Kahalalala and Kalamazoo

    Here we are in the middle of the summer.  This is the time of year when it is reasonable to expect to see something really interesting when you go out snorkeling.  The reef fish have had time to make keikis and these babies should be showing up on our reefs.

Speckled Scorpiofish hunkered down in the coral.  Kailua Kona Pier 2013

    With that in mind, we headed to the City of Refuge earlier in the week.  There was some debate
about this choice back at the Mother Ship.  The various weather services said it was going to rain
everywhere, but especially in Captain Cook. Naturally, when we got there the weather was perfect with blue skies and, as predicted, a calm sea.  Plunging in off the Two Step rock entry, we were greeted by pleasantly cool and clear water, about 84 degrees, which for my taste is perfect.

    We swam for about an hour, covering a large portion of the bay and seeing a nice variety of fish but nothing unusual.  The dolphins did not make an appearance and the shark was not at home.  We enjoyed the swim, but from the standpoint of wildlife observation, it was close to a bust.

   The following day, Sandra dropped me off at the pier, while she went shopping.  The first thing I noticed was a contingent of local fisherman concentrated at the corner of the swim area where it meets the Homeland Security cruise boat embarkation structure. Its not uncommon to see a fisherman

A Promar floating bait net.

or two in that spot, but this was a large group.  And they were going at it fairly seriously, casting small live baits about thirty feet out into the swim area.

    I took my usual swim out to the palace and back, finding a speckled scorpionfish in a nice chunk of cauliflower coral about ten feet down.   On my first dive I nabbed a picture.  Back on the surface, I fiddled with the camera to get the proper settings.  And then, try as I might, I could not find that lone piece of living coral again. This fish lives well inside the leaves of the coral and one must be lucky to penetrate with the flash to get the a picture of the reclusive fish.  Suffice it to say, the picture I took is of the outer part of the coral.  I'm including a picture of the Speckeld scorpion peering out from his refuge taken in about the same spot five years ago. 

   Back by the pier I dodged under the swim line and snorkeled in front of the cruise boat landing, where the fishermen were unable to go.  Regrettably, I had not out flanked them and I saw nothing unusual.  When I got back on the pier, I walked over to where the fisherman were still going at it.  In the water, moored to the pier with line, were two colorful floating rings with suspended nets.    Slightly larger than your standard bucket, they had a

Deck the Halls With Boston Charlie.

round inflatable float on top.  I have scoured the web to no avail looking for exactly what I saw.  I can now say that these were floating collapsible bait buckets.  Extra fancy.  One was lime green and the other a handsome nautical orange.  I'm including a picture from the Cabela's catalogue so you can get a general idea.  The buckets in question had rings to keep them from collapsing inward.


    The fisherman nearest me, at the edge of the pack, as it were, was a large Hawaiian lady of about fifty.  Seated contentedly on a folding chair, she held a long rood, perhaps ten feet in length.  The line was in the water and she was not casting.  I asked what they were fishing for.  She fixed me with a
look, aficionado adressing a tyro.  "They fishing for some kind of mackerel." she said, "Name like
like fa la la la la."  Or at least that is what I heard.

    So as I showered and dressed, I sang that old Christmas favorite just under my breath.  This was

 Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash and Kalamazoo.
Mollie's freezing on the trolley.  Eisenhower, Cauliflower alligaroo.

Jeff Leicher, Ace raconteur and owner of Jack's Dive Locker

   This is an old, very old ditty composed by Walt Kelley.  He inflicted it on the minds of the unsuspecting youth in his immortal comic strip, Pogo.  Regardless of Kelley's lyrics, I could hear the Hawaiian lady throwing fa la la la la at me all the while.

   On the way from the dressing room to the cubbies, I ran into someone from the distant past.  Jeff Leicher, the owner of jack's Dive Locker, was locking the gate to the pier.  Presumably he had just delivered the company van to the area behind the dressing rooms  in order to retrieve a class of student divers from the Inner Harbour.  I introduced myself and told him that he had guided my son and I on a snorkel trip about thirty five years ago. He replied with a jocular remark to the effect that we really couldn't be that old.

   Jeff had skippered the dive boat that day in the early eighties and had produced my two wish list fishes: the pyramid butterflyfish and the pennant butterflyfish.   The latter is the only member of the Heniochus butterflies that occurs in Hawaii.  The ones we saw that day turned out to be the only pennanat butterflies that I would ever see in Hawaii.  Pyramids, as you know if you follow the blog, are found here and there sporadically and at Mahukona dependably.

   Fish watching aside, it was a fateful trip.  A young couple who worked aboard the boat had brought along their blue crowned conure, a small stout parrot,  which patrolled the dashboard of the cabin.  Charles was so taken with the bird that soon a similar aratinga parakeet was part of our family.  The adventures of Mikey could fill a whole chapter.  He was a hand raised bird and the seller told us if he bit, we should hold him upside down and yell "No biting!" at him.  This worked to the extent that on a given day, as we entered our home, he might yell "No biting!" in the way of a greeting.  As you might guess, he never stopped biting. 


   Jeff recalled the parrot and said that his owner had become bored with being a dive guide and 
joined Sea Shepherd, where he did battle on the high seas in defense of whales and other marine

Socrates, Sigmund Freud and Billy the Kid go to the San Dimas Mall

animals.  What a guy!

