Eels everywhere, plus a big Frogfish and a small Wirecoral Gobie

 Today dawned with dark overcast and multiple rain squalls across the horizon.  Looked north to Pawai Bay; big whitewater all over the moorings and crashing on Wash Rock. Guess I won't ride my bike; fuck it dude, let's go diving.  Fortunately I had a space on Kona Honu Divers Honu One, so off to the harbor we go.  Here's Skipper Connor launching divers at our first site; same as yesterday since that area was the only place to dive with the swell coming in from both south and west.  We headed down the wall with guide, Kevin Stewart, and I was delighted at the lack of surge.  That, however, would catch up to us on dive two.

This area has multiple moorings across a large cove, and we were at the second farthest north.  The reef here is super healthy and full of fish....and today: Eels, Yellow Margin, Undulated, and four White mouth Eels.  All these White mouth Eels are unique different individuals.  At the bottom the nose of a Yellow Margin Eel is poking out of his hole.

Now that we've covered the eels, lets talk about some usual reef nudis, fishes and shrimp.  First up: a Strawberry nudi, then, nearby a Peacock Grouper heading for a hole, an Oval Butterfly fish,  an Oraangeband Surgeonfish photobombing an Arceye Hawkfish, a Longnose Butterfly, a Linkia Starfish, and a couple of Banded Coral Shrimp with an upside-down Red Barred hawkfish.

 

 So I saved the best finds for last.  Three awesome creatures. A very large Pale Yellow Camo Frogfish, a very small and shy female Whitley's Boxfish, and a wirecoral Gobie, found at the very end of dive two.

 The frogfish was so big I had to back up tofit it into the frame of my 60 mm macro lens. I spent so much time with the frogfish that when I looked up across the boulder and pinnacle field: no bubbles.  Crap, Well, I thought, the must be headed for the mooring by now, which convenientyly is close to the large pinnacle which is a feature of this site.  I swam that way and through the gloom began to see bubbles.  yay! 

The Whitleys was very small.  I chased her all over the reef, but she kept diving into overhangs and holes.  Finally she emerged from the shadows and met me head on.  Hi, you little beauty.   

Under a ledge on the pinnacle where I found the other divers there was a strand of wire coral reaching out into the water column.  I always closely inspect these becvasuse they very oftten harbor a couple of teeny, very cool animals.  Today on the wirecoral was a nice little Wirecoral Gobie.