Blue Hawai’i

No doubt the first thing you notice in the video is how blue everything is, with only flashes of yellow and white. Where are the brilliant colors of captive tropical fish? Some distortion can be blamed on phone camera optics, but as the Atlantis crew explain,

“Sea water filters each color contained in sunlight (white light) progressively, with depth. Red is the first frequency lost as the submarine submerges, and red things start to gain purple tones thirty feet down.” See below the color of the shirt I wore, at both the surface and at ~ seventy feet below – fire engine red changes to a dark dark plum.

More from the crew: “Orange continuously changes to yellow and at sixty feet yellow appears green. At ninety feet below everything looks blue, as blue tones are the only frequencies of light reflected.” We were close to the ocean floor with the iʻa, on the reef and sunken boat; our maximum depth was one hundred and sixteen feet. Hence, Blue Hawai’i. Divers usually stay shallower, as do snorkelers, so their photos show a greater range of color naturally. Many are also creatively enhanced …

The large fish that pass close to the portholes are excited to see the boat, and are tracking us purposefully, snacking. They are after a tasty algae that covers the hull and does not grow in their deeper habitat. Three times a day they nibble along. Food Truck!