   On the way home, I told Sandra about my encounter with Jeff, the on going legend of Mikey including the Sea Shepherd piece, and about the fishermen.  Then I asked her if she could identify the lyrics "Deck the halls with Boston charlie.".  She absolutely hates that game.  But it was the way I was raised. So what can you do?  My father called it the Socratic Method, as if he ever met Socrates.  (You may score yourself ten points if you pronounced that name so, as in so what and crates, as in the wooden box containing oranges.)

    At home I repaired to the fish books and discovered that Fa la la la la might very well translate to

Kahala, which is the name Hawaiians apply to the greater amberjack.  this is a large game fish that,

Amberjack  photo courtesy of Reel Revenge, SW Florida fishing charters

according to John Hoover, hunts the baitball in packs.  I can not tell you why, on the countless occasions when I have encountered the bait ball (composed of hundreds large eye scad) I have not seen this pack hunting amberjack phenomenon.  For what it is worth, the Hawaiian fishing regulations note that the amberjack occurs mostly off shore and in deeper water. 

    We have seen ulua hunt the baitball in groups of up to six on numerous occasions.  Here I am speaking only of the blue fin trevally, which is far and way the most common in shore jack.  At least six other jacks are called ulua, but they are uncommon on the reef.   The ulua is a pretty blue fish that hunts singly or in groups.  Its

Three ulua charge the baitball near the fourth swim buoy.  Kailua Kona April 2017

not uncommon to see up to three  ulua hunting with one or more blue goatfish.  We've also
seen them hunt with eels and octopus.  Most ulua we encounter are under 16 inches.  occasionally, though, we encounter a larger one and it can be pretty intimidating. 

    Yesterday, following my reunion with Jeff Leicher and the subsequent reminiscence about pyramid butterflyfish, we trekked north to Mahukona.   As predicted, it was a nice day and we made the swim out to the school of pyramid butterflies.  Using Google maps I calculate that it is about a quarter mile swim out to where the pyramids hang out.  Needless to say, Sandra and I feel pretty lucky that we are still able to make that swim.

    Along the way we saw a pair of Heller's barracuda.  This fish is not terribly common in most places, although it is known to occur at Mahukona regularly.  The swim was into a modest current,

A pair of Heller's Barracuda at Mahukona  july 2018

which meant it was easier swimming back.  Always a good thing.  We got a school of milletseed butterflies  and a solitary saddle back butterfly offshore.  Before we got out, we saw two bluestripe butterflies in the little bay.

     At the ladder we were mobbed by five Hawaiian kids.  Between six and eight, they swam like a troop of friendly otters, taking great delight in jumping off the pier.  They were accompanied by an auntie who grew up in Kohala but now lives in San Francisco.  She told us how lucky we were to live in Hawaii.  And she was right!

jeff

Pyramid Butterflyfish, City of Refuge 2014 

Sandra Meets Mrs. Scribble's Children

    Give us a new place to snorkel with a variety of interesting animals and we will make the most of it.   Having been introduced to Kawaihae harbor, seeing better fish and new invertebrates, we made the drive back north just a a few days after our introductory adventure with Peter and Marla.

Possibly an Orange Stylinos sponge in the shape of the USA.

    The sky was not bright blue, as it had been on our first visit, but the air was crystal clear.  Such a difference from down in Kailua where my lovely wife has become an aficionado of the AQI, air quality index.  We were happy to enjoy a clear look at a few cirrus clouds as they hovered over Kohala Mountain.  After living in the vog, the crystal clear panorama of  Kawaihae Harbor from the road was a treat.

     We parked the car under a tree in the little Kawaihae harbor park and walked across the large gravel parking area,  entering as before from the boat ramp.  Looking for fish as we swam out to the structures, we spotted a disappearing wrasse, but the tiny sailfin tang juvenile was nowhere to be seen. On our first visit to Kawaihae, Sandra had spotted, for a treasured moment, the common but rarely observed Kellogg's Scorpionfish.  While I was scouting for the tang, she was searching the rip rap for her scorpion.  Suffice it to say, our efforts on this day were equally Quixotic. 

Go Huskies!  Do it like a sponge. 

    Once out at the structures, I was admiring the different sponges, secure in the knowledge that unless I took some home and looked at the spicule structure under a microscope, their identification was beyond my ability to place a name upon them. 
   
      I like this picture of an orange sponge that may well be an orange stylinos; at least it looks very similar to the picture in John Hoover's Sea Creatures.  This particular individual has a shape similar to the United States, with Baja California hanging down the left coast.  John Hoover tells us that it is a friable sponge, as easily torn as our unfortunate country under the current and benighted president.


    But heck.  Were at Kawaihae!  Let's not get depressed.

Scrawled Filefish Juvenile.  Kawaihae July 2018

With the Husky football season in the offing, I was especially enthusiastic about the little purple ones.   But Go Dogs!  Do it like a sponge!  What does he mean by that?  Great Husky defenses have, in the past,  been given names...like Purple Reign.  I ask you, does Purple Sponge not sound pretty awesome?  We soak up the opposing offense.

     As far as I can tell , there is no sponge in Sea Creatures to correspond to these one-eyed, one vent tiny purple plankton eaters.

Peek a boo filefish

    As I was dodging around the cement columns, I heard Sandra call my name.  I disentangled myself  from the maze of columns and swam around the structure to where I could see her holding position by the ladder.  My first impulse was, "Thank goodness she seems to be safe."  I trust that as you read these accounts of this unusual snorkeling site, you appreciate that swimming around in tight spaces is not with out some risk.  Suffice it to say, it was immediately obvious to us.

