Maui time (Pictures) - 3

[I'mGatMan!]

More amazing pictures, Don. The ones of the seahorse wrapped around your finger are just phenomenal. Thanks so much for sharing with us. I'm dying to get back to Hawaii.

It's just so hard to move across the country from our families...especially with a 5 month old.

 

[Barefootone]

Hi Don,

Fantastic shots as always :twothumbs.
I loved the way the one Seahorse wrapped it's tail around your finger.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful under sea world with us.

Jeff

 

[McGizmo]

Thanks guys.

I visited them again yesterday and am headed back again in a few minutes. There has been waves and the surge causes a sandstorm at the ocean floor which makes it difficult to get a good shot. Yesterday was not ideal by any stretch but I found the male and then female and left them secured to their hold fasts while I went of thinking I might find a second female. I don't know for a fact that there are two but it seems that I have seen two based on perceived size discrepencies. For that matter, the male would look super pregnant one day and as if it had had its fry on another day and then again pregnant?!?

Well I hadn't swam far or left the pair for long when I found the male swimming near me!?! He also didn't look as fat so I figured he might not be who I thought he was. I ushered him bacl to where I thought I had left him and sure enough, "he" was still in place. That is to say, I was now looking at two males in real time. Duh! I ended up with the two males together for a moment and then they took off in the direction of where the female was hanging. I was able to divert the males towards the female and get one shot with all three present and accounted for:

Crappy shot but proof, none the less.

 

[donn_]

Fantastic shots, Don! :thanks:

 

[maxspeeds]

I love checking this thread at least once a week. Don's shots are so clear and great that I can imagine being in the ocean alongside these great creatures.

 

[lavalight]

Don must be awesome to find all those sea creatures in your back yard.I look forward in seeing your friends out in the open with no bounderies.I find myself above water most of the time sitting on my surfboard.Maybe it's time i head under.Mahalo Bro,for those spectacular shots.:thumbsup:See u in the line up.

 

[McGizmo]

You guys shouldn't encourage me so! :nana:

Here's a couple shots of the female I took yesterday.

To take these. I am just holding the camera hopefully with the seahorse in the frame. I can't peer through the view finder for a number of reasons. The shot below might have been my best yet for detail but most of the frame was just blue water with part of my hand and part of her in the left half of the frame. Good think it is easy to crop!

I understand these seahorses can move their eyes independently like the Jackson Chameleons do.

 

[bugsy714]

Great pics!

What type of camera/lens are you using?
What part of Maui?

My wife & I have a captive coral farm in socal and love getting to snorkel the wild reefs. The last expedition was Fiji in 2006, we did Matamanoa and the Mamanucas

My parents love Maui so I have been quite a few times, they just got back from a month at the Kea Lani

 

[McGizmo]

Great pics!

What type of camera/lens are you using?
What part of Maui?

........

Nikon D300 with a 20 mm lens and #4 diopter behind a 6" dome port. Under water, the dome port creates a virtual image that is much closer to the lens than reality and this is why the diopter is needed (topside, the rig is useless as it can't focus beyond a foot or so!). I have found this rig to be just about ideal for general reef shots and the ability to get close to the little guys. When the whales come, I will switch out to a 16 mm fisheye behind an 8" dome port.

I live on the west side out past Lahaina, just north of Kaanapali. I won't give exact location of the seahorses because there are aquarium collectors out there that make their livings by "relocating" critters of interest. There are a number of people who know about these seahorses now and I can only hope that the information doesn't get to someone who would like to remove them for financial gain or other reason!! Anybody could easily catch them!!

The (non pregnant?) male from yesterday's visit:

Hard to catch? Not! Hopefully where it will remain as long as it chooses to:

 

[DM51]

I love checking this thread at least once a week. Don's shots are so clear and great that I can imagine being in the ocean alongside these great creatures.

I agree whole-heartedly! For me, this thread is the #1 great place to come and relax once in a while, after dealing with some of the squabbling and bickering in the LED Flashlights section...

 

[McGizmo]

Well thanks again guys! I personally find the ocean quite refreshing and beyond just the physical. A couple days ago when I was coming in after a reef visit, I just floated in the shore surge and enjoyed the visual show of the waves lifting up the sand and the fish moving in and out with the waves. There were some small needle fish close by and just under the surface.

The reflections looking up were quite refreshing and calming.

 

[saabgoblin]

Brilliant shot!

