Diving the Kona Coast: Ambon Toby

Showing posts with label Ambon Toby. Show all posts

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Dive Report for Saturday 03/13/10

The morning sun shone warmly on Hale O Keawe and the glistening waters of Keone'ele Cove .Still can't believe the luck we've been having this winter (I know, It's now "officially" spring). Anyway, the surf was way down on Saturday and diving conditions were epic once again.

This was an unusually cooperative Stocky Hawkfish. Usually, they dart for cover as soon as your eyes turn in their direction. More than one diver I know calls them "army fish" because of their effective camouflage pattern and colors. this one was fairly mellow, letting me crank off four shots before he headed for cover.

In the shallows I saw a mixed school of Raccoon, Threadfin, and Lined Butterflyfish. Initially they were hanging in the water column but soon settled on the reef to feed. In the photo above, a Lined Butterflyfish grazes among the coral. These are the largest butterflyfish in Hawai'i and are not common.

Here, some of the Threadfins linger in the water column. Some of the Threadfins in Keone'ele Cove must have been fed by divers or snorkelers because they occasionally approach quite eagerly.

I caught another Spotted Puffer napping on the coral this AM. These fish vary greatly in color and pattern. They can be dark or light and have a few large spots or many small spots. All of them have bristly skin which gives them the nickname "velcro puffer".

Puffers weren't the only creatures caught napping. This old honu was resting beneath an overhang of coral. Before long, he stretched his flippers and started to swim about the reef.

I snapped this photo just as the honu raised his head for a breath of air. I'm not wild about the composition of the photo but I love the colors. This was at the end of my first dive.

This Spotted Eagle Ray may have been following me for awhile on my second dive. I caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my left eye. When I turned to look in his direction, he started to pull away into the blue. There was no point in following as he seemed a little skittish and unlikely to give much in the way of photo ops.

Despite the surge, I stuck my head in the swim-through to check on the little Ambon Toby I saw last week. It's still in there and looking pretty good.

I did see another octopus on this dive. This one was a bit shier than most so, I let it be. Over the past few weeks I've amassed quite a few octo photos, anyway.

This sand-dweller is a Clearfin Lizardfish. Except for the tail, all its fins are transparent. When it is not partially buried in the sand, it looks very much like a stubby snake.

I saw a few supermale Belted Wrasse like this one on my second dive. This is a really pretty fish with a bright orange "belt" bisecting multiple hues of green. Unfortunately, like most wrasse, they are very fast and flit about erratically so I have very few decent photos of them.

My last dive photo for this post is of the common Hawaiian Sergeant. Sergeants are a type of damselfish and are common at tropical and semi-tropical dive locations around the world. They have a common shape and most have black bars on the sides. They form loose schools and are often overlooked as "background fish".

This is a photo of one of my most beloved pieces of dive gear, my '98 Jeep Cherokee Sport. For 10 years it has transported Betty and I, as well as numerous guests to adventures all along the coast. The decade has been rough on the machine and it is now rusted and showing signs of mechanical wear and tear that would be impractical to repair. I have to decide in the next month if I'm going to invest the money in it to make it able to pass the upcoming safety check. It needs 4 new tires and some electrical work at the very least. It also tends to overheat if I drive it to town and back. The latch that shuts the rear has corroded away and I have to close the hatch with bungee cords. Classy, huh? Just a little reminder that this diving lifestyle isn't all glamor!

Til' Next Time, Aloha

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Good Winter Diving Continues! Dive Report for Saturday 03/06/10

Another weekend of great diving at Honaunau this weekend. The seas were almost flat with only some occasional, small sets slapping at the shore. The weather was nice and sunny, the U/W visibility easily 100' and the water temp an exhilarating 74 degrees. Except for the temp everything was as close to perfect as it gets. By the way, before I go any further I'd like to point out that the area I've been referring to as Honaunau Bay is actually named Keone'ele Cove. Please forgive the inaccuracy.

Betty dove with me today and it was nice to have her company.

We went deep to check on our little cluster of Longfin Anthias and found them all to be doing quite well. Here Betty checks on two of the females in the "harem".

We went south along the face of the dropoff and happened upon a number of Oval Chromis in the act of spawning.

This is a male Oval Chromis displaying his "spawning colors" Spawning season is from about February through May. During this time a male will establish a territory, prepare a nest and defend his territory from rivals. The male then performs the aquatic version of a mating dance to attract females to his nest. When an interested female arrives she deposits eggs at the nest site and, afterwards, the male fertilizes them. Once the eggs are fertilized, the female departs, leaving the male to rigorously defend the eggs against any intruders, even those far bigger than himself including divers!

For the second week in a row a Peacock Grouper was seen engaging in cooperative hunting. This time the partner was a good-sized Whitemouth Moray. When we first saw the pair, the eel was free-swimming but it dove into the coral when we approached.

We found this Whitesaddle Goatfish, or kumu, resting after a night of hunting along the reef. This fish was highly valued in ancient times and could be offered as a sacrifice in lieu of a pig if a pig was unavailable. Men could eat the kumu but women were forbidden to do so.

