Turtles and Moray eel invasion! July 29th

Having 91 degrees Fahrenheit and a clear blue sky, a group of certified divers and a student diver head for an afternoon dive into the beautiful Hanauma Bay. Aboard the Sea Fox we head out to the Koko crater for our first dive, after a short ride we suit up and dove in, with a slight current we head out to find the first crater with four Turtles, two of them being clean by a crew of black damselfish, also right under the ledge a big moray eel getting the same treatment but this time by a blue cleaner wrasse. Free cleaning in exchange of not being eaten, good deal if you ask me!

After a surface interval and a short ride to our second site, we moored at Turtle canyon. This is a great site to spot several species of fish and loads of them. We descended to 38 feet (11.5 mts) and with a mild current going towards Diamond Head we started the dive swimming towards Koko Head and just few minutes into the dive we started to spot the numerous eels. First a Zebra moray eel followed by a big green moray, small leopard eel, a long tiger snake eel, white mouth moray and towards the end of the dive, another Zebra moray coming into the same crevice than a big green moray … we were waiting for a fight but it did not go further than a smell here and there.  Going back to the mooring ascend line we encounter a pretty good size Eagle ray being clean, again by the amazing Blue cleaner wrasse.

Congratulations to Cara accomplishing her first Open water dive and to Marja on her first Ocean open water dive! Thanks to Darren and Benjamin.

Sea Conditions: Calm

Visibility: 50-60 feet ( 15-18 mts)

Current: slight current on Koko crater, Slight Westerly Current at Turtle canyon

Dive Crew: David Pinilla (me)

Boat Crew: Captain Kendal & crew Parker