Not as good a picture, but in this one you see the whole three inches. 

    I swam to Sandra and she raised her head and said, "Baby filefish!"  I swam close to the ladder where she was pointing and saw something I never would have hoped for: a tiny  elongated filefish doing his best to imitate the weedy ropes hanging vertically from the ladder.  I surfaced and said to Sandra, " I guess this means you don't have to cook for the rest of the week."

    This little fella was about three inches long, his base color was a creamy caramel over which was a pattern of dark chocolate spots and wavy lines.  If one were to open a package Christmas morning and find such a toothsome confection, I dare say,  one would be more than pleased.

   Thankfully, the juvenile filefish was cooperative and I took many pictures.  Naturally, he wanted to be on the other side of a rope, so the picture taking was a little challenging.  But he let me take as many pictures as my heart desired and I'm sure you will appreciate the results.

Feather Duster Worm  Kawaihae  2018

   Shortly after that we met a gentleman who was also out enjoying the animals on the columns.  I believe his name is Hai On and he he was the one that turned our friend Peter on to this snorkel site.  Hai had seen the tiny filefish... and a larger one.  He was a wealth of information and soon guided us to a couple fine feather duster worms.

   After we dove around the poles photographing the feather dusters, he guided us in to the first structure, which is much smaller than the outer two.  Unless I am mistaken, it pre-dates those larger ones.  Although the columns look identical above water, there are larger coral aggregations on the posts of the first structure..  Under one of these posts, Hai had found a banded coral shrimp.  One had only to dive down about eight feet and turn around, so he was looking up at the depression in the bottom of the coral.  And voila!  There was the banded shrimp. Hai is clearly a superior diver and I believe he got a picture of that crustacean.  All I got was a pretty good look and water in the ears.

 The larger Scrawled Filefish Juvenile

    Around the corner from the shrimp, he showed Sandra and I a marvelous large reticulated cowry.  We then discussed the filefish, which he correctly identified as scrawled filefish.  He noted that there was a larger juvenile hanging around that same structure, allowing that the reason we probably didn't see it was that he had chased it around trying for the best picture.

    After Hai went in, Sandra and I swam out to the outer structure, where I eventually found and recorded the larger of the juvenile scribbled filefish.  (I prefer the older common name and so does Sandra...Mr. Scribble is her totem.)  This individual, perhaps eight inches in length, was wearing a pattern common in some adult scribbled filefish.  If we had any concerns about the identification, this fish put them to rest.

   When I made it back to shore,  Sandra and Hai were chatting away on the boat launch.  We promised that we would see each other again in this amazing spot.

jeff

A Bivalve Growing in the matrix.  Possibly a Pen Shell!

On the Trail of the Baby Blue Sponge

    I sort of promised that I would get back to you if I was able to identify the blue sponge living near the surface on one of the military structures in Kawaihae harbor.  It took a couple days, but I now

A second example of the Bue Kawaihe sponge

have a couple responses that I thought I would share.  If you are a really smart invertebrate zoologist, this will not come as much of a surprise.  For me, it is a real eye opener.

   At this point you might want to refer back to the previous post for a look at the habitat and at the first picture of the blue sponge.  A second picture is included here.

   Pauline Fiene is a biologist and a dive guide on Maui.   Along with Cory Pittman she maintains a superb site that allows an amateur, like yours truly, to take a very good shot at visual identification of nudibranchs found in Hawaii.  She thought that our sponge might be Dysidea sp. and sent me link to a site in French Polynesia which won't open.

    Google searching Dysidea I found several images of this genus of sponges and many of them are blue.  There is a sponge in the Caribbean , Dysidea ethera, known as the heavenly sponge that is a lovely blue and looks like one of my two pictures.  I'm including one of the several pictures of this sponge posted by Snorkel St. John.  (If you happen to be going to St.John, it would be really nice if you could go snorkeling with this worthy company.)

Heavenly Sponge, Dysidea etherea  thanks to SnorkelStJ.com

   I have it on good authority that Mike Lindell is importing Heavenly sponge in bulk  from the
American Virgin Islands and including it in his patented fill, thus assuring that My Pillow provides the sweetest of dreams.  That he is busy exterminating this species in the wild is of no consequence to Mr. Lindell.  Being a staunch supporter of Donald Trump he does not believe that sponges are animals and the only conceivable reason God put them on this earth was to be used (as pillow stuffing) by man.

   Without knowing Pauline very well at all, I get the sense that, like me, she enjoys identifying animals by sight.  This method is the mainstay of birdwatching.  And I can assure you from first hand experience, it is a rare ornithologist that is not also a birdwatcher in the strict sense of the word.  This

means that while he might want to catch the little bird in his net and count and measure its feathers, he is perfectly happy to identify it by sight alone and repair to his life list where he checks it off over a tumbler of single malt.

Dr. De Maintenon.  Lookin' for sponge in all the wrong places

   Fishwatching is a lot like birdwatching.  Reef fish are large, colorful and there are not too many of them. If you can identify 200 species by sight, you are doing really well.  To be honest, I have not been around enough ichthyologists to know how many keep a life list, not to mention their preference for Highland dew.  I do know that they like to collect fish for examination.  And, of course, unlike a bird, which can be released after one measures its feathers, by the time you count the scales in the lateral line of a fish ( a common tool for identification) the fish is, to paraphrase John Cleese, an ex-fish, it is deceased, it is no more, on the way to the poki shack.