We saw several of these young Whitebar Surgeonfish during our first dive. They seem to stay solitary when they're small but form small schools when they mature.

Seeing and photographing Green Sea Turtles is pretty routine but I really like this photo of a honu I took toward the end of the dive. It's not a great picture of the turtle, but the water's surface looks really amazing. It sort of reminds me of a Salvador Dali painting combined with Van Gogh. I particularly like the way the clouds are distorted in the upper part of the frame.

Here's another photo taken a couple of seconds later but minus the view of the clouds. When I'm photographing a moving sea turtle, all I really concentrate on is keeping the animal in the shot. How the background appears is completely serendipitous.

On the second dive we encountered this trio of Hawaiian Dascyllus just before they dove into a coral head. These fish are in the same family as the Oval Chromis and can also be quite bold. attacking fish that trespass into their territory.

We went into a swim-through and surprised this little juvenile Blackside Hawkfish who wasn't expecting company, apparently.

Tucked deep inside the swim-through was this cute little Ambon Toby. The neon blue color at the base of the anal fin is a defining characteristic of the species. There was another Ambon Toby in the area but it was really hidden deep in a crevice behind this one. They usually appear in pairs.

The population of Convict Tangs in Keone'ele Cove continues to grow. This pair comprised the tail-end of a long chain that was traveling close to shore as we finished up our dive.

The Humpback Whales that had been residing outside the cove appear to have left the area. I haven't seen them for the last 3 weeks. Maybe they'll return next year.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Post-Tsunami Dive Report for 02/28/10

The sun came up over a calm and sparkling Honaunau Bay this morning and I was there to greet it. Everybody and everything is still intact. The forecasters and government agencies all across the island chain did a great job responding to the tsunami threat. It was hard to believe that Honolulu/Waikiki could be cleared out that effectively!

Here on the Big Island today is just a day like any other day. Diving conditions were excellent although I noticed a couple things that seemed a little unusual. First, there was a lot of cold, fresh water percolating up through the water column. At one point my computer was indicating 73 deg. F. That's a little chilly! Also, I wouldn't exactly call it a current but there was a slight southward pull inside the bay today. Nothing major but perceptible, nevertheless.

I started my first dive as the sun was rising. A lot of fish were just coming out onto the reef after a night's rest. I saw this Day Octopus gliding along the reef top with a large Peacock Grouper escorting it. Like the goatfish in last week's post, the grouper follows the octopus, hoping to gobble up any little creatures the octopus may scare off the reef as it travels. This is the closest I've ever gotten to a grouper exhibiting this behavior. Usually they separate from the octopus until I move on.

Groupers can lunge at their prey very rapidly and engulf it by quickly opening their large mouths, creating a strong suction force. It would seem that the octopus is living dangerously here, however the interaction seems casual and non-threatening.

I got lots of good photos of the octopus as it let me follow it around the reef for some time. I saw two other octos on this dive.

This Green Linckia starfish has had a rough go of it! Two of its five arms are in the process of regenerating after some type of trauma. This is the type of sea star I see most often at Honaunau.

I photographed the Bullethead Parrotfish shown above just after it had finished what appeared to be a confrontation with another fish of the same species. They were aggressively swirling around each other and appeared to be snapping their jaws. Then this one swam in front of me with its fins flared while the other one swam away.

This Crocodile Needlefish is often mistaken for a Barracuda by snorkelers unfamiliar with the local marine life. There are similarities - both are good-sized silvery fish with intimidating teeth. These fish often jump clear of the water in their pursuit of small prey. Incredibly, there are documented cases of fatalities where fishermen were stabbed by the sharp beak of a leaping Needlefish.

As I returned to the Two-Step, I swam over this handsome Green Sea Turtle resting in a cozy sand patch. The shell on this one is almost completely clean. Often they can have a mossy coating of algae.

On my second dive, I headed north and happened upon this large school of Yellowfin Goatfish cascading down the face of the reef.

This Crown-of-Thorns sea star was stretched between the tops of two coral heads like a hammock between two palm trees. It would have been neat to see how this ended but it would have taken too long.

Threadfin Butterflyfish are not only nice-looking fish but they're also fairly curious about divers and, therefore, easy to photograph. As delicate as that dorsal thread appears, I've never seen a Threadfin that was missing it.

This trio of Blue Goatfish was prowling the reef in apparent search of a meal. These are young individuals which will get a bit beefier looking as they mature.

This little guy is an Ambon Toby that I found all tucked up under a ledge. Tobies like this are actually tiny pufferfishes measuring around 5" maximum. They are often seen in pairs but this one appeared to be all alone.

Slate Pencil Sea Urchins can be found on almost all Hawaiian reefs. They are fairly big but, during the daytime, they are quite capable of tucking themselves tightly into nooks and crannies on the reef. At night they come out and wander about the reef.

Thus ended my post-tsunami dive excursion. I don't work for the Chamber of Commerce but I do want people to know that the reefs are in good shape here and the tsunami was of no consequence. If you're planning a trip to Hawai'i, there's no reason to change your mind.