Scuba Diving Vacations

The last post was sort of a lead in to this one. I went for a short Captain's dive on the charter during the surface interval yesterday (since Cathy's also a licensed Captain, it's legal, as a licensed Captain must remain on board at all times on charters) and managed to get my first decent shot of a Fisher's Angelfish (Centropyge fisheri). Hawaii has basically four angelfish that you might find while diving - Flame, Bandit, Potter's and Fisher's - and a couple of other species that can be seen by researchers in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Our angelfish species are basically dwarf/pygmy species, although the Bandit (pictured a couple posts below) is a "large" angel species, and are typically shy and dart into the coral when you try to photograph them.

The Fisher's angel only grows to about two inches in length, typically lives in rubble below 60' or so and darts into the rubble on approach. It's probably something most divers won't see unless they're specifically looking for them... once you know where to look you can see tons of them at many dive sites. This is a fairly accurate color for most of the one's you can see, but sometimes there are individuals with brighter coloring, more blue, deeper reds and a brighter yellow on the tail. Anyway, I was happy to finally get this shot.

This pic was taking at Pawai Bay. It's a great spot in that it was one of the first refuges (no colleccting) here and there's lots of life. On yesterday's dives we were able to hear the whales - they've started to sing again - as an additional treat. We were just coming off a big overnight swell, but it was quite diveable yesterday. Water temperature is currently 75 degrees.... brrrr.

'Til next time,

Steve