 

[McGizmo]

Hi guys,
Well the years is about over and the whales are showing up now. There has been a lot of surf with winter swells rolling in and I have been riding waves lately and not out there with my camera. The allure of getting out there in hopes of a close encounter with the humpbacks is getting strong though!

After one really large swell that made the news, the seahorses must have really had a tough time of it and after the swell dropped, I went out to discover that the landscape of their area had radically changed. Tons of sand had been blasted up onto the beach leaving their terrain covered in rock and exposed dead coral. On the first day, I did find both males but after that, I could only find a single male and not with any regularity. Additional swells have come and gone and now I find no seahorses. I hope they have just moved on to better and calmer places. :shrug: As it was, they hung around a lot longer than I expected and I was fortunate to get to share them with many friends.

It's been a great year to visit the underwater world and record some images of beauty and grace.

In the final days of the seahorses, there were some calm seas and light wind leaving a glassy surface above. The occasional ripple on the surface acts like a prism and diffracts the sunlight giving you "rainbows" on the seabed. I caught one moving across a seahorse:

You can see the spectral band in the sand going from the top to the bottom and broken by the seahorse's head.

Hopefully I will be boring you with some whale shots and stories soon. :nana:

 

[Roger Sully]

I absolutely LOVED reading through this thread! Now I'm off to Maui 1 & 2..thanks for sharing all those great pics oh and the marine life is nice too :naughty:

 

[Kiessling]

Those rays are awesome creatures. Thanx for the pics!

 

[PEU]

Excellent photos, as usual, Don!

Regarding barracudas, I don't know why, but when I see one, and I saw a fair share of them diving at Cozumel, I think of an old fish, or if I use the most common analogy: Cars, the barracuda would be a 60's ford and, lets say a nurse shark would be a subaru impressa 09

Have a good 2010!


Pablo

 

[smokelaw1]

Don,

As I have said a half dozen times since I first saw the Maui Time thread....THANK YOU. My year has been very busy, and I have not been under water outside of a pool or a quick dip in the surf since my trip to Maui last year. While it's no replacement for the real thing, (though with what you capture, it is really close!!!) it brings me a sense of that calm wonder that the ocean holds for me that is most welcome!!

Hope all is very well with you, and we'll have to actually meet up next time I'm out there (sometime in 2010).

SL1

 

[bshanahan14rulz]

The occasional ripple on the surface acts like a prism and diffracts the sunlight giving you "rainbows" on the seabed. I caught one moving across a seahorse:

You can see the spectral band in the sand going from the top to the bottom and broken by the seahorse's head.

This is really interesting to me! Notice the yellow border on one side and the blue border on the opposing side of the band? This effect is the same reason why HID headlights appear blue even though they are really white. Most beam patterns where the cutoff AND the foreground are shielded, you will notice the cutoff up top is blue, while the foreground cutoff at the bottom is yellow.

I also liked the rays and sea horses, rays just look so cool flying through water, but sea horses look so ancient, and they're so different from most other animals.

 

[McGizmo]

Thanks guys! Two days ago, I paddled out for the first whale sit this season. The water was still with light wind and I ended up about 100 yards from a mother humpback who was parked on the surface. I could see a small calf surface next to her from time to time and every 20 minutes or so, a male "escort" would surface and blow. The law requires that you not approach the whales less than 100 yards in distance and I think this law is reasonable. Licensed researchers don't have to comply with this law but hopefully they show some consideration when they do encroach on the whales. I sat there hoping that the calf might venture over out of curiosity or perhaps the escort. Didn't happen. The mothers somehow excrete milk into the water for the calves to consume. I understand it is more like the consistency of cottage cheese and it holds together underwater so that the calf can swim over and gulp it down. I assume they filter it out with their baleen system. It is my guess that the mother was feeding the calf during the time I was out there and she didn't need to be distracted or annoyed by me!

When I got the shot of the calf that has been my avatar here for so many years, I also got a shot of it when it swam back to its mother and in the poor resolution of the image, there is a white mass under the mother that the calf swam to. I am pretty sure it was milk and I backed away further when I saw it.

Had I disobeyed the law in this situation and paddled in closer or swam over to them and the mother chose to evacuate with her calf, I could have easily caused the calf to swim away from a needed meal. My desire for a close encounter and possible photos would not justify a missed and critical meal. I've seen tourists on rented kayaks who probably don't think about things like this.

So no photos yet and unless I get lucky today, it won't be until next year that I have some whale shots to share. :wave:

 

[litew8]

Great pics Don, thanks for sharing. :twothumbs