There have been books written about Molokini atoll full of dozens of pictures of myriad swarms of brightly colored fish. Thus, when I went to Maui, it was on the list of attractions I had to see. In addition, I had my little mail order underwater pocket digital camera that I really wanted to try out underwater to see if it made much of a difference over those semi-disposable underwater cameras that they sell at Walmart.
Molokini crater is the last remnants of a sinking volcanic crater just off the coast of Maui. About half of the rim is still above water and the crater slope has turned into a beautiful coral reef. The water, however, is deep and possibly more suited for scuba diving than snorkeling but there are lots of brightly colored fish, if generally at a distance. Given that I grew up in Hawaii, I'm generally comfortable skin diving and spurned those nasty little floats they were handing out to the (other) tourists and dove right in with my trusty little digicam.
The picture above is a school of chromis (and a stray wrasse) that were hovering above a large coral head, glinting in the filtered sun. As for the camera, I definitely recommend digital. As opposed to the disposable where I had to develop each roll, only to find that onely one in 20 or so pictures was decent, the digital probably brought the percentage of decent pictures to around 70-80% and the rest I deleted. The number of truly memorable shots likewise went up. That being said, I suspect that a really good digital setup with external strobe would likewise improve even more above that. We'll see if I spot for a case for the digital SLR or not. They're awful expensive , big, bulky and more suited for scuba than skin diving so I may just live with the budget digicam for now. Stay tuned.
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