Camarones de Kahalu'u and Other Delights

  A week ago, Sandra and I went snorkeling with Bob Hillis at K Bay.  Yesterday we went back, creating temporal bookends around a week in which we added the seahorse to our list. Last week the water was

A Cone Shell Hermit Crab Grazing at Kahalu'u Sept. 2015

warm and the coral was bleaching, but there were still a few interesting things to admire.

    Swimming across the bay towards the breakwater, we ran into a small yellow immature of the Orange Shouldered Surgeon.  I nabbed a couple good photos and I believe we can say that this fish was so young that it did not yet have any evidence of the orange band that gives the species its common name. A few days later on our seahorse adventure up north, we ran into many of these immatures, all lacking the orange shoulder.

    At the same time we saw the baby surgeon, I spied a cone shell hermit crab, aka "Stripey" nestled among some algae.  More often, I need to pluck a suspicious cone shell off the bottom and hold it for a while before the eponymous hermit pokes his nose out.  What a treat it was to see Stripey going about his business independent of our intervention.

    Out near Surfer's Rock, Bob, employing his notoriously sharp eyes, found some shrimp and was lucky enough to take the picture that you see here.  He sent the picture to me

Eye Spot Shrimp S. neglectus  photo Bob Hillis

and I played around with it to the extent that my aging photo processor would permit.  I was pleased to note that Bob had captured on film a species that I have seen several times at Kahalu'u, but never been able to photograph or definitively identify.

    Not being certain of my identification, I sent the picture to John Hoover who verified, in a playful way, that Bob had photographed the Eye Spot Shrimp...the green legs were a pretty good clue. One might think that the name of this species would have something to do with those handsome flanges that seem to shield the face of the tiny shrimp.  (In the event that you are unimpressed with Bob's photograph, you should know that this animal is smaller than even a modestly self-respecting cockroach and twice as shy.)  The shrimp actually has two bulls eye spots on its aft thorax that suggest its common name.

   So, you might reasonably ask, what about those handsome anterior shields?  both times I have seen this sprightly creature those anterior shields were elevated. My research on

Giggity, Giggity!  Let's Put On Our Antennal Scales!

  the internet did not yield any small shrimp with shields up. I suspected that they might be sensory organs, but I was loathe to pass them off as such to you without corroboration.  In John Hoover's Sea Creatures book, the Eye Spot Shrimp just sits there, possibly on a wet plate...I think that its sensory days might have passed ante fotografum.

    So today, as I was dealing with my email, I was required to fiddle with my Linkedin account.  Not that I am all that important in any business sense, but in the way of social media, Likedin seems to have its hooks in me.  In the process, who should I run into but Marta DeMaintenon, who is constantly updating her Linkedin status commensurate with her advancing academic career.  I became linked to Dr. DeM several years ago when Sandra and I were learning about hermit crabs.  She was the hot young invertebrate zoologist at UH Hilo to which I was referred and I have victimized her ever since.  Poor Marta.

    Being a good sport, she responded promptly, saying, "Pics are blurry but I'm guessing they're antennal scales. It's a structure attached to the base of the second antenna, and certainly has setae that would be sensory, but the specific nature of the beast is

The Banded Coral Shrimp Peers Out of Grendl's Cave.

beyond me. I think for slipper lobsters, they're the same as the big flaps in front that those guys have in lieu of long antennae."  Marta didn't waste any time researching her answer, but being brilliant, she was able to bolster my suspicions wiki wiki. 

     As long as I was asking her questions, I might have asked why in God's green earth, did a beautiful and highly educated woman like her want to be Linkedin with me?  Does she have a particular vein of masochism that we here at the Beach Blog should know about and exploit?  Anyway, antennal scales: springy, bristly sensory organs...I bet Glenn Quagmire wishes he had a couple.

     We cruised around the rest of the pond.  Just before Sandra went ashore there was a gentle pattering all about that, as it turned out, was rain drops falling on the water.  This was a pleasant sound and the rain actually cooled the

Sandra In the Rain With Diamonds.

water surface.   A few minutes later, as Bob and I were headed in, a large moray eel  came shooting by and took up housekeeping in one of the folds of the pahoehoe right in the entrance.  As it went by I thought I saw something peculiar about its head.  Looking into Grendl's cave, I saw not only the eel, but a large banded coral shrimp.  Had the eel brought along its own housekeeping unit?  Despite the eel peering out at me like the pit bull that lives with the drug dealer next door, I worked my way in for a picture.  As you can see, my best effort will not end up in National Geographic.  However, this was the first banded coral shrimp that I have found on my own and I was really pleased.

    Scooting ahead to the end of the week, Sandra and I returned to Kahalu'u yesterday. In the intervening week, the water temperature had dropped at least five degrees, into the low 80's.  Sadly

Stonefish Courtesy of SKG Graphics

 the coral bleaching was even more obvious.  Several patches looked irreversible.

    Out around Surfer's Rock, Sandra hailed me.  "Stonefish!"  She had spotted a Devil Scorpionfish under a coral head.  This was a beautiful individual in about three feet of fairly clear water...gray and brown stripes, lots of filaments on the skin.  His tail stuck out of the shadow created by the over hanging coral head and I believe this confused the camera.  Although there is always a bit of current in that part of the bay, I can't complain about conditions. I took several shots just two or three feet away from this cooperative scorpionfish.  Do you like Sandra's graphics?

    On the way in, Sandra found a large green Dragon Wrasse.  A happy end to a productive week.

jeff

Don't Eat Me.  I'm Not Ripe Yet!

    

The Tail of the Smooth Seahorse

    Somewhere north of the  airport there is a secret bay.  (Actually the bay is not so secret, but multiple parties have asked that I don't go out of my way to advertise the location in this blog.)  Over the last couple years there  have been rumors that seahorses exist in or near this bay. The lady concierge at the Mauna Kea 

Smooth Seahorse, Secret Bay  Photo Bob Hillis

Beach Hotel was the first to alert me to their presence.  A month or so ago, in his capacity as a dive guide, Bob Hillis was appraised of seahorses in the secret bay by a client diver.

     This was just too tantalizing and the fab four (Bob, Kim, Sandra and Jecko) made a special trip to the secret bay with the intention of tracking down this unusual fish, which by all accounts is quite rare in these very Sandwich Islands.   Suffice it to say that despite Bob's sharp eyes and Sandra's delicious sandwiches, we were unsuccessful.

      Then a week ago, as Sandra and I were trying to stay cool (yet another unsuccessful enterprise) Bob called.  He was driving home from the secret bay and had found the seahorses.  Although he was unavailable to go back for several days, he gave

An Ulua Hunting With a Snowflake Moray in Secret Bay

me some instructions as to the location of the seahorses.  Later that evening, he even sent us a picture that he hoped would aid in our finding them.  And he included this admonition:  The seahorses were in eight to ten feet of water and although they were associated with sticks, they were only found over the sand.

    The next morning was beautiful and Sandra and I made the drive north with high hopes buoyed by the gorgeous weather.  We hit the water about 9 AM.  Immediately I saw a large snowflake moray hunting with a small ulua.  I took a couple nice pictures of these fishes engaged in their symbiotic endeavour and then schmoopie and I swam to the spot that Bob had described  There was a secret landmark on shore.  Bob had instructed us to line up with the landmark and then find a spot eight feet deep.  Unfortunately for the Snorkelkids, X did not mark the spot.  We worked the area he had described, looking for seahorses clinging to sticks for about thirty minutes.   Curiously, in this location there were not many sticks.   After a half hour of fruitless searching we treaded water and held a pow wow. 

      "You know," I said to my beloved, "Bob's eight feet might be deeper than ours, but there is no deep water around here associated with that secret landmark.  And not only that, Bob has very sharp eyes."   We enlarged our area of search to no avail.

    At 45 minutes we swam to a different part of the bay where I knew there was more debris.  Lined up with the secret landmark, now forty yards away, I found lots of sticks.  In fact, the majority of these would be better described as small logs. "It would be a mighty big seahorse,"  I said to myself through my snorkel, "that would coil his tail around one of those."  Most of the sticks and logs were deeper than 10 feet, but Bob is such an adept diver that I thought his eight to ten feet might actually be twelve to fourteen.  Diving down to the sticks that were over the sand (much of the debris was over rocks and coral), I still did not find any seahorses.  Another 40 minutes passed and, finally exhausted, I went ashore.

