Aloha!

Aloha,

My wife Cheryl and I just returned from Hawai'i and have been doing some scuba/snorkling dives during our stay. The following is a narrative list of the sealife we spotted. (Okay, mostly snorkling because it is way more cost effective... but scuba is way cool!)

Our first major dive was an introductory scuba dive with Deep Ecology in Shark's Cove. The most impressive sight I saw on that dive was the male spectacled parrotfish. It was huge! I'd say it was approaching 10 lbs. There were lots of schools of yellowfin and multibarred goatfish about. Quite a few orangespine unicornfish. These are impressive to be sure and many were appraching a foot in diameter. The raccoon butterflyfish and fourspot butterflyfish were shy, but we spotted a few of these.

We returned again to Shark's Cove for a snorkle just about every day of our stay. We actually enjoyed the snorkling a bit more than the scuba, mostly because we had a bit more freedom to pursue whatever we chose. There were a few potters angels, many christmas, psychedellic and five stripe wrasse, and tons of convict and orangespot tang in Sharks Cove.

We both saw the beautiful peacock grouper. Not a large one, only about 5-6 inches in length. There were many convict tang (schools of these), achilles tang, orange shoulder tang (also known as orangeband surgeonfish), yellow tang, hawaiian sergents, hawaiian surgeonfish, and goldring surgeonfish (also known as kole tang).

The most beautiful fish we saw were of course the many types of butterflyfish abundant in Hawaiin waters. We saw five kinds of butterflyfish! There were teardrop, threadfin, ornate, fourspot and raccoon. We also came across a pair of moorish idols, also very shy.

The most unusual fish we saw were a pair of bird wrasse and what we believe was either a hawkfish or reef lizardfish in Sharks Cove. It was certainly an unusual fish, perched on its fins and snuggled into a crevice. Additionally, we saw a couple of cornetfish, a few needlefish (one was enormous but most were fairly small) and we also came across a couple of spotted pufferfish.

We saw a number of sea cucumber both in the bay adjacent to Turtle Bay Resort and in Sharks Cove.

We also went for a guided "kayak adventure" where I saw a red pencil urchin tucked away in a crevice in the reef at Kailua Bay. The other notable spotting during the kayak adventure was a humpback cowry pointed out by our guide. The snorkling in Kailua Bay was really impressive. The coral reef was really alive here, more so than in other spots we dove. There were also tons of blennies in the miriad tide pools in the lavarock. They spend their days hiding from the crabs that invade their pools looking for a quick and captive meal.

Of course, we saw many green sea turtles both in the bay next to the resort and at Waimea beach. There were dozens in the surf there. Very cool! The one I caught on film during a dive had a missing front flipper but he seemed to manage dispite his disability.

We saw cornetfish both here at Turtle Bay and in Sharks Cove on our scuba dive. There were chubs, reef triggerfish, whitespine surgeonfish in abundance. I saw a few hawaiian cleaner wrasse waiting for their next appointment.

In the cove beyond the pillbox, in addition to the usual suspects, we saw many domino damsel fish and a large pair of ornate butterflyfish. The ornate butterfly is very shy, but if you are patient and very still, they will hang around.

Update: Note that all of the images linked above, with the exception of the bird wrasse, were taken by me using a SnapSights underwater camera with 800 ASA film, no flash. Not a bad deal because the camera is reusable so instead of $18 you need only by extra rolls of film and reseal the housing. As long as there's plenty of sunlight and you aren't diving below say 30 feet, it works quite effectively.