Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/4.0
Focal Length: 9mm
ISO: 400
Shutter Speed Value: 1/125 sec.
Location: Kailua-Kona, HI

We were diving on the right side of the bay and it seemed that everywhere we turned we were running into sea turtles. Not a bad thing, mind you. :)

Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/4
Focal Length: 13mm
Exposure Program: Auto
ISO: 64
Shutter Speed Value: 1/160 sec
Location: Manauma Bay, Hawaii

These handsome fellows are convict tangs (a.k.a. surgeonfish or manini). This large school was swarming the reef in order to graze on patches of algae. The schooling helps them get to the food which is normally guarded by other reef inhabitants. Since the other reef fish find it quite the task to chase away so many invaders at once, it’s a feeding WIN for the tangs.

Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/3.5
Focal Length: 7mm
Exposure Program: Auto
ISO: 64
Shutter Speed Value: 1/250 sec
Location: Manauma Bay, Hawaii

Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/4.1
Focal Length: 16mm
Exposure Program: Auto
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed Value: 1/160 sec
Location: Mala Boat Ramp – Maui, Hawaii

These are my favorite memories from this trip.

Hearing the humpback whales singing underwater on nearly every dive was wonderful. At some spots they could even be heard while snorkeling. Also, I had the opportunity to see whitetip sharks snoozing under ledges during the day.

Amazing stuff all around.

Wee bitty octopus does not appreciate you sneaking up behind him.

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Just a small sketch from my sketch book. It’s one of those sketches that started out without anything particular in mind. I began with the eyes and the little beasty just evolved from there.

The title pretty much says it all. This was a very friendly fish. It followed us all over our dive as did a few others of the same species. However, the others weren’t nearly as happy as this one. :)

Photo was taken in Kapalua Bay on Maui.

Stripedbelly Pufferfish (Arothron hispidus)

Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/3.4
Focal Length: 6.3 mm
Exposure Program: Program
ISO: 64
Shutter Speed Value: 1/125 sec
Camera: Casio EX-V7 + underwater enclosure

This shot was taking during the second dive of a boat trip. Unfortunately I was getting over a cold I had acquired midweek and just wasn’t able to equalize past ten feet. I gave up on the dive and opted for snorkeling instead.

This location, just off of Wailea Point in Maui, was fairly shallow (somewhere around twenty feet). As it turned out, snorkling was probably the better choice. Right after handing by gear back to the awesome boat crew, they pointed out a small green sea turtle that had just surfaced about thirty feet away. I quickly swam over to it and observed it for a minute until it dove again. I then followed from above as it leisurly glided over the reef below. The turtle seemed to be on a mission, albeit, not a very time critical one. It followed the conture of the bottom as I watched from above, probably looking for a nice bit to rest on or some tasty seaweed to nibble.

After about five minutes of following. Something large caught my eye. Off to the left, the turtle and I stumbled upon a small school of milkfish (chanos chanos). There were about a half a dozen of the one and a half meter long fish in the school. I tried to approach for a photo, but they were very wary and eyed me suspeciously before dissapearing into the slighly murky water. I brought my attention back to the turtle who hadn’t wandered very far.

At this point I was getting a bit bored with watching it, so I scanned the surface for any other turtles. Off to my right near the dive boat was a group of snorkelers. They seemed to be on to something so I puddled over to check out the spot. Sure enough, where there were snorkelers there were three turtles resting on the reef below. Two large ones with mossy shells and one small one with a clean shell.

One of the large ones decided that it wanted the patch of reef that the other large was was occupying. It slowly drifted over and started biting the other turtle until it moved. The other turtle nipped back a few times before relinquishing it’s bed. The displaced turtle surfaced right next to me. I had to reposition myself as the wave action was causing us to drift into each other. After getting several good breaths of air, the turtle descended and bullied the small turtle into giving up its spot. Apparently the only good places to rest on that reef were those spots already occupied by other turtles. There were several more turtle sightings as well as a pissed off octopus (the dive guide got a cloud of ink in his face) before I got back on the boat.

Technical Details
Aperture Value: f/3.8
Focal Length: 10 mm
Exposure Program: Auto
ISO: 64
Shutter Speed Value: 1/80 sec
Camera: Casio EX-V7
Post processing color correction applied

Molokini is the remnants of a volcano between the islands of Maui and Kahoolawe. It has been turned into a marine preserve. The inside of the crater is a coral reef, while the peaks are home to many sea birds such as frigate and albatross.

The dive charter we took parked at the dive site known as E’ne Nu’e, so called because of the type of fish that typically hang out in numbers here. The visibility here was insane. We guess it was something like 120 ft or more. All in all an awesome dive even though we didn’t see any of the reef’s larger inhabitants (sharks, rays). I did see a little day octopus, so all was well. :)

Technical Details
Medium: Watercolor pencils (Derwent), oriental blue, madder carmine, and naples yellow
Paper: Moleskine notebook
Physical Size: 8.25in X 5.25in (per page)

This was one of the dive sites we hit. The dotted line indicates our dive path (dark blue for reef, and light blue for sand). This dive conisted of pretty nice reef (in good condition) with lots of contour. The best parts of the dive were the two turtles just chilling underwater and the funny puffers. The puffers must have been feed at some point because there were following us around like puppies. One liked us so much that it followed us all the way up to the beach, then gave us sad puppy pufferfish eyes when we left the water.

At Kapalua Bay (Maui), there was a large coral mound that must have been a cleaning station for all the fish in the area. There was at least a half a dozen rainbow cleaner wrasses hanging out on this pinnacle, and those were just the ones I happened to see.

Technical Details
Medium: Watercolor pencils (Derwent), oriental blue, madder carmine, and naples yellow
Paper: Moleskine notebook
Physical Size: 8.25in X 5.25in (per page)