     As I went to shower, I met a gentleman and two ladies who were serving as docents for the secret bay.  I asked if he knew about the seahorses.  At first he denied that there were any.  When I mentioned my friend's success just the day before, he became alarmed and shushed me.   Yes, he said sotto voce, there were
seahorses in the bay.  He quietly related that they had been introduced by the seahorse farm located at the natural energy lab.  Although the secret bay is supposedly protected from fisherman and collectors, he was eager for their presence to remain, well, a secret.  He noted that they were very hard to see and perhaps I had not been sufficiently discerning in my search.  Or to paraphrase John Lennon,  "Gotta be good looking cause they're so hard to see."  Interestingly, as you will soon see, he agreed with me that it was more likely to find the seahorses in the deeper part among the sticks and logs.

     That evening I contacted my friend and shared our failure.  He promise to guide us after the weekend, when he had to work.  On Monday, a small fly landed in the ointment.   Friends from San Diego had appeared out of nowhere.  On Tuesday he was taking them (at great expense) on the dive boat with the promise of a frolic with dolphins. And how would we like to go with the whole gang on Wednesday to look for the seahorses? In general, I like to conduct my explorations on a small scale.  Two couples is more than enough if I get to choose.  But we really weren't given a choice and the seahorses were looming large.

      We all met at Bob's condo down by the beach.  Team Seahorse would be composed of nine players, same as a baseball team.  (And then the Mormon said, "I've got seventeen wives and if I had one more....)

Smooth Seahorse, Secret Bay, September 2015   jwh

As we became acquainted, I detected a mild undercurrent of dissatisfaction.  Apparently the dolphins had not shown up, turning the previous day's outing into an expensive boat ride.  Suffice it to say, this put a little more pressure on our seahorse finder to produce.

       An hour later we assembled on the shore of Secret Bay.  Luckily, the San Diegans were all adept swimmers.  I would say snorkelers, except my new friend Mike is so comfortable in the water that he eschews a mask and snorkel, choosing instead small fins and racing goggles.

     Our guide took us right to the spot he had described a week before and found a smooth seahorse immediately.   After we all had a good look and your correspondent took the accompanying photograph, we got together at the surface.  Bob said, "Isn't it interesting that the guy (the reef docent) said they were somewhere else?"  Or to put it another way, to assure my continued lack of success the reef docent was a font of disinformation.

    There are several points I would like to make about the smooth seahorse, Hippocampus kuda.  First, it

Our New Friend Mike (AKA Aquaman) Points to a Seahorse

is  not quite as large as you might expect.  When ichthyologists measure a seahorse, they uncurl it so it may be five inches long from the tip of the tail to the end of the nose, but in its normal attitude this is reduced to three inches, top to bottom.  This species is kind of thin, compared to some seahorses and it does not have dorsal spines. Worst of all, the Smooth Sea Horse covers itself with filamentous algae and silt; this fellow wears a seriously cryptic coat!   The lumpy box crab has a similar modus operandi and unless it moves, one is hard pressed to suspect that it not just another silt covered stone,

    One final observation:  the Smooth Seahorse does not necessarily hang onto a stick in an erect position.  It wobbles down near the sand and frequently sort of drifts long the bottom, not attached to anything.  When approached, it turns away, denying the observer the classic seahorse silhouette.  Put this all together and I would suggest you get yourself in the right spot and look very carefully at every small bit of stick and weed on the bottom.  If you are lucky, you will have brought along someone with very sharp eyes.

     The pressure was off.  the Mudville Nine swam around looking at the other things that the secret bay has

Now That's What I Call Crabby!

 to offer.  I found a couple colonies of hydras and had a quick glimpse at a fantailed filefish.   As we swam towards the deeper part (where the seahorses aren't) we found a box crab scuttling across the bottom.  I was able to dive close enough to get the clear picture you see here.  Over in the deep, Bob found a crackerjack lobster carapace. I must admit, that it was really fun to swim with the large group in this relatively safe location.  Ashore we had a nice tea replete with self-satisfied congratulations and promises to get together and do it all again.   

