A few deep dives with lots of critters

Prospects for a great day underwater were high Today when word circulated that there were only six divers signed up for the Kona Honu Divers morning charter. And so it was that four KHD Ohana divers showed up at the slip and jumped on the boat while the ocean lay flat and the sun peeked through the cloud cover.

Capt. John cleared the green can buoy marking the harbor channel entrance and we turned north on our way back to O'oma, a stretch of coastline south of the airport where I'd been doing a lot of diving lately. There's current there often, but not today. There is a mooring that features lots of big spires and pinnacles and that's where we dropped for our first dive.

At this site we usually hang around the pinnacles a bit before heading off to the drop off, but today we just kicked due west into deep water. Along the way there is a mixture of reef, pinnacles, walls and rubble. In the reef there are always animals hiding or resting depending on when they like to be out. Eels, for instance, often like to hunt at night and rest under ledges, in holes or under the latticework of finger corals that are so plentiful here. Indeed, i found a young White mouth Eel poking out of a hole in the reef and an Octopus that tried to jam himself into a hole way too small for him, but he managed, keeping an eye on me. There were a few cool nudibranchs today, and its getting warmer, so thats when they become more plentiful on the walls and under the arches, or just on a boulder like this big, fat Scrambled Egg nudi. Not far away my friend Laura found a tiny Trembling nudi with suvh pretty yellow-purple coloration.

In deeper water, where we stayed for a good while, the deep blue of the ocean became more saturated as the light weakened and I had to use my flashlight to find things under the ledges we passed. This Viper Eel was curled up in a hole in the characteristic coiled snake-like posture that always makes me feel like they are about to strike. That's never happened to me but it has to one of my regular dive partners. Jumped out and bit her on the arm, putting a small tear in her wetsuit. This one just stayed there, thank you.

We glided down the slope of the reef, steeper as we approached the dropoff, and there were lots of big structures out there that I'd never seen, so we hung around in about 75-80 feet depth flitting from big rock to big rock, always glancing out into the abyss for pelagic things to swim by. But smalle3r animals were abundant. Here's another nudibranch, a Gold Lace nudi, and under a ledge I found darting about a juvenile hawaiian Cleaner Wrasse that I mistook at first for an Indigo Dartfish. Abundant at all depths are Longnose Butterflies and this one was swimming up a vertical rock face. Then, out of nowhere swwam this big Bluefin Trevally, right past me.

Now for the highlight of the day: a very rare Hawawiian Green Lionfish. This fish has been around off and on. Last year I got a not great shot of him, but today we found him again at our second site and he was more accessible. Again, we weere at depth, around 90 feet, and so the light was dim, but he was hard to miss. I'll get a better shot of him if I see him again but this is my best one so far. We had to glide across an expanse of sand to get back to the reef, and there were garden eels but they'd all popped back under the sand by the time I got there. Once back in the rocks and reef I did find a couple of White Stripe Shrimp upside down in a hole. Also lurking nerby were two Yellow Margin Eels, One more out in the open than the other.

Unable to resist this Blackside hawkfish with her white spotted face, just sitting on a rockface. AS soon as my strobes flashed she bolted, but light is fast. My other Laura friend and I were swimming back up the reef-slope and a Flowery Flounder just took off right under us. I flashed my light at Laura to look down and then she saw him. This fish has the best camoflage of almost any animal in the ocean. As I looked up to resume oour languid tour of the upslope a Gilded Triggerfish just swam right at me. Dont often get this angle since they're always running away from us. Another fish decided to give me a frontal view, this time a Moorish Idol. Amazing how narrow they are from the front.

Finally back in shalllower water there are lots of big boulders and coral where marine life flourishes. Here's a Hawaii-only fish: a Black Longnose butterfly. This coloration is due to their local diet. If you take them to another island or (don't do this) capture them and put them in a tank they'll revert back to yellow and black. We often see them transitioning between colors. Everywhere on the reef we see Parrotfish. They eat coral polyps off the rocks and then poop out sand. here's one at lunch on a rock face. Another denizen of the reef is the Potter's Angelfish. I saw an unusually large number of them today, but they are very shy. Got this one as he darted into a hole.

