Diving the Kona Coast: Dive Report for Saturday 05/29/10

Saturday was a great day for diving with a flat sea and crystal clear water. It was not, however a great day for photography as both SeaLife strobes decided to act up! About 60% of the time NEITHER strobe fired, resulting in a lot of missed shots. Fortunately, the sheer volume of shots I took resulted in some decent photos. It is supremely frustrating to get in perfect firing position with a skittish subject abiding in a hostile environment only to be foiled repeatedly by technical failure. I was doubly fortunate in that we had plenty of Spinner Dolphins on both dives which gave me plenty of ambient light photo ops.

When Betty and I first arrived at Honaunau Bay (a little after 7 AM) the dolphins were rising and spouting in unison. This was something we don't see very often and it was neat to observe.

The wonderful thing about SCUBA is the chance to have dolphins above, below and beside you for extended lengths of time.

Notice the little nicks on the trailing edge of the dolphin's dorsal fin in the photo above. I wonder how they got there? It doesn't look to be the work of Cookie-Cutter Sharks.

These three males travelled together and swam close to us repeatedly. You got the impression that they were protectors of the pod and would take action if we made any threatening moves.

The dolphins stayed the entire morning and drew quite the appreciative crowd of snorkelers, kayakers and shore observers.

As much as I love dolphins, I can't spend a whole dive watching them. I was anxious to see if my little yellow frogfish was still where I left him last week. Sure enough, I was able to locate him (or her) in less than a minute after arriving in the area.

I hope this fish stays in the same area for a long time so I get a chance to see it change over time. As it matures, its appearance will change as its color and texture will mimic its surroundings.

Over the course of two dives, I saw four different octopi. Two were in close proximity to one another and may have been thinking about making a few hundred baby octopi. I could have gotten a few hundred good photos if the strobes had been co-operating!

When the octopus decides the encounter is over, the encounter is over ! And when this blogger is out of photos, this post is over as well.

Aloha!

Diving the Kona Coast

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Dive Report for Saturday 05/29/10

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