Dive Log, March 5th, 2005

We went up north for a three tank day. I'm super excited because it's
seems like forever since I've been up to these great spots. We
frequently see grey reef sharks and white tip reef sharks up at Shark
Ledge and Kua Bay has produced sharks, turtles and dolphins in the
past.

Today, we didn't see any sharks... but we had some great Manta Ray
action. Twice on our first dive at Shark Ledge we had a Manta cruise
by. As I followed the ledge along at about 70 feet I found several eels
and nice big schools of fish. Unicorn fish, Trigger fish, Snapper and
many varieties of Surgeon fish were in abundance. I also spotted a rare
pair of Reticulated Butterfly Fish. The second half of the dive was
spent at 40 feet up on top of the ledge. It's a big flat shelf that is
loaded with big, beautiful antler corals. I like to call it
"Antlerville". I'm always inspecting the antler coral for cowreys,
octopus, shrimp, crabs and fish. Today, I spotted a fish I have never
seen before. It was a Two Spot Hawkfish. A nice specimen.

On our first surface interval we had a spectacular Humpback Whale show.
There were several groups in the area but one group in particular was
breaching, splashing around and putting on quite a show. It was
awesome!

The dive at Kua Bay was lovely. The sprawling expanse of finger coral
is absolutely pristine and the interspersed white sand patches are so
fun to explore. The highlight for me was actually a macro critter and
something I've only seen out and about previously at night. So to see
it in the middle of the day was a real treat. It's called a Pimpled
Basket. This interesting little slug is speckled black and white with a
bright red spot. It is usually burrowed down in the sand but when it's
out and about, it carries its pimpled shell on top of itself as it
cruises along on the sand. It's about two inches in length.

A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL!