Diving Pawai Bay

Pawai Bay is teaming with an enormous number of fish. This is mainly because the entire bay is an aquatic protected bay, therefore people are not allowed to take anything from this sanctuary for the many species of fish here. Some of them being very rare. The formations of volcanic lava covered in coral is unlike any other dive site to me.

An interesting part of fish life is happening right now in this bay. The surgeon fish (they are the blue and white striped fish) have settled their purple mass of eggs on rocks and they are very protective of them. Unfortunately the butterfly fish, including one of my favorite, the raccoon butterfly, enjoy the tasty treat of surgeon fish caviar. They gather in huge groups to try and eat as much as they can before being chased away by the adult surgeons.

If you happen upon this scene, as Dennis did here, the butterfly fish are also extremely curious about you as well. Dennis almost had them eating out of his hand. The raccoon butterfly and he now have a close personal relationship... He just said today if we ever got an aquarium to have in our home that is one fish he would have to have in it. All of these pictures I took of him and the fish I was about fifty feet down slope from him and then I came up and took the pictures of the butterfly fish feeding on the eggs that were laid on the rocks. It was a beautiful place to dive.

One of the rarest fish is a flame angel fish, I'll have to borrow a picture here, but I did see one on this dive. Dennis saw three. They are extremely shy and if they know you are around they will dart into the depths of the reef and rocks and hide until no one else is around. I did get close enough to take my own photo of this exquisite fish and just as I snapped the shot another fish darted in front of the angel and he flashed into the coral. I can't wait to see more of these!