   But invertebrate watching is a totally different game.  All George W Bush jokes aside, there are brazillions of invertebrates.  (Ok.  I squeezed in one George Bush joke.  But the joke is on us...who ever thought we would remember W's tenure in the White House as the good old days?)  For example, the charming Ms. Fiene has photographs of a multitude of nudibranchs, probably hundreds, on her web site.  She may be able to identify most of them on the spot as she watches it crawl up a sponge encrusted column.  If so, at some level, this is not normal.  But in a good way.

   Never the less, she is still using visual identification of the whole, undisturbed animal.  Bird watching technique.

    As I told you in the previous blog, I sent a request for help to Marta De Maintenon, a professor of invertebrate zoology at UH Hilo.  Here is here response:

Hi Jeff,   Slugs are Tambja morosa and Goniobranchus vibratus (as you guessed). Sponges in Hawaii are not identifiable without spicule preps, and even with doing that half the time they can't be identified. This is in part because to the best of my knowledge there have
been few assessments of sponges from Hawaii, the last was a taxonomic paper published in 1951, and a key published in the 1970s that I find dubiously useful. BTW blue isn't unusual in sponges oddly enough.    M

Haliclona sp.  the Bright Violet Sponge

    If this is true, why does our good friend and mentor John Hoover have pictures of 32 species of sponges in his book?  I'm glad he does.  It gives me a place to start. Some of those sponges are pretty common and I feel like I can identify them in the field.  But Marta's comments should gives the  novice field biologist pause.  A spongeful of pause. 

   Surprisingly, when I read her note, I actually knew what she was talking about.  And I had known for at least two days.  When I researched the last blog, I ran across an article on the internet: Hawaiian Marine Sponges: Hilo Coastline by Jaaziel Garcia.  As it turns out, Sr. Garcia got his BS

The Bright violet Sponge as it appears in a margarita glass

from Hilo and Marta was his professor and this topic...our topic...was the subject of his senior thesis.  In his article he shows us at least fifteen species of sponge collected from near Hilo, both in their natural state and as a spicule prep.  I encourage you to read it and here is a link:

https://hawaiisponges.wordpress.com/

At the beginning of his article, Sr. Garcia gives us some real zoological philosophy.

    Marine sponges were once thought to be one of the simplest multicellular organisms of the metazoans. Instead, these organisms are actually highly complex and ecologically

Spicules from the Dirty Yellow Sponge

important to the reef ecosystem.

   That's heavy stuff for those of us that might blithely quote that study where you put a sponge in a Waring blender, pour it into a margarita glass and it re assembles itself.  Sr. Garcia would ask you to take that myth with a grain of salt.  And possibly some tequila and lemon.  Hold the spicules.

   In the event that the link doesn't work, I'm including a few pictures from his article so you get the idea of what a spicule prep looks like. I feel confident that with his name and topic you and Mr. Google can put your cursor on sponge blog (square pants?) in a trice. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the different sponges I see at Kawaihae, which is truly sponge heaven.  But any identifications I make are going to include one of those mental asterisks.

    Now, like a true ornithologist, I'm going to find a tumbler and work on my list.   

jeff

A Great Day at Kawaihae

    Kawaihae is a small town at the apex of the Great Kohala Bight, a name I coined yesterday as

The Great Kohala Bight

Sandra and I drove north to join our friends Peter and Marla for a very special snorkel.  Kohala includes the northern portion of leeward side of the Big Island.  From Waikoloa the coast bends north east,  inward to Kawaihae, at which point the coast reaches north and west, creating the bight.  The scooping of the shoreline means that there is less wave action at Kawaihae and perhaps this is the reason that in 1957 the Army Corps of Engineers began development of the only deep water port on the west side of Hawaii Island.  The town is dwarfed by the port facilities.  As one makes the turn north towards Hawi, he (or she) would be excused for failing to notice the town of Kawaihae, but its impossible to miss the three large breakwaters and the collection of Matson containers found at the port.

Peter and Marla point the way out into Kawaihae harbor.

    About two months ago, Peter told us of meeting a gentleman who trumpeted the snorkeling in Kawaihae harbor.  I had heard of  snorkeling at Kawaihae before, but never in such tantalizing details.  Among the promised critters were nudibranchs!  Since then we have been working towards the day when we could join our friends and search for sea slugs.

   The harbor, which is enclosed by a serious chain link fence topped with four strands of barbed wire,  is accessed through two gates on the makai side of the road.  Opposite the port there are a few
restaurants, a dive shop and an art gallery...Kawaihae is a short drive from the swanky resorts of the Mauna Kea and the Mauna Lani.  Once you pass through a gate, the actual port is still protected by a checkpoint.  Once through a  gate, avoid the checkpoint and the actual port and take the huge gravel road along the south side of the large lagoon.  About 50 yards before you would run into the breakwater, a boat launch appears on your right.  And just off shore one sees three large structures used by the military.  It doesn't look like much, but those structures and the myriad of cement columns that support them are the miracle of Kawaihae invertebrate heaven

   It was at this spot that we parked next to Peter and Marla.  As we donned our snorkeling gear, and

The boat launch and the first mooring structure.

Peter and Marla explained the plan,  Sandra nabbed a couple really good pictures with her cell phone.  The first shows our guides pointing out into the lagoon and the second shows the first of those three structures.  You can see that it rises about twelve feet above the water.  Use your imagination and picture a ship that needs a pier twelve feet above the water against which to moor.  Now ask yourself, how much does that ship draw?   Such was the engineering expertise of the corps, that a deep water ship can moor against those structures which at some points are a mere twenty feet from the breakwater.  Suffice it to say, the forest of cement columns upon which those structures rise go seriously deep.
 

   It was a piece of cake to slip off the side of the boat launch and into six feet of water.  The water,

Black cave sponge living next to the common vagabond sponge

shielded by the breakwaters, was calm and cool.  As we swam out, we encountered a variety of things suspended in the water including numerous tiny jellyfish.

    It was high tide, and when we got to the first structure.  Although the bottom of this mooring platform was less than two feet from the water surface.  It wasn't like you could swim under the platform and not be able to surface for air, but it sort of felt that way.  But swim under the platform we did, finding unusual invertebrates attached to the forest of cement pylons.

    Although we were looking for nudibranchs, the first thing I noticed were a variety of small sponges that were new to me.  Peter had warned us that by swimming under the platform we would encounter animals that would commonly be found in caves.  Yellow dactylospongia, a cave species, was common.  I failed to get a good picture of that one, but what about this  black cave sponge?  Who even knew it existed?

Snowflake coral with polyps extended and feeding

   Shortly after entering the space under the first platform, I encountered a snowflake coral.  This is a soft coral that grows like a group of gray winding sticks.  We were lucky, as the polyps on this coral were out and feeding.   Later I encountered a colony where this wasn't the case; it looked just like a bunch of gray sticks and I'm sure I wouldn't have given it a second thought.  In this case, though, Sandra and I got a chance to marvel at all the little polys foraging for plankton.



 
     By the time we made it to the second mooring structure, we still hadn't seen a nudibranch.  Peter and Marla, better divers than yours truly were swimming down the columns to a depth of about fifteen feet.  At last, Peter found a Gloomy Nudibranch  about twelve feet down.  we took turns

Gloomy Nudibranch, Kawaihae Harbor July 2018

diving for a picture.  On the day we saw at least three of this species.  It isn't terribly surprising that the pattern of spots is different from one individual to another.  This is also the case with the green geckos who live in our house.  There is a theory that geckos are territorial and that if you chase one out, it will do his best to sneak back in.  As a result, when she catches one, Sandra takes it for a walk and releases it a few houses down.  If we were really smart, we would photograph each gecko prior to transportation.  Then, as if he had been fingerprinted, we would know if he had made the trek back up the street and re-entered Casa Ono.

    But I digress.

    I was luckier with these Gloomy Gusses, er, nudibranchs, and I have more than one picture of which I am understandably proud.  I will start you off with this one and at the same time promise something even better later in the blog.

A baby blue sponge clinging to the column.  Kawaihae July 2018

    Our friend Marla is in love with nudibranchs.  for those of you who are less familiar, let me give
you a nudibranch primer.  They are often called sea slugs, even by the scientists who specialize in them.  And, like slugs, they are molluscs. They bear a pair of cephalic rhinophores that look like blunt antennae and are sensitive to smell.  They belong to the family opistobranchia, wich is Latin for gills behind; those fancy appendages on the tail end of a nudibranch are his gills.  Like terrestrial slugs, nudibranchs are hermaphroditic and exchange both male and female products of conception with their partner.  so there are no boy or girl nudibranchs.  In this way, the kingdom of nudibranchs is a bit like Sweden, where they have pronouns that would include a child of either sex. 

   Before I leave you here, I'm going to show off one more sponge, a baby blue number that as of yet I can not identify.  this particular beauty was clinging to a pylon near the water line.  I have written to our internet consultant, Marta De Maitenon, PhD, ace invertebrate zoologist, and perhaps she can name this handsome animal.

Milletseed Butterfly, Kawaihae, July 2018.  Hello!

   We swam around the end of a small breakwater and into an area that sported lots of dead coral and some fine remaining stands of pillar and plate coral.  In there, I saw my second milletseed butterflyfish on the day.  Isn't he cute?













      On the far breakwater, Marla found us many colonies of orange cup coral.  Despite their fleshy appearance, these colorful animals are true stony corals.  Peter and I engaged in a small unspoken contest to see who could get the best picture of these cooperative animals.  In my endeavor to

Orange Cup coral, Kawaihae July 2018

surpass the maestro, I cut my knee on the rocks.  All in the name of science.

















     On the way back to the platforms, i saw what was for me the second best fish of the day...a Disappearing Wrasse.  the water was a little cloudy, but I'm not sure that fully explains the distortion I found in all my pictures.  This was only the second disappearing wrasse I had seen in Hawaii.  When I called Peter over to look at it, he was nice enough, agreed that it was a disappearing wrasse and then

Disappearing Wrasse, Kawaihae 2018

went on to say that at diving depths it is hardly an uncommon fish.   Sort of like enjoying Alzheimer's Disease (because you always get to meet new people) snorkeling allows you to get excited about fish a scuba diver finds pedestrian.











       If I had any shame, I would wind things up.  But when we made it back to the platforms, Peter suddenly went nuts.  He found at least two more gloomy nudibranchs.  These guys were very near the surface and Sandra, who doesn't dive twelve feet even on a good day, was able to enjoy them.  Also in relatively shallow water, he found this other small species.  yellow with white pustules (I'm

Geniobranchus vibratus, the Trembling Nudibranch Kawaihae July 2018

quoting here) purple rhinophores and gray gills also lined with purple, this is Geniobranchus vibratus.  I'm not sure that this handsome little devil has a common name as accepted by the International Academy of Nudibranchologists, but that doesn't stop the boys at Wikipedia.  They call it the Trembling Nudibranch.  If you can have a quaking aspen, why not  trembling nudibranch? By any name, its a beauty, and unless I am mistaken its a life sea slug for Marla.




       While we were watching the trembling nudibranch, a group of boys had escaped the Kawaihae intermdiate school and occupied the second mooring platform.  From that dizzying height, they were leaping into the water, safe in the knowledge that the Corps of Engineers was maintaining a substantial depth into which they could plunge with impunity.  Sort of like the way Donald Trump plunges into a Playboy centerfold.  But with any luck at all, with less impunity in the long run.

Bombs over Stormy Daniel's, as we say at Kawaihae Intermediate.

    Presidential politics aside, as I was attempting to get the perfect shot on quaking sea slug, I was subjected to a series of loud splashes, sort of like a depth charge going off next door.  Coulda, shoulda, woulda been a bit distracting, but us wild life photographers have a keen sense of concentration when our rhinophores smell a really good shot in the making.





    I know I should be letting you go, but I have one more fish story.  About five years ago I was swimming with my older son in the lagoon at the Hilton Hotel at Waikoloa.  There is every reason to believe that this pond is not stocked; fish are washed over the breakwater.  Every now and then we see something remarkable there and, because it is in theory a wild fish, I feel it can be counted.  But in the back of my mind, that species retains an asterisk.  On that day, Charles and I saw an immature sailfin tang.

Juvenile Sailfin Tang, Kawaihae July 2018

  It was about four inches top to bottom, with a strange fin arrangement, it was in the awkward teenager phase.  However, its dramatic vertical stripes, golden, black and silver gave it away as a developing sailfin tang.  We corroborated our sighting in the older copy of Hoover and I never saw another.  Until yesterday.

   As I swam past the first mooring structure, I saw a tiny edition of the juvenile sailfin tang among the coral growing on the rip rap..  He was as shiny as a silver dollar and about the same size.  Probably an inch and a half.  And this diamond-shaped baby was delightfully cooperative.  I got several good shots and I hope you enjoy this one.

    I realize that this was a marathon blog.  In my defense, its summer,so the water isn't at all cold.  As a result we swam for the better part of two hours.  And, as you can see, we were snorkeling in a location that has a lot to offer.
And, as promised, I'm leaving you with one more picture of the not so gloomy nudibranch which should be ample reward for your persistance.

jeff

 Gloomy Nudibranch imitating a peacock.

 

The O'Reilly Ohana Family Reunion

    When I arrived at Kahalu'u for my swim this afternoon, a teeming mob had taken over the shelter.  It is far from unexpected that a party, a baby luau for example, might be taking place in this popular civic structure, but this was SRO.  I would guess that 150 souls were crammed onto the picnic tables. 

Lisa and Maggie O'Reilly at the Kahalu'u Shelter.

I hadn't seen so many people crowded into that shelter since our encounter with the Hortonville (Wisconsin) Band two years ago. 

   As I was changing into my snorkeling outfit, a master of ceremonies clanked two bottles together to gain the crowd's attention.   After a few words of welcome, he noted that there was still a chance to sign up for the upcoming bingo game. Having taken care of the gaming, he plunged right ahead, noting that lunch the following day was at Teshima's ( a tiny Japanese restaurant in nearby Kainaliu).  One could arrive at 11, he intoned, but lunch wasn't until noon.  Teshima's might seat thirty five hungry participants, so getting there early might be a good idea.

Teshima's Braces for the O'Reilly Ohana

    Finally, dinner tomorrow night was going to be at the condominium.  He didn't say which condominium...presumably the multitude knew where they were staying.  By this point, though, I was hoping he would name the place so I would know what to avoid.  Dinner would start at 5 and end at 7, he said, because it would be dark by then and the eating area at the condo didn't have lights.  He went on to say that if you were still dining at that late hour, you might have to finish up by the light of your cell phone in the dark.

   Before I headed to the water, I asked one of the middle aged white ladies sitting near the danger tape, that separated me from the festivities, just what organization they were with.  "This is the O'Reilly Ohana Family Reunion." she told me, as she contemplated a mound of mac salad and a bratwurst remaining on her plate.

    I delayed my swim another moment to look the group over.  There were a couple guys who looked like they might be part of the Hawaiian mix...Japanese, Chinese, dirty knees and Hawaiian, with some Portuguese thrown in for good measure.  But most of the people, including my new friend who spoke with a mid-western twang, looked very Caucasian.

    As it turns out, the majority of the O'Reilly Ohana is from Springfield, Illinois.  The idea for this ohana got started when a boy from Hilo, recently graduated in engineering from UCLA, took a job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.  Soon he was able to hook up his brother with a job at the plant.  This little brother wasn't much of an engineer, but he was a pretty good second baseman.  He worked at the plant when time allowed and played  infield for

A quick trip from AA Springfield to the Cardinals

the Isotopes, the minor league team sponsored in part by the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.  And remember, it's not very far from Springfield to Busch Stadium.  Right Kolten Wong?

   While the isotopes are the AA affiliate of the Cards, its not so clear if there is a connection between Budweiser and Duff Beer, the Springfield entry in the beer business and a co-sponsor of the Isotopes.

    As one might suspect, Springfield is not rife with Hawaiian girls.  Or Japanese or Chinese girls, for that matter.  Soon the brothers were dating a couple sisters who worked for the aforementioned Duff Brewery.   They were not LaVerne and Shirley, but rather Lisa and Maggie O'Reilly.  One thing lead to another, what with a large extended family of Irish uncles, grandparents and nieces.  This was a clan in need of a tropical paradise to call a second home, and the O'Reilly Ohana Family Reunion was born.  Apparently they have been making an annual pilgrimage to Kona for some time; how, in my many years of residence, I have failed to run into them is a bit of a puzzle.

   So here they were, overpopulating K Bay.  As I walked around the shelter a small school bus was disgorging yet another dozen O'Reillys.  Better break out another case of that mac salad. Lucky for me, from the back of the shelter it wasn't very far to the water.

 

Canthigastor jacator, the Hawaiian Spotted Toby Kahalu'u July 2017

    Today the water was warm.  And for the most part cloudy.  But there were some spots where it cleared out and I was able to take advantage with a couple pretty good efforts with the new camera, which is still struggling to earn its place in the hearts here at the blog.

   The first shot was of one of our favorite endemics,Canthigaster jacator.   The current common name of this fish, Hawaiian spotted toby,  just doesn't do it justice, so I prefer the scientific nom de fish. Only rarely do I find one that is as cooperative as this guy.  Our mentor John Hoover states that the name jacator means boaster.  I've always imagined that it refers to a jester. A man who may not be large but projects intelligence and wit.  Somehow this little puffer always brings a smile

    Just a little later I found one of my favorite fish, the juvenile of the freckle faced hawkfish,  currently named the blackside hawkfish.  This was easily the largest individual of this green capped juvenile that I have seen.  And you will notice that he is already developing a crop of freckles.  As he ages, that lime green will change to cornflower blue.

Got Freckles?   A Blackside Hawkfish juvenile at Kahalu'u July 2018

    I saw two more young fish as I circled the bay.  The first was a blue striped juvenile of the Hawaiian cleaner wrasse.  He was cleaning a yellow tang and it would have made a great picture, but I wasn't quick enough.  The  yellow tang swam away and the baby cleaner wrasse, after giving me the fish eye, disappeared under his coral head.  As you can see, I managed a picture of this combination just a few months

Yellow Tang with juvenile cleaner wrasse.  Kahalu'u March 2018

ago.  I'm including it here so you can enjoy it again.

The second was a tiny yellow tailed coris; his raiment was that of a mature
adult, a royal blue flank with bright turquoise spots and a yellow tail.  She was still small enough that one had a right to hope for some intermediate coloring, a fading white stripe and maybe some red.   

Yellowtail Coris Transitional Phase, Kahalu'u 2012

Once again I wasn't quick enough for the picture.  Here again, I am including a picture from the past so you don't have to refer to your favorite search engine for a photo.

   As I swam ashore I could hear the lifeguard warning the O'Reilly Ohana (by name) to swim with caution and respect the coral and the turtles.  I can not recall any previous instance where the lifeguard singled out a group over her loud speaker.  Apparently, one can never be too careful with a couple hundred O'Reillys on the loose.

jeff 

In a word, the fishwatching in Springfield is "Excellent."

Fishwatching, the World Cup and Vladimir Putin

   For the last few weeks our family, scattered across the western United States, has been watching the World Cup.  If you are not among the cognoscenti, this is the world championships of soccer played

as a tournament once every four years.  Usually it is played in a traditional soccer playing country.  So venal are the muckety mucks of FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, that this world cup is being played in the former Soviet Union and the one four years hence is scheduled for Qatar.

   Bribery in international sports aside, the fact that the World Cup is being played in Russia is significant, in that the games, as seen live here in Hawaii, are broadcast at 2, 4 and 8 AM.  Suffice it to say, this has had an effect on many of my other activities, including fish watching. 

   However, to a large extent the World Cup has coincided with really good surfing conditions here on the Kona coast.  So while I may not be able to get to the beach until 10 AM, on any given day the waves have been too high to make snorkeling much fun.

Honu Avec Flash

 A few days ago, catching a modest break in the high surf,  I made it to the pier for some snorkeling.
This coincided with Russia's game against one of the tournament favorites, Spain.  I wasn't the only one who thought the Spanish side had been drugged.  The Spaniards wandered around the pitch like zombies, albeit the un-dead, in colorful shirts and short pants.  Being the best players in the world, they were able to take the game into overtime.  Late in the overtime there was an obvious foul that should have resulted in a game winning penalty kick, ending the Russian run in the tournament.  The referee stopped play, hemmed and hawed, and went to the replay monitor.  On good authority, I report that he did not see a replay.  Instead there was a personal note from Vladimir Putin:  We have the names and addresses of your entire family! No penalty was awarded and Russia went on to win in a shoot out.

     I got down to the pier around 10:30.   It was a bright sunny day and the water was only moderately

Is this coral growing on a sponge?

cloudy.  There weren't a lot of unusual fish, but on the way out I encountered a turtle cruising by the penultimate swim buoy.  I turned around and swam with him for a bit, making sure not to get too close.  And I nabbed a couple pictures, one of which you see here. 