    One can find the Ocean Rider Seahorse Farm at the end of the Natural Energy Lab, spitting distance to the runway at KOA.  Although several years ago they charged only a five dollar donation to look at their project, TripAdvisor correspondents suggest that the fee is now exorbitant.  If you check out their web site, on the other hand, you will see that they may be doing some very important work.  As the docent at the secret bay was apparently spreading disinformation left and right, I can not confirm that the seahorses we saw were introduced.

jeff

      

Summer in the City Or the Missing Link

       At long last Sandra and I made it to the City of Refuge.   City is one of our favorite places to go snorkeling, but between upper respiratory infections and hurricanes, this was really our first opportunity since returning from Portland.  On this sunny morning, we

Nants Ingonyama Bagithi Baba. 

were lucky to be accompanied by Bob and Kim Hillis.

     Even before we got out of the car I could see swimmers congregated in the area that dolphins frequent.

  A moment's observation revealed that the dolphins were indeed in attendance, so we donned our gear wiki wiki (as quickly as possible) and headed out to the dolphins.  Sandra and I enjoyed a few close passes and nabbed some photos.   The pod sported two fine looking babies.  The circle of life. Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba.  This,of course,  begs the question, "Is the spinner dolphin the lion of the Kona Coast?"  Given his nobility and strong family values, I'm inclined to vote yes.  And rumor has it that this season the Aloha Theater will be showcasing the premier of the Dolphin King.

Hele Me Hoohiwahiwa Nai'a

     After about fifteen minutes of communing with the dolphin king and his heir apparent, Sandra and I headed over to the north cusp.  Along the way we saw a lot of Thompson's surgeonfish, which after all these years I am finally finding a bit more common than I previously thought. Or perhaps they actually are increasing in numbers. 

      Out on the reef in about twenty feet, I saw a fish that I had long speculated about, a Very Long Nose Butterflyfish (Forcipiger longirostris) that was clearly transitional between the yellow form and the black, which is actually very dark brown.  Because of the way I remembered my two experts comments (Jack Randall and John Hoover in their signature field guides), I had accepted that these two morphs were created this way from conception and did not change from one coloration to the other.  This is how I described the fish to Jack and John:

    This fish had a black face that seemed to extend further caudally than on the yellow variety.  The flanks  appeared to have a yellow ground with rows of black scales

 lying over.  This gave the flank a dusky or bronzy appearance, most unlike the bright yellow of the usual yellow variety.

     This unusual fish swam into the coral head you see in the picture, out and over the top and down the other side.  Immediately he swam under a coral about twenty feet down and refused to come out. 

   While all this was going on, I nabbed three pictures, the best of which you see here.  Yes, I agree, its not a very good picture.  In fact, I included my field notes above to compensate for this poor photographic effort. Sometimes God grants you the opportunity to take a beautiful picture and sometimes you take what you can get to document a sighting.  Clearly this is a type 2 picture. 

    In the event that you think I can't take a fish picture, I am including a nice one of a mixed pair of longirostii taken a year ago at City when we went searching (vainly) for the frogfish with John Hoover.  All kidding aside, this demonstrates what we usually see rather nicely.
    It turns out, I did not need to ask Jack and John their opinion of the transitional longirostris.  In the Ultimate Guide... Hoover writes, "Occasional individuals ...turn completely blackish brown..."  I actually read this description (inadequately) before sending off my query.  Do I enjoy living a life of faux pas?  Not really, but sometimes it seems that way.  On the other hand, poor reading skills seem to give one the opportunity for individual thought.   

Transition longirostris, John Hoover's iPad app

      In his reply to me, John Hoover said, "Jeff, Of course they change from yellow to black! And probably the other way too. See lower right photo, taken on Oahu. (This is a screen from my iPad app). - John.

   Not only did my expert chide me (ever so gently) but in the manner of all good authors he encouraged me to purchase his latest product.   To repay his kindness, I am passing on the plug for the iPad app and I'm also including here the picture from the page that he sent along.  I don't own an iPad, but we do have a few android devices.  I'll find out if this app is available for us android users and, in the spirit of the great Sarah Palin (who I believe is one of the pioneers in poor reading skills!) I'll get back to ya on that one.

    Jack Randall's reply was a bit more amusing:

Jeff:     In 1961 I published the description of the very dark brown Longnose Butterflyfish as Forcipigerinornatus (meaning not ornate).  You can imagine my consternation when a friend, who had one in his aquarium, called me to say it was turning yellow.    Aloha, Jack 

A mixed pair of F. longirostris, City of Refuge, Sept. 2014

     In case you missed it, Jack Randall has been naming fish for more than half a century. Wow!

    As a final follow-up, I discovered that it is highly likely that all lonirostris are born yellow and only the brave ones on the turn black. This seems to happen more often on the Kona Coast than anywhere else on the planet.  John Hoover passes this down to us groundlings from the work of Richard Pyle.  The internet is an amazing thing and I was able to google Dr. Pyle who, as you can see, looks like he ought to be on the Orca with Quint and Richard  Dreyfuss comparing scars.   When he is not fighting enormous sharks, he serves as a zoologist at the Bishop Museum.  Arr!

When I was a squirt, every kid wanted to be a harpooner.

     After the exciting encounter with the longirostris, the Dolphin Queen and I swam back to the two step entry. (I am repeatedly annoyed when City is called Two Step. And I really like beating my head against the wall because it feels so good when I stop.)   Here Sandra went ashore and I hitched up with Bob to go shark hunting.  Our friends the DeLukes saw the shark here about a month ago, so we knew it was possible.  And, like Quint, I was obsessed in my search for the shark.

     Bob knew the place where the resident white tipped reef shark hangs out and had attempted to impart that information to me.  A few months ago I had attempted to find the shark following his instructions, but to

no avail.  We swam south across the bay, closer to the National Park than I had ever been, and then followed the shore towards the sea.  Bob finally stopped at an area of healthy coral and showed me a small alcove where two large coral heads almost meet.  Only ten feet deep at  the top of the overhang and perhaps

Hina and Ku Send Birthday Greetings to Don in New Hampshuh.

twenty feet wide, this shark puka is less than fifty yards north of the two remarkable tikis in the park.  I had in fact been very near this spot in my previous search, but did not go close enough to the south shore.  In any event, there was no shark at home on this day. 
 
    The four of us enjoyed a sumptuos lunch at Chez Sandra, which looks remarkably like a picnic table by the bay, and then it was time to go home.  As our guests disembarked, Kim Hillis looked at me and asked, "Can't I get back in the air conditioned car?"  Its been that sort of summer here in Kona.  I hope your fish watching is as hot as our weather.

jeff



      

From the Land of Hotter Water

   This week my lovely wife rejoined the fish watching team.  Depending on what you like, its a really good time to be a snorkeler in Kona.  The ocean water is really warm and it

Now that's what I call fine dining !

is so darn hot that when you are done with your swim, the cold shower feels simply mahvelous, dahling..  So good, in fact, that we are tempted to take a tray table to the beach and have dinner while enjoying a cold shower.  I believe Cosmo Kramer pioneered that idea and this summer in Hawaii, it seems like he was really on to something.

    The day of Sandra's return, we went for a swim on the Ironman side of the pier.  As we strolled down to Alii Drive, we were shocked to see a pod of dolphins swimming between the fourth swim buoy and pier; they were as close as I have ever seen them.   Of course, by the time we changed into our snorkel gear, the dolphins and their attendant school of paddle boarders were long gone.  A day late and a dolphin short once again. 

     Schmoopie and I had a really nice swim.  There was a whitemouth moray near the pier and  a couple of juvenile dascyllus to keep us interested.  On the way in,

Pebbled Butterfly  C. multicinctus  Kailua Kona 2015

I found a Blacktail Snapper chilling (as if that was possible this summer) under a coral head.  He hung around patiently while I snapped his picture.  This handsome fish is clearly becoming more common.


