Hanauma Bay--Witches Brew

Hanauma Bay is a very popular tourist destination for both snorkeling and SCUBA diving. I have only been diving there a handful of times because the logistics are more complicated than other shore dives. Things to consider before planning a dive here:

• PARKING--there is limited parking in the lot, plan on getting there before 9:30am
• THE MOVIE--Unless you have visited Hanauma Bay within the last year you are required to watch an informational video about the bay. If you must watch it don't forget to sign the sheet at the front of the room before leaving the theatre! Then you are in their system for 1 year. 
• THE HILL--there is a fairly large/steep hill that you must go down and up. You can either be a total bad-ass and trek it with all your gear OR you can pay $3 and get a ride both ways for you and your gear! Work smarter, not harder :)
• TIDE/WAVES/WIND--the conditions are important. There are only two channels between the calm inner reef and the outer reef. If the waves are breaking over the barrier reef it creates "suction" in these channels. This will make it relatively easy to get out but will be very difficult to swim back in. 

Map of my Hanauma Bay dive (approximately).

My dive partners and I were very fortunate and had great weather for our dive. The sun was out, the waves were almost non-existent and the visibility was fairly good.

"Do you see the octopus...he'e?"--Hanauma Bay video

I was really happy with all the organisms we saw during our dive! Above is a Day octopus about to go into a hole in the rocks. My strobe has been mis-behaving recently so this picture isn't as clear as I would like it to be.

Blue Dragon Nudibranch

This was the only species of nudibranch we found during the dive. Between the five of us we probably saw ten individuals. I like this picture because my dive buddy's thumb and index finger make you realize just how small they are!

Triton's Trumpet

My dive buddy, Kevin, with the Triton's Trumpet

Kevin was very excited when we found this Triton's Trumpet. Can you see how big his eyes are?

School of fish

The picture above has one of my favorite Hawaiian fish species, humuhumu 'ele'ele. They have the most amazing pattern and coloration on their faces.

Reef ridge

Just around the peninsula where we had our dive flag there were several of these ridges or fingers. They were very picturesque and it was really fun to swim in the "valleys" between ridges.

If you clicked on the species names I provided you noticed that I kept linking to the same website: Keoki Stender's Flora & Fauna ID Site. Keoki and his wife Yuko are amazing underwater photographers and their website is incredibly useful. I use their website to ID any organism I don't recognize.