15 Feb 2022
The wind continued to pick up, which made getting out of (and back into) the harbor a bit interesting:
We got a running start and held on 🙂
It was quite surge-y along the shoreline:
so we chose a site off-shore where we could tie up the boat.
Dive #12 – Naked Lady
One of the Big Island’s few wrecks, the Naked Lady is a sailboat that burned and sank in Kailua Bay. I don’t know the name of the boat, but as the story goes, the lady onboard was tripping and thought her boat was infested with little green fairies. In order to get them out of the mast, she needed to burn the boat. So she did. Unfortunately, boats and fire don’t really mix, so she had to abandon ship and head for shore. She made it, her clothes didn’t.
It’s a much better story than dive site:
It’s deep- 105-110′, so it was short dive.
Eyestripe surgeonfish along the sandy bottom:
This site doesn’t get dove very often, so these Bicolor anthias were not afraid of us!
a very pretty fish!
This Hawaiian dascyllus was feeling territorial and rushed my camera a few times:
Ye olde spoon:
Gorgonian goby!
I hadn’t seen this guy before, but the captain told us to watch for them because a few tend to hang out on the mooring line. I found a couple- they are quite skittish, but this second guy stayed still 🙂
One of the divers on my boat got word of a family emergency back on land, so we headed to the harbor to drop him off before heading out for our second dive.
Dive #13 – Pine Tree Drift
Conditions were still rough, so we opted to head north and drift one of the bays. Unfortunately, we were close enough to shore that there was a decent amount of debris in the water 🙁
I’ve spotted this guy several times now, but have yet to get a good shot of him not hiding amongst the coral:
Orangespine unicornfish:
Disappearing wrasse:
Blackfin chromis:
A whole pack of Orangeband surgeonfish feeding:
Ornate wrasse:
Lei triggerfish:
and another!
Hard to see with all the backscatter, but this eel wrapped himself in and around the coral:
Not a great picture, but you could actually hear this parrotfish chomping on the coral!
Peacock grouper:
Banded coral shrimp (yes, he was hanging from the ceiling):
Eyestripe surgeonfish:
A blurry trifecta of fish I’ve been trying to photograph: Bird wrasse, Belted wrasse (initial phase), Ornate wrasse:
Cleaning station! A split second before I snapped this picture, that goatfish had his mouth wide open!
I’ve never seen such a white Manybar goatfish before!
Dive #14 – Blackwater
It’s going to be hard to top last week’s shark encounter, but each blackwater dive is always unique, which is what I love about it!
Mauve stinger:
Sea butterfly / Cavolinia inflexa:
Acorn worm:
I’ve never seen a salp with that circular/swirly structure inside it before. I’ll update this if anyone in my blackwater group knows what it is.
PELAGIC NUDIBRANCH!!!
Yes, it’s blurry- my light scared him off (this is a common issue, will have to remember to use my red light more often to sneak up on stuff), but how cool is that!?
I think this is a Cymbuliidae sp:
Mr. Fancy pinchers, a Stenopus sp. I believe:
Shrimp, with attitude!
Arrow worm:
I think this is a little cephalopod riding the salp train:
I wish I could zoom in closer- sometime you can find paper nautiluses on salps! But beyond the fact that I’m pretty sure he’s got little suction cups on his little arms, I can’t determine what exactly he is 🙁
A whole stack of “parameciums” (Beroe ovata):
Comb jelly:
another ctenophore :
Eurhamphea vexilligera:
And no blackwater dive would be complete without at least one heteropod:
