The Hortonville Band and and Update from the Pier

   These days when I go down to Kahalu'u, it's pretty much a toss up whether the people on the beach or the critters in the ocean will be the highlight of the excursion.  Two days ago, Sandra and I made it down to K

 Bay in the morning.  The parking lot was no more full than usual...we found one of the auxiliary spots reserved for locals who realize the the constabulary doesn't actually care about the lines.

   On the contrary, the shelter was packed.  The mass of humanity was not attending a baby luau, but instead was a throng of pale houlies, most of whom were just sitting on the benches, seemingly waiting for something to happen.  The group was distinguished by a large number of sea green towels.  I asked a stout lady a bit younger than myself who was associated with this mass of laundry just what was the deal.  She replied that they were the Hortonville
Marching Band from Hortonville, Wisconsin.  She volunteered that they had marched in the Merrie Monarch parade in Hilo and were now here in Kona for two days.   Looking around, I noticed a bunch of dazed adults sitting at the tables, but there was indeed a plethora of pale adolescents.

    How many people are in the band?"  I asked.  She replied that there were 140 bandsmen on the trip but another 100 adults had come along for the ride.  240 Hortonians? Holy Whoville!

    Before I could finish getting my gear on to head down to the sea, Sandra had returned with this picture.  You can tell that they are bandsmen as they are marching into the water.   If anything distinguished this group from the Badger State, aside from their blue green towels, it was the use of their fins.  Having paid for the rental, they were determined to get their money's worth by wearing them everywhere.  I can only imagine Snorkel Bob throwing up his hands in dismay.

What do you suppose that the band performed at Pearl Harbor?

   Sitting on a rock with my feet in the water, putting on my own relatively ancient fins, I pondered what it must have been like the day the band descended on Snorkel Bob's.  What if there was another customer.  Can you wait just a minute?  How about two hours?

   Swimming in the bay was no more dangerous than usual.  The likelihood of collision was markedly reduced because these Polar Bears (the moniker of the Hortonville High school) apparently can't swim very well.  Or perhaps they just don't like to swim.  At any rate, they mostly stood around in the shallows,  masks pulled up on their foreheads, fins on the rocky bottom.   On the other hand, aside from not actually snorkeling, sometimes standing on the coral, the bandsmen were remarkably well behaved.

    Here is the website for the Hortonville Band with the itinerary:
http://www.hasd.org/Music/Hortonville%20Itinerary%20090215.pdf

Light spotted sea cucumber   H. hilla  (Perhaps)

    As you will note, the kids were subjected to a brutal schedule.  If they looked a little dazed as they stood on the rocks at K Bay, I suppose I can resonate with that.  I mean, who the F*** boards a bus at 5:45 to look at Akaka Falls, marches in a parade at 10:30 and leaves for the volcano at 2?  Seriously?  The itinerary planner at Hawaii State Tours must be a sadist.
 
    The coral standing wasn't limited to the youths.  Out near Surfer's Rock I approached a large female Polar Bear standing on a coral head.  I believe she approached fifteen Wisconsin units.  This method of measuring weight (Wisconsin Units) is employed by snide  medical residents in the cheese making state.  My former colleague, Jim Goeke, reported that the Wisconsin patient
population was much, much larger than the obese of western Oregon.  Hence, according to the disparaging residents back in Madison, they required a different weight scale: Wisconsin Units.

    To be fair, on average the kids and their adult supporters were not any more obese than their peers here in Kona.  A bit pale, perhaps, but no more obese.  Again, to be fair, I've never seen the kids from the Kealakehe High School marching band.  Maybe they, too, are skinny and pale

Beware of Polar Bears

    But I digress.  We left the mother polar bear standing on a coral head with her mask pulled up onto her forehead.  I politely asked her if she could swim, as she was killing the coral.  She replied that she could not, as she was looking for her daughter.  Now I ask you, if you were her chubby daughter, and you were hanging out with 140 of your closest friends following the Bataan death March of Hawaii tours, how likely is it that you would let your mother find you?  The coral never had a chance.

    While swimming, I saw yet another peri-mortem sea cucumber (this one may be the light spotted sea cucumber, H. hilla) and  several Christmas wrasse.  Best of all, I saw the immature of the Blue eye Damselfish, also known as the Johnston Island Damselfish.  This small, furtive fish darted around inside a coral, forcing me to attempt multiple photographs through the fenestrations...with a complete lack of success.  Sadly. this immature is not pictured on the

Immature Beau Brummel sort of like the immature JID

internet, or in Hoover or Randall.  In fact, these two experts make no mention of this phase, despite my (apparently unconvincing) lobbying for his inclusion.   With a blue dorsum, and yellow below, he looks a bit like a Beau Brummel from the Caribbean, a picture of which I am providing here. The immature I see has a little less blue on the dorsum and the yellow is a lighter shade.

  Or it's possible I have experienced a succession of hallucinations over the past twenty years and you should dispatch the men in the little white coats with the large butterfly net to haul me in.

    In researching this blog, I discovered that this species feeds on coral polys, especially cauliflower corals.  With the death of so many pocillipora corals due to high water temperature, we may be seeing far fewer of this handsome species on our shallow reefs. 

    When I returned to shore, poor Sandra was sitting on a table near my gear having been displaced by the ever increasing number of Whos.   She had texted her picture to Bob Hillis, who responded that he was going to get a pair of lace up fins for hiking in the desert.

