Friday we got a chance to pack up Mike's boat and sneak away to try and get some more Hammerhead pictures. The weather was beautiful last week, flat calm seas and zero wind. We were able to travel across channels that are usually extremely rough. Unfortunately the calm weather did not translate into great Hammerhead diving, there just wasn't enough current out there. We're convinced that current brings sharks, so with no current there are no sharks. We only saw about three sharks, and they just didn't come close enough. We're really trying to get some good close up shots and I think that it is just going to take a bunch of days out there shooting. We were joking about taking a month off, and just going and shooting in the same spot every day and then we'd be sure to get some good photos and video.
Our day away did yield some interesting shots, we ran into two very rare animals. First was an extremely rare pair of Hawaiian Monk Seals. There are only about 1,200 Hawaiian Monk Seals left in the world. We were very excited to find this pair sunbathing together. We packed up our land cameras into pelican cases and swam across the water to some nearby rocks, climbed up, dried off, kept our wetsuits on so that we wouldn't get sunburned and tried to take some pictures. Hawaiian Monk Seals are protected, much like whales and dolphins, so you can't get very close to them at all so that you don't disturb their natural behavior. Luckily, Mike packed our extreme telephoto (100 mm - 400 mm) lens into one of our dry cases. We usually use this lens for shooting whales breaching during whale season, but it worked pretty well for Monk Seals too. Here are a few shots:
Here are the two sleeping happily on the rocks probably resting and digesting from an early morning feast.
They were very cute, but very tired. They didn't do much except sleep, which is a good sign that we didn't bother them. We've had Hawaiian Monk Seals at some of our divesites in the past, and they can be pretty friendly. Although, whenever we see one waiting around at a dive site it usually means that someone is feeding it. Recently, there was a young female that got a little too friendly with another dive boat, she actually climbed up on deck following the divers out of the water. She even started almost snapping at the people because she wanted food so bad. Long story short, she won an all expenses paid trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands courtesy of N.O.A.A.
The Second rare animal we encountered was a much smaller critter that we found feeding on the algae in the shallows and in small tide pools. We weren't totally sure what they were at first because they looked a bit like a nudibranch, but they had s small shell on their back, but they didn't really look like a true snail because the shell almost seemed internal? We knew that there were animals like this in the ocean, but we hadn't seen too many. After a bit of research, we learned that these little guys were called Cymbal Bubble Shells. There shell is not actually internal, it's just transparent, which is what allows the colors of the animal to be seen through the shell. We also learned that during certain times of the year these Cymbal Bubble Shells can "bloom" and that there can be thousands feeding on the algae in shallow waters and tide pools. We're pretty sure that we were witnessing one of these "blooms" because we saw a bunch. We also believe that we found an egg case among a group of the Shells, it resembled the egg structure of the nudibranchs we were accustomed to find. We also saw three of the Cymbals in a train type formation. We always thought that these trains have something to do with mating, but we really don't know. Maybe an expert will read this and let us know.
We also had a playful group of bottle-nose dolphins show up on our surface interval. We hoped that we might find more Hammerheads on the second dive, but we didn't even see one. We did find a couple of Eagle Rays that decided to do a Safety Stop with us a the end of our dive, but not one shark. We'll have to continue our adventures and keep trying to get a couple of nice close ups of those elusive Hammerheads. I think that the Rebreathers will help, we'll get working on that.
Thanks for reading. We hope that you are finding this interesting on some level, I know we're having fun sharing our findings with everyone.
On a different note: Remember to watch America's Next Top Model on wednesday nights. There is an episode coming up that we helped film! There is even a chance that one of us might be in front of the camera. We'll see. We can't talk about it too much, but we can tell you that the episode is coming up. I think that there are 8 models left and we were around when there were 5 or 6 models left. So keep watching!
Also, if anyone is here on Maui on Friday night, October 16th, Dan's band (Black Powder) is in the "Battle of the Bands." I think their going to win! If you're around, come down to the Cellar in Lahaina town. See you soon.
Aloha,
C3
