When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Exploring the wet
Yet another photo of a Whitemouth Moray on a Kohala reef. Well? they are the most common moray to be found at scuba depths. At this point I have an extensive collection of Whitemouth Moray photos. They are common, photogenic, and quite cooperative, they sit still while you take the photo.
I only found three of them in the afternoon and evening of diving…
The plan… Arrive at Mahukona in the mid-afternoon, do an afternoon dive. Then we fire up a barbeque and have dinner, talk story and watch sunset from a beautiful Hawaiian shore. When it gets dark we load up a second tank and head back out for a night dive. Not a bad plan! I have not been night diving in quite a while, so when the plan was suggested I readily agreed.
Our group contained several folks who had never dove Mahukona. Thus the afternoon dive plan was obvious, head for what remains of the SS Kauai, visiting the engine and propeller, exploring scraps of the cargo. From there we headed out onto the coral beyond, exploring the reef due west of the engine to a depth of about fifty feet. It was a nice afternoon dive, nothing particularly exciting found. I noted the behavior change in many fish, seen as the light begins to fade. While not yet dark, it was apparent that the fish were readying for night, hovering close to chosen coral heads, awaiting the coming darkness.
Deb spotted this one. I come over the coral head to find her gesticulating at a very large antler coral (Pocillopora eydouxi). These coral are always worth checking out, so many things live amongst the branches. These denizens are fascinating, and frustratingly hard to photograph deep in the branches.
This particular coral had a number of residents… A couple guard crabs and several fish, including this fellow…
Most divers do nothing during their safety stop, I have some trouble doing that. Hanging in the water fifteen feet below the surface for five minutes is sometimes pleasant, sometimes boring.
Also hanging fifteen feet down is the mooring ball, a buoy holding a steel cable near the surface so the dive boats can avoid dropping anchor on the reef. I have made a habit of checking out the growth on the mooring ball and line during my safety stop. I have found hydroids, wire coral gobies, even corals growing here, no real estate goes unclaimed around the reef.
A set of cauliflower corals were growing on this cable, complete with the usual community of critters that find shelter in the branches. Even more convenient, I could rotate the coral colony simply by twisting the cable to which it was attached, giving me a chance for a better photo of a guard crab…
One of the rarer, but very impressive, moray eels of the Hawaiian Islands is the Dragon Moray. This is my first decent sighting of one. Decent meaning I did not see the last bit disappearing into the coral, and actually saw the head for more than a glimpse.
He was staying well out of harm’s way with noisy divers about, deep in an antler coral head. The location also made the eel fairly difficult to photograph. I used my usual in-coral-head technique… zoom in, pray for focus, and nuke the coral head with light.
