19 Jan 2024
I’ve had some rotten luck weather-wise diving in Florida lately, and that curse seems to have followed me out to Hawai’i. There’s a High Surf Warning for the western coastline that’s been stirring up the dive sites and cancelling the boats. So yesterday, I got the message that my morning boat up in Kohala would not be going out.
Bummer.
Fortunately, the Kona boats were still going out so last night, when I checked in for my blackwater dive, I also joined a morning boat out of Kona instead.
Dive #2 – Arch Cave
I spotted this little gold-lace nudibranch, Halgerda terramtuentis, tumbling through the water column shortly after we dropped, so I may have caught him and set him down on this rock:
A rather derpy Hawaiian gregory:
Yellowtail chromis:
Can you find the scorpionfish?
Fish face:
Crown-of-thorns starfish:
Bluespotted coronetfish:
Yes, these Moorish idols were swimming in the vertical position:
Arc-eye hawkfish:
Turtle #1:
Freckled hawkfish:
Pacific trumpetfish + Yellow tang:
Shortnose wrasse:
Tiger snake moray:
Convict tang:
Turtle #2:
Goldring surgeonfish:
The smallest Pacific trumpetfish I’ve ever seen! He was maybe 7″ long!
The biggest Yellowtail coris I’ve seen, he was well over a foot long!
Pacific bird wrasse:
Orangespine unicornfish:
Achilles tang:
Potter’s angelfish:
Ok, this isn’t a great picture, but that parrotfish hanging out in the cleaning station with his mouth open just makes me laugh!
What nice teeth you have, Mr. Puffer!
Shortnose wrasse:
Saddle wrasse:
A pile of Goldring surgeonfish at another cleaning station:
Orangeband surgeonfish:
One of main reasons I like diving Hawai’i in January is because my dive boat doubles as a whale-watching tour during our surface interval!
Today, we found a mom and baby!
They didn’t stick around too long before diving.
Farewell, whales!
Dive #3 – Shark Fin Rock
My computer claimed the water temp was 77°F, but it definitely felt a lot colder! When temperatures dipped to 75°F in Alor, my 5mm suit + hooded vest combo kept me from getting too chilled, so I hoped it would do the trick here too, and while I’m definitely on the cool side of comfortable, as long as I keep moving, I haven’t been too cold, yet.
Freckled hawkfish:
A tiny moray:
Scythe triggerfish:
A nice, chunky fried egg nudibranch, Phyllidia varicosa:
A pair of Fourspot butterflyfish:
A rather menacing-looking Ringtail wrasse:
until you see him from the front with his mouth closed!
HA! Such a dorky face!
Dive #4 – “Becca’s Fault” Blackwater
Tonight’s dive was led by Jeff, who literally wrote the book on blackwater diving in Hawai’i. His book is what I use to identify all the weird stuff we see on this dive!
When we pulled up to our site, Justin, our captain, asked if it looked like a good spot. Pretty sure he was asking Jeff, but I answered, “Yup! Looks good to me!” then backtracked a bit and said if it ended up being a slow night, they could blame me, hence the site name 🙂
Jeff found me this flounder, but it had no interest in being photographed and dove down out of reach of my tether. I only got a few pictures before he was out of range, but fortunately (luckily) this one turned out:
Sea butterfly:
“Tongue Jelly”, aka Beroe sp.:
A flatter version of a Comb jelly:
“Spider Jelly”, another hydromedusa:
Larval fish:
ugh, these little yellow guys were EVERYWHERE! I think he’s the little tadpole-like critter that usually lives in an appendicularian, though I’m not sure why he’s not in his house…
This little squid hightailed it down and out of range- this was the only shot I got before my tether pulled me back. SO FRUSTRATING!!!
Mantis shrimp:
“Bat Signal”
(again, I have no idea, will update when I figure it out)
This little crab attached himself to Jeff’s finger, so he donated him to me!
A bit more critter life than last night, but a lot of stuff was just out of range of my leash or, toward the end of my tether so that by the time my camera managed to focus I’d be yanked away. I understand why we’re tethered here, but I do miss the freedom of Florida’s untethered blackwater dives.