Cruising with Sarah

 Today it was my great good fortune to get to go diving with two of the elite Divas of the Deep (tm), Sarah B and Katrina P. and Big Island Divers.  Little did I know at the time that today I would see an animal that I'd never before seen, hang out with multiple octopi, chase multiple Dragon Wrasses around the sand flats, and generally enjoy a luxuriously peaceful and chill couple of dives.  But before we could leave the dock, here's Katrina setting up rigs as divers arrived for skipper Tyler's briefing.

Honu Iki was pretty full of divers so Sarah and I waited until they were all in the water with their DMs and then we dropped to go exploring on our own.  We dropped at our first site, and I noticed a bit of current flowing north, the usual way.  It made me remember when, years ago, Sarah and I got caught in currrent at this same site so strong that all we could do is bob our way north past Wackies almost to Dotties before the boat with Capt Andrew finally picked us up.  Today it wasn't so bad and we were able to cruise out toward the dropoff, where I found a Crowned Toby and a fairly large Dragon Wrasse.  Sarah found the scrambled Egg nudi and we were delighted when the first of our Stout Morays beat it ou tof his hole as we watched.  He went so fat that i couldn't help but lose the tip of hiw nose out of the frame.

As we circled around to traverse the site and head back toward the shallows I found a number of really common fish, but They we3re posiing for me so I took their picture.  Here''s an Arceye hawkfish that was on the move as I took the shot.  You can see his tail a bit blurry.  He was gone in an instant.  Next I followed a nice, Longnose Butterfly around until he presented his best side to me.  I had a lot of Fishbuttz today and this wasn't the worst.  Some of the fish, however, turned toward me as I swam up to them.  This Ornate Butterfly was one of those as well as the Raccoon Butterfly couple that regaled me from benreath a ledge.

Probably the highlight of the day for me, since we didn't find the frogfishes that were supposed to be at both spots, was the Freckled Snake Eel out in the sand flats.  We actually saw three of them, but this was the only one i could get close enough to for a shot.  You have to creep along the sane very slowly as you approach or else they just back down into the sand and gone.

We continued scouring the reef for cool fish, but that made the day for me.  Howe3ver there were still surprises:  A family of ManyBar Goatfish, and a very cool close up of a Peacock Razor Wrasse that didn't run away from me for the first time ever.

Mid-second dive Sarah found a good-sized Zebra Eel way deep in a hole.  There just happened to be a nice fat urchin right near the hole and we nudged it over so the Eel could smell it.  Actually I picked it up with my fingers and got a nice urchin spine stuck in my middle finger. I knew better.  Anyway, the Zebra came out sure enough and I got the shot.  Further below you can see Sarah always on the prowl for cool critters to see.