The hahalua journals: September 2014

The Fish blogs final entry for this trip.

Here is some of the other photos my wife took in the time we weren't in the water. Of course the sunsets didn't fail to amaze. As beautiful as a picture of one is they always seem to never quite truly catch all the amazing colors and feeling of witnessing it.

As much as I love the Honu's we come across in the islands it pails to my wife's love of them. It was funny we only came across three in the water while snorkeling this time but at the condo it was a completely different story. Like clock work we we had 2 to 5 friends dining on the mossy rocks in front of the condo every day at lunchtime. And most every evening this big one would haul out and bask in the afternoon sun on the beach.

Here are a few of the other lucky creatures who get to call Maui home. I'm not sure if this beautiful Kolea (Pacific Golden Plover) was the same one all the time but every morning I was up around 5:00 and she was cruising the lawn looking for breakfast. And each night about an hour after sunset one chirp as if saying goodnight. Then there is the little Java finches that can't even see the sign right next to them. Throw in some crabs, chickens and Gecko's and you have a nice little Maui zoo.

This section totally blows me away. My wife is a flower lover and each trip I can count on seeing hundreds of flower pics. Out of three cameras there was 6 or 7. I guess the fish had her so enamored she almost forgot about them.

Day 9 plus

I know it's a few days behind but I have finally got a little time to get these shots up. The last day was bitter-sweet. Great day snorkeling at Kapalua but knowing the whole time it was the last snorkel for a while. I decided not to go to Honolua since we had some showers the day before and it turned out to be lucky for us I think. My wife was looking at the bays flying out and said that all the west side bays looked clear but Honolua looked pretty murky.

The first set may not be the best pics but it is shots that struck me as odd. For some reason I had a high number of fish face me head on which doesn't happen often. They tend to turn away ready to bolt if needed. I'd like to think they sensed I was bummed and were saying A hui hou (Until we meet again) to me. I have always loved animals and am a firm believer that they posses abilities that we can only dream of or have lost in evolution.

I think I mentioned early on in the blog that I had left a step down ring to my new lens at home. Last night when we got home I couldn't find it. Then as I was unpacking I ran into a small bag of accessories from my strobe I didn't use since there was great sunlight, there was my ring. I had it the whole time. :-(

Male Spotted Boxfish

Gosline's Fangblenny

Juvenile Unicornfish

Longnose Butterflyfish

Hawaiian Gregory

Convict Tang

On with the rest of the finny friends from the last day.

Arceye Hawkfish

Flying Gurnard

Pearly Soldierfish. This was as close as I could get to them. They are extremely skiddish.

Orangebar Surgeonfish

Hawaiian Dascyllus

Yellowfin Goatfish

Palenose Parrotfish

Stareye Parrotfish

Shortnosed Wrasse

Yellowstripe Goatfish

Gosline's Fangblenny

Manybar Goatfish

Juvenile Bird Wrasse

Convict Tang

White-spotted Sea Cucumber

A beautiful young Honu who came up for a quick breath then headed back down to it's hiding spot.

I thought I would also post some more shots from my wife. Even using the older camera without the nicer lens she still got a ton of great pics. She has gotten a lot better at diving also for her shots. She had the eagle eyes this trip also finding all but one of the octopus we saw and many of the new varieties we saw this trip.

Pair of Hawaiian Cleaner wrasse

This is a pair of Sidespot Goatfish. We saw several of these at Honlua and I didn't get any shots of them because I thought they were juvenile Manybar Goatfish. Glad she got some good shots of them in my moment of brain fade.