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.
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