Neptune Aquatics

Dive photos from Maui!

I went diving in Maui back in February and I just got done processing all the photos, so I figured I'd share some of them :)

Scuba Mala Pier
This was the first dive we did and was in the Lanai harbor along an old shipping pier that had collapsed and now is the home to a nice reef.

View of the city of Lahaina on the Northwest coast of Maui. The dive shop we booked through was based out of there and Mala pier is sunk in the Lahaina harbor.
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Seaturtle! We saw tons of these throughout our dives.
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Frogfish! Apparently these guys have a very specific territory and the dive masters that lead the dives usually know right where to find each individual one.
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Mating nudibranchs. These guys are my alltime favorite macro subjects, so I was thrilled to see some in Hawaii.
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Slipper lobster
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And for us reef nerds, here are some shots of the corals growing on the sunken pier.
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Scuba Lanai
We did two dives off the coast of Lanai, which is a privately owned island off the northwest coast of Maui. The first dive was in and around some lava tubes and the second dive was inside a lava cavern system called 2nd Cathedral. Its called a cathedral because they're these large, grand caverns that when you're inside and the sunlight is shining down through the openings, it looks like the sun shining through the stained glass windows in a cathedral.

The coast of Lanai
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Our diveboat
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Me!
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Inside 2nd Cathedral
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A black coral tree that hangs from the ceiling in the entrance to 2nd Cathedral. Divers call it the chandelier.
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Tunicates
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Crown of thorns starfish
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Big moray eel
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Tiger cowry
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Scuba Molokini Crater
Molokini crater is created from the rim of an extinct volcano that has mostly sunk under the water. It creates a protected area out in open water for a thriving reef. Its a nature preserve, so the reef here was very pristine. These were some deeper divers at around 75 feet, so the photos came out more blue.

Molokini Crater
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Look at all that coral!
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And tons of fish! I was having so much fun identifying so many aquarium species. We even saw a flame angel. They're super rare in Hawaii and our dive master said she sees one on about 1 out of every 50 dives.
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The cool thing is that Molokini Crater is out in open water, so at the edge of the reef it just drops off to super deep open ocean. Lots of bigger fish can be seen along the edges of the crater. Heres a big barracuda
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Moray eel
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White tip reef shark
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Beautiful coral
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View of the bottom of our dive boat during my safety stop after my dives.
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On the way back to Lahaina, we had a mother humpback with her baby and escort come right up to the boat. They actually rubbed against the edge of the boat and when they came to the surface we actually got misted with the water they shoot from their blowhole. We saw so many humpbacks jumping about 100 yards off the boat too! I was too distracted watching to worry about photography, but here's one shot of humpbacks tail just off the back of our boat.
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And a video from diving. Turn up the volume to hear the humpback whales singing :)
 
Super awesome! Those Molokini pictures are why I don't dive, the open water like that scares the living crap out of me, it's like a reverse claustrophobia, just a giant wall of blue with no idea what's beyond it.
 
Super awesome! Those Molokini pictures are why I don't dive, the open water like that scares the living crap out of me, it's like a reverse claustrophobia, just a giant wall of blue with no idea what's beyond it.
Thanks, Mike! Yeah the open ocean can be very eery. Especially when something big materializes out of it like the barracuda. Luckily it doesn't bother me too much :) Mostly I shore dive here in CA, so I'm in a bay and there isn't so much of the open ocean.
 
Wow that's awesome!!!

When on Maui, I stay at Ed and Suzzi Robinson's place in Kihei. I don't dive, but I'm really interested in getting into it.

I love that turtle! Very beautiful coverage. Simply amazing!
 
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Wow that's awesome!!!

When on Maui, I stay at Ed and Suzzi Robinson's place in Kihei. I don't dive, but I'm really interested in getting into it.

I love that turtle! Very beautiful coverage. Simply amazing!
This is the first time I'd been to Hawaii. I stayed with a friend that lives there. They've got a house on the beach in Paia. I'd definitely recommend getting into diving :)

And thank you!
 
Paia..that's up where all the wind surfing is right? You must have had a great time..were you surprised at how "slow" life was on Maui?
Yep, its up on the north side just east of Kahului. Paia is the quirky hippy town with all the windsurfers. It was a great place to stay since it was much less touristy. Yeah it was definitely pretty slow although Paia kind of reminded me of a very small version of Berkeley. Just beach bum hippies instead of Berkeley hippies, haha!
 
