When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Photos from the wet
It is not red.
Apparent the species can range in color from a pale gold, to a dark, almost black, red. I have seen this species a couple times now. The previous specimens I had found were the characteristic red, seeing this gold nudi I thought I had found something new to me.
But it is a red dendrodoris. This is a well known, but undescribed species that is found on island reefs. This fellow was in a cave at Horseshoe, depth about 35ft.
It was a good day for photographing guard crabs. I was not finding much else worth photographing anyway. Numerous large antler coral colonies spotted the slope, each home to a small community of animals sheltering amongst the branches. Hawkfish, coral crouchers, various hermit crabs, and guard crabs. I came up with half a dozen decent photos of different guard crabs. I will not bore you with all of them, at least not all at once…
When we saw the sailboat on the reef Sunday morning we wondered what the story was. Just how did the vessel end up in the surf in front of Kaloko?
The boat was stolen, taken out of its slip by someone who did not know how to sail. They made it less than a mile from the harbor before foundering on the reef. The man was arrested by rescuers, they became suspicious when it became apparent that the man did not know anything about the boat or about sailing. The local newspaper writeup was fairly good, if a bit late. Will they tow the boat out and sink it? It would be a great dive.
I first saw it from the highway as we approached Honokohau, the sailboat in a bad spot.
A very bad spot.
A large vessel is sitting on the reef just off of the Honokohau beach about half a mile north of the harbor entrance. The beach is closed as it is part of the Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, closed along with other effects of the federal shutdown. We took a few photos as we cruised past the beach on the way to a Sunday morning of diving.
I looked through the news Monday, looking for information on the incident. There is none, no explanations as to how the sailboat got onto the reef, or what is being done about it. Everyone in the harbor knew about the boat, not a whisper in the media. Tuesday’s news?
Update- The sailboat appears to be the Corsaire, a charter out of Honokohau. No word on how she ended up on the reef.
A very nice day. True, the weather was not great, scattered clouds and vog in Kona. It was a great day to be underwater. We dove Pipe Dreams and Hoover’s Tower, for a pair of pleasant dives on a Sunday.
Pete was playing with a new toy, a very nice Fix housing for his G12 with a wide angle dome. The results are some very nice photos…
Snails are supposed to be small.
Like most things creepy and crawly, we are comfortable in having a large size advantage over these strange lifeforms that share our world. Encounter a snail that is a thousand times the size of the average backyard snail, and we take notice.
Triton and helmet snails are this big. This one was at least 14 inches from tip to tip, probably tipping the scale at ten pounds. With the large foot completely extended the apparent size doubles. An impressive snail indeed, pretty too, once you get over the surprise…