A bay full of happy Whos!

    Another bus was reported on its way from the King Kam Hotel, where the multitude was lodging (and the origin of those blue green towels) so we beat a hasty retreat.

 The Whos down in Hortonville like loud music a lot.
But the Grinch atop Mauna Kea did not.
He sat on the peak, his ukulele a strumming.
And said, "There must be a way
To keep  Merrie Monarch from coming."

"I hate all the bands with their blustering trumpets.
I despise all the flag girls dressed  up like young strumpets.
And what of the swaying, grass clad hula dancers?
In my learned opinion a telescope is the answer!"

    Who would have guessed that the Grinch was a man of science?   Apparently the Grinch  has given up on  governor Ige standing up to the hula dancers.   Last year, the same Merrie Monarch dancers appeared on KHNL dancing on the top of Mauna Kea, colorful skirts swaying in the thin air, protesting  the 30 meter telescope.   We have probably lost the telescope, but at least we will have the hula dancers. Aloha oy vey.

For those of you who want to see what the poor Grinch is up against, watch this video of the hula dancers from Hilo at the work site:
http://mauinow.com/2015/04/11/video-maui-halau-honors-mauna-kea-amid-tmt-controversy/

    The following morning, yesterday, we got up bright and early and headed down to the King Kam Hotel in hopes of squeezing in another interview or two with the fine citizens of Hortonville prior to thier departure.  I

A Convex Crab in dire straits.

got there around 9:30 and they were gone.  I had just under two hours to kill so I headed down to the pier for a really long swim.

    Shortly after entering the water I happened upon a convex crab.  I doubt that this was the same individual I saw by the pier only a few days before.  He was harboring between a coral and a large rock and was remarkably tolerant of my approach for photographs.  The reason was soon apparent; at least one of his legs was tangled in fishing line.  I attempted to free him with my bare hands, but the line was that stout woven stuff used for leader when you are fishing for whale sharks.

   Failing in my attempt, I swam back to the shore in hopes that one of the swimmers, or the lady who was teaching a well heeled youth to paddle board, might have a blade of some kind.  Of course, this was in vain.  And perhaps it was just as well, because, despite searching for fifteen minutes,  I could not locate the crab. 

Paper mache Potter's Angelfish by the author

What I did find was a large yellow margin moray lurking in one of the nearby coral heads, serving as a reminder that one should approach those rocks and corals with appropriate caution.

    Hoping that my initial effort somehow freed the crab, I swam away.  Attempting to take advantage of the clear water, I searched the reef around the swim buoy for the resident Potter's angelfish.  Not finding him, I swam back to the pier in hopes of seeing the bluestripe butterfly that we spotted a few days before.  Although butterflies often stick around for a week or two, he wasn't there.  I'm including here a picture of a paper mache Potter's Angelfish that I recently completed..feel free to refer to the men in little white coats above.

    Amid the coral I found a fancy green and silver fishing lure, which I retrieved.  It took several attempts to flip the lure up and over the rail, onto the pier.  Appropriately, I was using the hook shot copied from one of the players in the final four.  (Like Mrs Biden, I was cheered by the Villanova victory.)  In the process of hook shooting the lure, I managed to hook one of my fingers.  Now tell me that you are surprised.

Gotta work on that hook shot

    Heading back to the shallows, I found the coral with the yellow margin moray.  I was getting out the camera to attempt a photo when some movement caught my eye.  At the base of an adjacent coral, there was a small  scorpionfishfish.  About three inches, he was chalk white and covered with fringes.  What a treat!  Based on size and shape, I would identify this cute fellow as a Shortsnout Scorpionfish.  John Hoover mentions the pink eye as an additional field mark in separating this species from S. diabolus.   

    I dove twice to get photographs.  I then set the camera to include a flash and dove again.  As I submerged, something raked over me.  Initially I thought I had been hit by a paddle boarder.  Actually, I found myself disentangling  from a dog.  His owner, 20 yards away on the beach, was using one of those sticks to flick a ball past the first swim buoy.  By the time I recovered and decided I wasn't bleeding very much, I was all turned around and could not find this interesting, small scorpionfish again. Hence, I did not get a close look at the presumably pink eye. I did get a really close look at the the dog as he swam by, having retrieved another long throw.  Seeing him coming, I was just able to swim out of his path.  Had I not, I believe he would have dog paddled right into me.

My assailant swimming ashore.

    This is not the first time that I have been clawed by a dog while swimming.  The other time was at the Dog Beach.  What a surprise.  In both instances the dog was retrieving for an owner oblivious to swimmers.  In this instance, the guy was throwing the ball across the heavily used swim lane.  All of which is to say, it probably behooves us fish watchers to be aware of what's happening on the beach.  Neither paddle boarders or dog owners are looking out for us.

    Ashore, I found a  (probably) homeless fisherman under the pavilion maintained on the pier to shade the tourists returning to the cruise ships.  This canvas canopy is one of the fish thrown to the Kailua homeless, at least on days when there is no cruise ship. On a given day you can find a dozen or more reclining in this patch of civic shade by the bay.  The angler was a pleasant fellow and let me photograph the lure, which I assume he will put to good use.  It didn't occur to me to ask him if he had  been greatly inconvenienced by the Hortonville Marching Band. 

jeff

Shortsnout Scorpionfish,   S. brevifrons  Kailua Bay April 2016