You guys are funny!


Yep, its up on the north side just east of Kahului. Paia is the quirky hippy town with all the windsurfers. It was a great place to stay since it was much less touristy.

Okay I remember Paia..we stopped after lunch at a shave ice place right there on the main street. Did you happen to visit Mama's Fish House by chance?
 
You guys are funny!

Okay I remember Paia..we stopped after lunch at a shave ice place right there on the main street. Did you happen to visit Mama's Fish House by chance?
No, we meant to and ended up not getting over there because we were always off doing something and not near Paia around dinner time. Also, since we were staying with some friends of the family, they hosted a couple dinner parties and had friends over to meet us and hang out and such. So we ended up not eating out for dinner half of the days we were there. Instead we had fun doing a BBQ on the beach at their house and such.
 
Love the new pics and video. I've never heard whales while diving. Very cool!

What's that 'blob' you zoom to at the one minute mark? After calling it a blob, I hope it's not a person! :(
 
Love the new pics and video. I've never heard whales while diving. Very cool!

What's that 'blob' you zoom to at the one minute mark? After calling it a blob, I hope it's not a person! :(
Thank you John!

It was the barracuda that I posted a photo of. Unfortunately the camera I use diving is older and while it takes decent photos, the video on it is awful because it was before HD was common on cameras. I started to zoom in and realized it was just a blob, haha.
 
...they hosted a couple dinner parties and had friends over to meet us and hang out and such. So we ended up not eating out for dinner half of the days we were there. Instead we had fun doing a BBQ on the beach at their house and such.

I'm telling you! Isn't that much better than doing the tourist thing? Having a BBQ on the beach, perfect weather, friends, what more can you ask for? I want to go back now!!

Are your friends also aquarists, into diving?

On a side note, I paid $9 for three onions at Safeway in Kihei. :O
 
I'm telling you! Isn't that much better than doing the tourist thing? Having a BBQ on the beach, perfect weather, friends, what more can you ask for? I want to go back now!!

Are your friends also aquarists, into diving?

On a side note, I paid $9 for three onions at Safeway in Kihei. :O
I was definitely avoiding the touristy thing and it was a ton of fun. I'd much prefer to do things that way. I went mainly to dive and then it was nice to just relax and have a friends house to stay in and be able to BBQ and such.

The friend I went with is a close friend that I've known since I was in 3rd grade. She dives, but she's not into reef aquariums. She does however keep freshwater planted tanks, so she gets it. Her sister, which is who we stayed with doesn't have aquariums or scuba dive, but she enjoys free diving and went out with us one of the days we were diving. Her sister free dove above us, while we were scuba diving.

Yeah its pricey there! We went to Costco though and it wasn't too bad. Considering how expensive the bay area is, I didn't have nearly as bad of sticker shock as my friend who lives in Florida did.
 
Yeah, get off the plane in Maui, swing by Costco and/or Walmart get what you need. When we went 5-6 years ago (time for a new trip!) we did a lot of grilling, I can't remember eating out at all in the 7 days I was there. So either I did eat out and it really wasn't memorable ... or I didn't :D

I do remember wanting to go to Huma'huma'nuka'nuka'apu'a'a' (yeah it's actually a restaurant) because they had their own lagoon with fish and what not... but didn't go that way because I didn't want to pay a premium for what I was seeing every morning when we went snorkeling :D
 
Yeah, get off the plane in Maui, swing by Costco and/or Walmart get what you need. When we went 5-6 years ago (time for a new trip!) we did a lot of grilling, I can't remember eating out at all in the 7 days I was there. So either I did eat out and it really wasn't memorable ... or I didn't :D

I do remember wanting to go to Huma'huma'nuka'nuka'apu'a'a' (yeah it's actually a restaurant) because they had their own lagoon with fish and what not... but didn't go that way because I didn't want to pay a premium for what I was seeing every morning when we went snorkeling :D
That's definitely the way to do it! I much prefer to go the less touristy route when I'm traveling. We ate out a few times, but it wasn't anything to write home about.
 
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