Tag: scuba

Red Dendrodoris

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.

Red Dendrodoris
An undescribed species of Dendrodoris, depth 35ft on the Kohala Coast

Yellow-Spotted Guard Crab

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…

Yellow-Spotted Guard Crab
A yellow-spotted guard crab (Trapezia flavopunctata) shelters in the arms of an antler coral (Pocillopora eydouxi)

Postcard from the Reef – A Beautiful Sunday

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…

Pipe Dreams
The author diving the intake pipes at OTEC, photo by Pete Tucker

Triton Trumpet

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…

Triton Trumpet
Triton trumpet (Charonia tritonis) hunting the reef at night