Diving the Kona Coast

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A Couple of Photos I Really Like

Obviously, I take a lot of photos and I'm pleased enough with many of them to share them on the internet with you. While they may be technically "good" usually they're not anything particularly special to me. This past weekend, however, I got a couple captures I really like...

For over a month I've been regularly visiting a group of six juvenile moorish idols that remain in the same general spot on the reef. Like many fish, they get skittish when approached and scatter and disappear within the coral. Over several dives, I've taken hundreds of photos of this group with only a few decent results. But on Saturday, I got this image of three of the idols in good position over the coral with gentle early morning sunlight filtering into the frame from directly behind. Maybe it's not high art, but it's a pleasant enough image.

Near the end of that same dive, I happened upon a green sea turtle swimming along near my exit point. I followed and caught this image at the moment she surfaced for air. Although I have several photos of turtles taking a breath, most of them are from almost directly below. Here, I was swimming alongside and only slightly below allowing for a nice reflection of the turtle on the surface and nicer blues and greens. Also, the strobes didn't fire as I had taken a shot only seconds earlier. This was good as there was plenty of ambient light and flash would have just caused a lot of backscatter.

Anyway, hope you like the photos. Barry

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Quick Change Artist

I snapped these two photos of a Common Bigeye (Heteropriacanthus cruentatus) literally just seconds apart. That was all the time it took for the fish to change from its blotchy red and silver resting color to its blood-red active color. The Hawaiian name for this fish is Aweoweo which translates to "glowing red". It is most active at night and is a popular food fish.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Fun With Photoshop

Aloha Everyone,

Between the winter surf and various minor ailments, I haven't gotten too many dives in recently. To amuse myself, I've been doing a bit of experimenting with my images on Photoshop. Here are a few of them for you to check out.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Something You Don't See Every Day

Last weekend I chanced upon a small Whitetip Reef Shark while diving the north end of Honaunau Bay. That, in itself, is not unusual but what happened after it settled into a small cave was a new sight for me. Two Banded Coral Shrimp started to clean the shark's mouth and teeth with the shark opening wide to allow the cleaning process to proceed unfettered. I've seen these and other shrimp servicing predators like groupers and morays, but never a shark.

I only got one, blurry and poorly lit photo as all this was occurring far back in a very tight cave. But you can get the general idea of what's going on from the photo below.

It seems that no matter how often you dive, the sea always has something new to show you. Have a nice day!

Barry Fackler In the News

Recently, a couple of my photos were featured in the "Island Life" section of our local newspaper, West Hawai'i Today. For me, a small but pleasant thrill knowing that a photo editor out there likes an image I took with my dinky little point-and-shoot camera. For those of you who don't receive WHT, here are the photos.

Friday, January 13, 2012

New Year's Day Dive

Betty and I arrived at Honaunau Bay bright and early on New Year's Day to be the first SCUBA divers there in 2012. We were in the water by a few minutes past 7AM.

The water was a little cold with an average temperature of about 73 to 74F. At one point, both of our computers read 69F.

Because of a bad fiber-optic cable connection, my strobe wasn't firing so I had to rely on the camera's built-in flash which is pretty weak. But I managed to get some decent shots like this one of a Bandit Angelfish.

Bandit's aren't rare but they are uncommon. I considered this a good start to diving in 2012!

Several cleaning stations were quite busy for so early in the morning. I snapped this Ornate Butterflyfish at one such station. The cleaner wrasse is in the far side of this fish.

This Barred Filefish was also getting cleaned and held up his dorsal "trigger" so the wrasse could clean around it.

We were also lucky enough to catch this Day Octopus out in the open. This is the time of year that I've noticed a lot of mating activity among the octos.

At one point, the octopus blanched. I probably got too close for it to feel comfortable.

I took this picture of a male longfin anthias on the second dive when the cable was re-attached to the strobe.

Photo 2012 by Barry Fackler

This lurid Ringtail Wrasse was comfortable under a deep rock. There was also an Undulated Moray under there with it.

And that's the way it was on New Years Day for us. Hope your year is off to a good start also!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

SCUBA-Themed Christmas Ornaments

It's been a busy Holiday Season and I apologize for the lack of posts recently. One of the many distractions has been holiday decorating and I thought I'd share some images of the SCUBA and marine-themed ornaments Betty & I have collected since we started diving in 1993. Betty LOVES Christmas in a big way, and SCUBA ornaments have become popular in recent years so we have LOTS! Here are a few samples:

SCUBA Santa

by December Diamonds

Nemo and Dory

were purchased at DisneyWorld.

A cool Barracuda

sporting shades.

A Flying Fish,

of course!

The Sea Angel speaks

into her shellphone!

A Mermaid with a

strand of shells.

Personalized clay diver ornaments

purchased years ago at the

Fourth Ave. Street Fair

in Tucson, AZ.

We found this glass diver at an after-Christmas sale

at Neiman-Marcus. Kind of an unusual find!

Joy to You All

Have a great 2012!

Betty and Barry Fackler