.  There was another smaller one with it but if I'd take a shot with both you wouldn't be able to see them.

 

 Lots of Lizard fish today, but most of them were too fast for me to get them.  This one was a tick slower.

Back at Naia, one of the stars of the day was this Female Whitleys Boxfish.  She was not in a mood to be photographed and only gave me this one fishbutts.com contender. And back up in the shallow boulder field there were plenty of attarctions, including the Goat Fish school, some nice Plate Coral, and a Srawled Filefish that was really trying to get away.

 

 

This was a big Honu, hiding in a hole.  We roused him with our strobes and he wasn't that pleased.  But, see the barnacles on his nose?  I'd hate that.