     As  I was photographing the second dascyllus, who was dodging about a cauliflower coral in the clear water by the pier, I managed to nab these nice pictures of a Pebbled Butterfly and a Freckle Faced Hawkfish.  Common fish, to be sure, but not so easy to get an excellent photograph.

    The following afternoon I went out with Bob Hillis out on the PAR.  Between colds and bad weather, I hadn't even seen Bob, much less went fish watching with him, since our return from Portland.  In 
the Inner Harbour, on the first look after putting on the old flippers, I saw a small gurnard.  Bob was happy, saying he had never seen one in there.  I, in turn

Mr Freckleface hard by the Kailua Pier.

recalled seeing one with Sandra a couple years earlier.  She attempted to warn the nearby bathers of the danger, which, as it turns out, is non-existent.   This is just as well because the tourists paid her no heed, the Philistines.

       Out on the PAR, there was a moderate amount of surge.  There were plenty of Whitespotted Surgeons and I took the picture you see here.  A lucky shot which combined a well illuminated subject caught in crisp focus by adept panning as he swam by.  Que suerte, no?

    Bob is prone to dive down and look into caves and under things like disenfranchised rudders.  On one such venture, he chased a pair of of reticulated butterfiles out from under a dismembered portion of a long forgotten cement pier.  By comparison, I'm happy

when I chase a gecko out from behind a picture hanging on my living room wall.  On another dive, he reported that there was a turtle harboring beneath a small lava outcropping about fifteen feet below the surging surface.  

    As you may recall, I don't have a lot of lost love for green sea turtles.  Like some small children with vindictive parents, the turtles have a propensity to get me in trouble.  My new best friends back in Camas, Wa., the Redoubtable Gail and Martin DeLuke, like turtles quite a bit.  I know this because Martin made a disc for us with pictures of all the good things they saw in their four weeks here in the land of mahalo.  As a solid third of Martin's pictures were of turtles in various stages of undress, I feel safe in saying that the DeLukes really like turtles.  It is of some related interest that Gail teaches school and thus is the one to decide who gets in trouble.  I hear through the  Washougal  underground that she wields a wicked ruler.  Even as I write these words, I can feel the back of my hand throbbing in pain.  I won't do it again,

Bob Hillis, "I tot I saw a Puddy Tat"  Or was it a turtle?

Mrs. DeLuke.  I promise.

   There was no way  I was going to dive fifteen feet to see a damn turtle, so we moved on to other flotsam, jetsom, caves and wreckage. Not to mention the occasional fish.  Maybe if Martin had been there, he would have dove down to see the benighted turtle in his cavern.  There is little doubt that he is a better man than I, held in especially high esteem by the Sandwich Island Society of Sea Turtles.   He's got the pictures to prove it!

   But I digress. 

     We swam out about twenty yards further than I had gone previously, crossing a lava reef outside the little lighthouse.  As I turned to go back, I discovered that I was in a significant current.  I tucked the Olympus in my pocket and swam like hell for about a minute, finally achieving a patch of slower moving water.

Forster's Hawkfish,  P.forsteri  Kahalu'u Sept 2015

    A bit later I appraised my swim buddy of this experience and he replied that he suspected that there might be a strong current going around the point, so he swam further out and around.   Hmmm.  Sort of makes you wonder when he was going to tell me.  About the time I reached Maui?

    Yesterday afternoon,  Sandra and I made it to Kahalu'u.  By 2 PM many of the people from the cruise ship (I am no longer permitted to call the Rubber-nosed Geeks or Sea Going Rats) had headed back for the afternoon buffet.   Out near Surfer's Rock we saw one of  our favorite immatures.  I call it Forster's Hawkfish, it being the child of Mr. and Mrs. Freckeface, aka P. forsteri.  Young master Forster is a handsome lad with a jaunty chartreuse cap.

    A bit further on we saw a busy bluestripe cleaner wrasse plying his trade on a black durgon.  Would have made a great picture, but I wasn't fast enough.

  As we headed in for a landing, I was struck by how warm the water was near shore.  On this afternoon I believe it topped 90 degrees at the sand channel entry.   The cool shower that followed felt especially good.  I kept looking around for Kramer bringing a tray table and a cool green salad.


jeff