I dove with Island Style Diving’s boat again today. As usual it was an excellent trip, expertly and joyously captained and crewed by Javier, Christina, Alex, and Yelena.
First dive was on the Reef’s end side of Molokini. The swell is still up so it was surgey down to about 35 feet, where we spent a bit more time than usual due to a diver that was having some problems, so had to head back towards the boat a bit sooner than usual. That did not prevent us having a great dive, thanks to Yelena’s excellent handling of the situation. Made me glad that I am no longer the one responsible for the whole group.
It was mostly the usual suspects at Molokini today: Whitetip Reef Shark, Octopus (did not get a picture as he was hiding by the time I saw him, with only a long leg visible), Moray, Soldierfish, etc.
What was interesting about the Yellowmargin Moray was that when I first saw it, I thought it was dead as it was laying on its side, something you don’t usually see, and not moving at all. When I moved the camera in very close to try to get a macro close up (why spoil a good opportunity to safely put your hand close to an eels mouth?), it reacted and slowly moved and assumed a more normal eel-like position. It was still a bit lethargic and let me get in real close. It was not until I got home and looked at the picture that I noticed the head injury, which made the behavior make sense.
The second dive was Marty’s Reef, a site I have heard about but never been. It is a bit further off shore from Makena Landing compared to where I usually go at Makena, but I could get there with my ScubaJet if I had the heading from shore.
It was eel city out there! And these eels were also comfortable with me getting in close. We also spotted a couple of rare Devil Scorpionfish, and I got my first pictures of that so-ugly-it-is-beautiful creature. Enjoy!
Molokini:
Marty’s Reef:
I switched back to the Sealife Sportdiver housing for my iPhone 12 Pro Max, but with dual lights now. I think I get more usable pictures per dive with this set up mainly due to auto focus, and the ability to get close almost, but not quite, to the point of macro.
My main issue in the past with the housed iPhone 12 Pro was that my iPhone was inaccessible from when I sealed the housing until I could get the case rinsed, dried, and opened after the diving is done. But I just got a new iPhone 14 Pro Max, so I decided to not trade in the 12 but rather make it a dedicated camera phone for the housing. So once all my data was copied, and my number transferred, to the new phone, I wiped everything off of the old iPhone except for my photo library, and the Sportdiver app of course.
This worked fantastic! Other than wishing I could get a bit closer to my subject for real macro shots and more edge distortion in max wide-angle mode, not having to switch exterior lenses and having auto-focus made it much easier to shoot a wide variety of subjects in a single dive and get, overall, more usable pictures. However with the Micro 3.0, I don’t have to worry about o-rings or vacuum pumps to seal and leak test the housing. So which camera I use will likely depend on whether I want to be lazy on land or in the water.
There were 2 new annoyances today with the housed iPhone, though. The first was that I still had a work alarm setting from when it was my main phone, so at 7AM, on the boat, the alarm went off with its notification banner at the top of the screen. I managed to get the fog horn alarm sound to stop when I switched modes in the Sportdiver Camera App (which is the only thing I have access to on the iPhone once the housing is sealed, as the touch screen does not work through the housing), but the banner persisted with no way to cancel it. But it was at the top of the screen, so I could work with that. And I can easily solve this going forward. 🙂 Then on the second dive, the phone battery went to 20%, which of course triggers a middle of the screen low battery system alert pop-up that I cannot dismiss. So all of the pictures of the Devil Scorpionfish were taken without being able to see the middle or the top of the frame. No way to solve this other than making sure the phone is at 100% when you seal the housing (mine was not).
As far as Macro capabilities, I have come to discover that my new iPhone 14 Pro camera can focus extremely close and go into a macro mode automatically. So I researched it, and apparently this macro mode feature was introduced on the iPhone 13 Pro. Just my luck. So if I want macro, I will have to either house my iPhone 14, which takes me back to why decided stop using the housing and get the dedicated camera in the first place, or trade in the iPhone 12 and get another new iPhone 14 Pro to be a dedicated underwater camera. Decisions, decisions.