Ordinarily a conforming Sleepy Sponge Crab (Dromia dormia) would be expected to be carrying a sponge on its back. It’s what they do. In Hawai’i that sponge is usually a large, oval piece of yellow sponge, but they will carry other types of sponges too. Like most animals they exhibit individual preferences. Over the years we’ve also seen them carrying …
The Shark and the Eel – Who Survived?
Kiwini Hall is one of Maui’s most experienced watermen, having body-surfed, dived, paddled and driven boats here his whole life. Kiwini has been a SNUBA instructor on the catamaran Lani Kai for many years. He is one of the luckiest people I know, having spent his entire life doing what he loves. Even so, twenty years ago when he told …
Divers, have you entered The Randall Zone?
Divers, have you entered the Randall Zone? You might have without even knowing it. A Randall Zone is an area around – or next to – a reef or object where no sea grass or algae is growing. It can be around a small antler coral colony as pictured below, or it can be around a large object such as …
A hundred years ago people in Hawai’i were tweeting about this reef near Maui
It is almost unheard of for a coral reef to have made it into the media a hundred years ago. So few people snorkeled or dived back then that the underwater world, especially corals, was not often in the news. That a Hawai‘i reef did show up in the media so long ago shows just how special that reef was …
Spiny Lobster Courtship 101
The other day we stumbled upon two Banded Spiny Lobsters (Panulirus marginatus) walking around in broad daylight. Lobsters of all kinds are mostly active at night, so it’s kind of exciting for us to see them out in the open during the day. One of the lobsters was walking out front and the following lobster was gently grasping at it with …
It Took Years to Find out the Sex of One of Our Favorite Fish
One of the best things about diving in one area for years is that we get to know a few of the fish as individuals. That’s not as easy as it sounds. In most cases, one yellow tang looks just like the next yellow tang, one Picasso triggerfish looks like every other Picasso triggerfish – each fish resembles others of …
First Reports of a Clown Triggerfish in the Hawaiian Islands
It is incredibly improbable that a Hawai‘i diver would see a fish species that has never, not even once, been recorded in the Hawaiian Islands. But that is exactly what happened in May when Anthony Kuntz and Julie Gardner visited us from Kauai. The day before coming out on the boat they did a warm-up dive here on Maui. When they got out …
Molokini’s Father, Pu‘u hele, No Longer Watches Over Her
Molokini Islet Molokini is a crescent-shaped islet a few miles off the southwest coast of Maui. Possibly the earliest written account of legends relating to the origin of Molokini Islet was by Jos. K. Kahele Jr. in the mid-1800s. It was later translated into English and published posthumously by A. Fornander in 1919. Kahele tells of a young lizard goddess …
Molokini’s Mother, Pu‘u o kali, Still Watches Over Her
Pu‘u o kali If you’ve lived in Kihei for any length of time you’ve undoubtedly noticed the lone red-dirt cinder cone more than half-way up the slope toward Kula. During 30 years of living in Kihei, I had passed this reddish hill surrounded by acres of kiawe trees almost every day. But it took several scorching hikes, a map, and a …
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Divers Save a Whitespotted Toby from one of the Reef’s Stealth Predators
One of the cutest and most talked about fish that divers see in Hawaii is a little pufferfish called the Whitespotted Toby. As adults they are about the size and shape of a partially deflated ping pong ball. They have beautiful green eyes, look a little clumsy moving through the water, and often travel in pairs. Our divers ask about them almost …