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.
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