Scuba Diving Vacations

Man I wish I was leading that dive. I was up on the boat and just as my divers went down a few whales went by. They (the whales, the divers had no idea what was coming) turned themselves around and passed outside of the divers as the divers hit the edge of the reef at "Hoover's" then turned around again and headed directly to the divers. A female and her calf went directly overhead while an escort whale passed about 50 feet outside of Cathy and the group.

All were thrilled. 2000 or so dives here and I've yet to see a whale underwater, bummer.

Anyway, it was a good day of diving. The whales were definitely the highlights, but Cathy also found a yellow frogfish she's been watching grow over the last month or two... and at the end of our second dive (at an undisclosed location) she came up and said she needed to borrow the camera again. This is what she found..... Despite not being familiar with my camera, and also in a pretty strong surge, she was able to get these shots of a Reticulated Frogfish (Antennatus tuberosus). These little guys aren't found all that often. There was one for a while at a popular dive site right outside of Honokohau Harbor a year or two back and hopefully this one will stick around for a while if it's left alone. I'm hoping to get some more pictures of this guy when the water settles down (it was a bit bumpy today later on). Here's another shot of the frogfish that shows it's entire body. These critters tend to hide deep within coral heads (they're not that big) so they aren't seen often.
In the top photo the frogfish is looking to the right - you can see it's eye and mouth pretty clearly. In the lower photo it's looking to the left, the eye and mouth are tougher to make out.

Later,

Steve