Critterlicious dives, especially eels

As I drove down the hill to Queen K I could see the ocean, flat and calm. Sky was clear, vaulted blue with no clouds in sight. wind was just a breeze out of the east off Hualalai. Recipe for a perfect day of diving.

At the Kona Honu Divers boat, _Honu One_, early, which is what I like since I have such a large kit, including wetsuit, mesh bag with all my gear, backpack with food and flashlights, and My camera bag. Maybe a sweatshirt and a water bottle too. Capt Johnny C. was already on the boat, and I handed him my gear bag which he leaned up against my tank station. #8 huh? That's a pretty lucky number for me, so i was hopeful it'd be a great day, and it was.

Rob-Bob spied a Day Octopus lurking in a hole. As I approached he flashed his chromatophores at me. I thik it meant leave me be please. So, I took one pic and then moved on. On a flat rock I found a Flowery Flounder, second day in a row I've seen one. Then back to the main event for the day: Eels. First a Stout Moray that was just peeeking out of his hole, and the next, at about 70 FSW, a very large Undulated Eel. These I approach with caution, cause some of them have attitude. This guy was pretty chill hanging out under a ledge.

Continuing with the main theme of the day: Eels, Here's a very large White Mouth Eel positioned vertically in a crack. I had to get sidewaqys and tilt the camera to get all of him in there. And I couldn't pass up this beautiful Blackside Hawkfish. I know, they're common, but they will sit there for you to focus and frame, but you can't dawdle or they will dart off. This one was outathere as soon as my strobe went off.

Next is the first of two male Pencil Wrasses I saw. At first I thought it was a belted Wrasse, which I haven't seen yet, but Male Pencil Wrawsses are cool too. Near the drop off I found two Threadfin Butterflies, but one bolted away, leaving his mate to be tortured by my strobes. Out of sympathy I only took one shot.

In the coral rubble on the way back to the boat everyone stopped by for a shot at the Devil Scorpionfish. Cool thing, his right pectoral fil's yellow and red coloration is partly visible. Usually we don't see this unless they move, annoyed by all the flashy things going off. Once I was done with the Devil Scorpion I had to race to catch up to the bubbles of my group's divers; I'd stayed too long, but then I realized that Rob-Bob, our Instructor/DM never lost sight of me. Very comforting. On the way I found my second Male Pencil Wrasse, and, very cool, a Tiger snake Eel poking out of hole.

We headed into the shallows a bit north of Skull Cave beczause Rob-Bob saw a couple of sharks in a labrynthine maze of boulders. It was pretty surgy so I didn't go in. People said there was a Frogfish too, but once again, I missed it.

On the way back into deeper water I spied, flitting around in some rubble, a Juvenile Yellowtail Coris, also called Rainbow Wrasse. Very tiny. Here's a more mature one, but not as big as a lot of them, so maybe a teenager. Sometimes you can find ones that are transitioniing to mature, and their coloration is a mixture of the two.

Ron W and I chased a couple of big Scrawled Filefish around under the boat. They were too fast for me to get anything but this shot, too far away for my strobes to reach. Last of the day was this Yellow Mzargin Eel, hiding, like the Undulated, deep under a ledge. I had to squirm down under the lip of the overhang to get the shot.

Last dives of winter 2023, buh bye!

I was betting that the warmer ocean readings I was getting last week would be more than one-in-a-row, so I booked a spot on Sunday's charter with Kona Honu Divers to see if the warmer water would hold. I arrived at the slip to see that there were only 6 divers signed up...so, like a private charter. The rain forecast was wrong–it was clear, and the wind forecast for light breeze was right. That, plus the calm ocean forecast, all combined to promise a great, relaxed day in the water.

