Sean Scuba Blogs

Black Margin Nudibranch

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I was out on the boat yesterday diving at Ene'nu'i dive spot at Molokini. We had some swell but the fish were out in force. Very close to the mooring is a rock covered with a black sponge and 2 large Black Margin Nudibranchs. The are only observed a handful of times in Hawaii but are common in Indonesia, etc. These nudibranchs have been there for a few years now and have been observed laying eggs.
I was taking photos with a 105 mm lens with a diopter. It was very hard to get a shot since the nudis are in a tight crack and you have to shoot up... Next time I'll try to get more photos.

Molokini Reefs End Dive Video

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Here is a video from diving Reefs End off Molokini. I dropped down over the finger and headed towards the inside of the crater going over the sand channel to see the Snake Eel and Garden Eels, then over to Middle Reef to see some nice corals. I see a lot of room for improvement in the video, but it was fun seeing these great critters off Molokini. It's really a wonderful place to dive!

Sean

Dragon Moray at Red Hill

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I was out on the boat today and my mission was the take some photos of the Dragon Moray in residence at Pu'u Olai (Red Hill). Stan has formed a special bond with this critter but he has yet to give the Dragon Moray a name. I have seen a Dragon Moray at Lanai, but never during my South Maui Scuba Diving. The eel was very skittish and it took some patience and some encouragement for the eel to poke his head out. I used my dioper to dangle in front of the eel hoping it would see it's reflection. On 2 ocassions the eel poked its head out and let me take a shot...

Here are the shots:

We saw 3 frogfish, a group of Eagle Rays, a Henshaw's Snake Eel in the sand channel, and lots of the common critters at this site. At Molokini we did Reef's End Drift and saw several White Tip Reef Sharks, 3 Grey Reef Sharks with one being fairly large. At the start we saw some Blue Dragon Nudibranchs (several) along with the usual suspects. The wind was picking up and the current was moving towards the end of the dive... A great day diving!

Sean

Undulated Moray from Red Hill

Sun, 9 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Last week my dad and I were on the boat and we dove Pu'u Olai (Red Hill) for the 2nd dive. At the end of the dive we headed out into deeper water and ran into a nice patch reef that had a massive lunker Undulated Moray inside. He was old and BIG! It was great seeing such a large moray on the reef. Red Hill has lots of interesting critters and the deeper spots offer lots on unique critters. Check out the size of these teeth... We gave him a lot of distance since the Undulated Morays are supposed to be nasty!

Sean

Seahorses off the Maui Coast

Sat, 8 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

After Blesi gave me an approximate location of some Hawaiian Seahorses, I went out in search of these rare critters. My first dive was in bad conditions but I did find 3 seahorses. This past friday conditions were much improved, although my aperture was stuck at F10 which produced a lot of slightly blurry shots on the nose, etc... But I did end up getting a few ok shots.

It turns out the Maui Ocean center has been breeding the seahorses and releasing them into the ocean, thus the increase in population! I'm happy about that!

Here is one of a brown Seahorse.

Here is a yellow one. One source says the yellow seahorses are female.

More Helldiver Photos without strobes

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Diver Dave took me out to the wreck on kayaks on sunday. I was able to get some photos using Magic Filters and no strobes...
They would be better with more light, but the bay gets really windy after 10am especially in Spring/Summer (my observations).

Here are some new photos..

Sean

3 Anchors Degaussing Station - Maui

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Here are some shots from the degaussing Station on Maui. It's a dive site in about 65 feet of water outside of the Ma'alea harbor.

Maui Wreck WWII Helldiver bomber - SB2C-1

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A few weeks back I went out with Bill, Stan, Jason, Dave and customers to dive the Hell Diver Wreck for the 2nd time (3rd dive). Stan took some video of the wreck which I still need to process. I converted a lot of these to black and white and I think they look appropriate for a WWII wreck... Anyway the dive was awesome as usual! I really love this wreck. It's the best wreck on Maui! We also dove the 3 anchors that same day and it was a nice dive as well... I'll post those photos later.

I hope you enjoy,

Sean

Richard and Turtle

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Here's a shot from Richard who dove with BBscuba last week. The turtle was dozing on the reef and he gently got close to the turtle for this photo op! This was taken at Red Hill dive site...

SB2C-1C Hell Diver Discovered by BBSCUBA.com

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Brad had heard about a plane off the Maui Coast from a local fisherman. The fisherman shared his frustration with these "wings" the Ulua were using to hide from his nets. Brad heard "wings" and he knew something was up. Brad got the line-ups and a few days later we were out on a "play" day looking for the wreck. We all dropped down and Jose, Stan and Brad were to my left as we covered the ground looking for the wreck. I saw some structure to my right and alerted Jose the wreck was there and told him to alert the others. I continued on to the wreck and took photos before they arrived. They looked for clues to the plane type and I took more photos. A large Moray Eel is the new pilot so venture with care into the cockpit! :)

Our initial thoughts were incorrect about the aircraft type. After a few days we consulted some online resources and figured out it was a Hell Diver SB2C-1C dive Bomber...

There are several different crashes on the island of Maui over the last years of the war due to training of the 4th Marine Division. Maui hosted the 4th Marine Division starting in Jan 1944 and had up to 15,000 troops based on the island. You can see some accident reports at this link. Since several different agencies are newspapers are covering this story, I will see what they find.

The Maui News has run an interview with Brad on their website.
The Associated Press and Star Bulletin has a story here.

here are my photos from the dive.

Enjoy,

Sean

PS - Click the Thumbmail below to pull up a slideshow. To scroll to next photo it takes 2 clicks at start.

Haloa and Wailea Point, 01/28/2009

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Due to stormy conditions we did some dives along the coast at Haloa and Wailea Point. We saw some nudis and lots of really small fish at Wailea Point. The other groups saw some Harlequin Shrimp but sadly I missed it. Here are my photos from that dive!

Enjoy,

Sean