The visibility had settled after the swell last week to be pretty good, maybe 60 feet. The spot we dropped first, High Rock, is known for eels and lots of fish that feed in the rubble still left over from the great storms of the past few years and the coral bleachings of 2015 and 2017. I was greeted almost as I reached depth by a pair of Four Spot Butterfly fish. Another feature of this site is the large patches of Leather Coral, here is a typical patch.

Sometimes I see things I can't ID. Here's one: a transparent animal that I first took to be a plastic bag. But it's a living organism, perhaps one of the deep water jellies that live deep in the abyss and only come up at night. This one's clock was clearly off. Turned and almost immediately found a nice Stout Moray in a hole. They hardly ever come out, and just stick their heads out to view the passing show.

White mouth Eels are very common here, so I wasn't surprised to see this little guy poking out of a hole. Probably my favorite fish of the dive was this beautiful Devil Scorpion. They usually just sit there so everyone can have a turn flashing their strobes in their eyes. Sometimes they;ll become annoyed and move, and then you get to see the colorful red and yellow hues of their pectoral fins as they extend them to swim, or rather lumber to another spot a few feet away. This Lei Trigger, another common fish, turned right into me before realizing I might be a thing that wants to eat it. I didn't and had a chance to get this frontal view, much different from the view we usually get of fish butts swimming away. More paired butterflies presented under a ledge, this time Raccoon Butterflies.

This striped fish is a Hawaiian Sergent Major. It's different in subtle wasy from the Indo-Pacific Sergent which has thicker vertical stripes. He was warding off butterflies from trying to eat his egges, which were plastered on a verticsl wall of a rock.

At out second site there is a very large arch which usually houses lots of bluestripe snappers, all kinds of nudibranchs and often, Moorish Idols. I was 0-fer on the nudis despite scouring all the walls and ceiling and getting stuck very far behind our group, which had moved on from the arch. So I got this shot of a Moorish Idol diving upside down on one of the walls before sprinting out and after the group, whose bubbles I could still see as they headed off to view the drop off.

One of the most beautiful fish on our reefs is the Orange Band Surgeon. It's called a surgeon fish because it has theses viscious barbs on its tail that it uses for defense. You can't see them in the shot, but you can see the side view which features the distinctive orange band. Another diver waved at me to come over. He saw something he wanted me to see. It was this fairly large, for a nudibranch, Strawberry Nudi.

On the way back from the abyss I saw my friend Laura peering with her camera into a coral head. This could mean a few things, and in this case it meant she'd found a tiny Leaf Scorpionfish. They are about four centimeters long on average and they have little feet kind of like frogfish which they use to steady themselves on their perch in the surge. That also makes them mostly stationary, good for photos, and this one was posing nicely for Laura and then for me.

Suddenly I saw Laura and everyone else swimming off to my left at a high pace; not usual for diving where you want to work very little to conserve breathing gas. Something was up. Indeed it was, and I saw that it was a good sized Spotted Eagle Ray, swimming so languidly that I was able to catch up and get a shot and some video.

After the excitement of this encounter drained off we went back to our normal snail pace headed roughly back toward the mooring. On the way there is a lot of rubble where reef fish pick around to find little morsels. I often will turn over rocks for the Yellow Tail Corises to feast on whatever's underneath. They've become fairly friendly because of divers doing this over the years, and this one came right up to me. Yes, I turned over a few rocks for her.

One of the most fun fish we have are the little immature Rockmover Wrasses that we call Dragon Wrasses. They are very small, and they just flit and drift around on the sand patches apparently at random, only sometimes to hide under rocks when you get too close. This one I chased around a sand patch and took ab out half a dozen shots hoping that at least one would be in focus and show more than it's cute little butt. This is what I got. Finally, another very common fish that I didn't have to work too hard to get: an Orangespine Unicorn. Like the Orange band Surgeon, its cousin, it is everywhere on the reefs and I got this shot as it swam by.