   Wouldn't it be great if you could blame all your personal failures on a bogeyman like Vladimir Putin?  Over the reef in front of Hulihee's Palace I spotted a bigeye, in the open, about 15 feet down.  I dove him and got several reasonable shots.  Later I discovered that the camera was set on flash for both these pictures and those of our friendly honu.  As the flash dramatically accentuates the effect of the particles in the water, these pictures are not what one might hope for.  And I can't find a way to blame anyone else. Черт!

   On the way in, I saw this sponge which seems to be home to small colonies of coral.  Sponges being transient organisms, this doesn't seem like such a good choice on the part of the coral.  But maybe I am mistaken.  Or maybe its a really good decision and I'm not clever enough to appreciate it.  Although the internet suggests that sponges are bad for coral reefs

Hrvatska!

in the Caribbean, it otherwise doesn't weigh in on this puzzling situation.

    Like the high surf, the soccer tournament rolled on, and yesterday Russia played Croatia in a quarterfinal match.   It is a curiosity of this World Cup that teams like Croatia and Belgium, which might not roll off your tongue as you innumerate traditional soccer powers, have become the best in the world.  Real soccer fans were aware of this but parvenus like myself were taken by surprise.  

   This was a later game, starting at 8 AM here in Hawaii.  As we watched the game unfold, my brother, (glued to his television in a beach community north of Seattle) and I exchanged text messages.  Early on we traded thoughts on the costumes the Croatian fans were

The Croatian ladies have the best hats!

wearing.  I wanted one of those red checked shirts and Chuck said I should look in the picnic department at Wal-mart.  to which i replied, "They have Wal-marts in Zagreb?"  

   As the game progressed, I became disillusioned.  Chuck thought it was a great game and I thought the Croatians were playing just hard enough to keep the game interesting, while leaving an opening for a Russian win.  From my standpoint, it seemed perfectly possible that if Vlad could bribe the FIFA officials, he could pay off the Croatian team.  The game went into overtime and I put on my swimsuit and started rounding up my snorkeling equipment.  

    Parking in the free lot by the pier was a piece of cake.  Among other things, the availability of parking has been a positive side effect of the vog, which has decreased tourism and sent many sometimes residents scampering back to the mainland.          

    As I was unbuckling my seatbelt I got a final text from Chuck,  "Freedom Reigns!" ...celebrating the  Croatian shootout victory.  My reply was, "I guess Putin forgot to put in an extra ruble for the shootout."  And then it was time to swim.

Hydras coated with green algae.  A good thing or a bad thing?

   Unlike a few days earlier, this late morning was studded with dark clouds and waves crashing against the seawall, splashing over onto Alii Drive.  Ever intrepid, I made my way in through the surf as it ripped around the Ironman entrance.  I had a nice swim through very cloudy water.  As I returned towards the pier, the tender for the Nautilus submarine dropped its moorings, leaving the pier available for those of us who like our fish wet.    It is a curiosity that on days when there is otherwise no visibility, the water right next to the pier may be clear.  On this day it was not entirely without suspended particles, but if I got close I was actually able to take a couple pictures.  

    Over the years we have enjoyed small colonies of hydras in the area by the pier.  I found them on this day, but something was amiss.  If you look carefully at the picture, I believe you will agree that these hydras are coated with algae.  Having never seen this before, my initial inclination was that this can not be a good thing.  Back at the ranch, I have found articles

Juvenile Yellow Tang Kailua Pier July 2018

stating that in some species, green algae is symbiotic with the hydras, providing them with sugars and acids that they can not make themselves.  To my inexperienced eye, this still does not look good.

   I saw a school of sandlances, those tiny blue fish a bit smaller than a hand rolled cigarette.  And we got a couple pictures of red pencil urchins and sea cucumbers clinging to the pier.  Just off the pier I ran into an immature yellow tang.  Once one is aware of this interesting immature, he is sure to find one in the summer.  With their fins fixed in the extended position they are really cute.    A bit further out I reconnoitered with the menpachi.  I am not a big fan of the Department of Homeland Security, but in fencing in the embarkation area for cruise ship tenders, they have inadvertently created a small refuge for fish that would otherwise fall victim to anglers.  

   Finally it was time to head in.  As I hit the floating line, under which I would need to swim

Red Pencil Sea Urchin  Kailua Pier July 2018

to return to the designated swim area, it started to rain.  I sort of like the rain; when your head is in the water it creates a pleasant pattering.  And so I swam around a bit more looking at the fish in the shallows and enjoying the auditory aspect of the shower.  It took a while for me to appreciate that it was raining pretty hard.

   As I started to get out, I encountered three teenage girls with colorful tubes.  There was a set coming in, so I hung with them until things settled down.  One of the girls said, "You must think we're crazy."  And I thought to myself, "Wouldn't that be the pot calling the kettle back?"  

Dancing.  And Swimming in the Rain.

   Eventually the waves subsided, I made my way to shore and recovered my clothes.  Suffice it to say, everything was soaked.  After showering, I toweled off with my wet towel and put on my wet University of Hawaii T shirt.  Perfect.

Yeah.  Razors.  That's the ticket!

   Before going home I repaired to Long's Drugs to stock up on necessary items.  I needed...razors.  Yeah.  That's the ticket.  Razors.   Me and the razors found a jovial checker.  I told her my tale of the wet towel after swimming and she said, " I've got one better than that.  This morning there was a cute couple in here and they were headed to the beach.  I could see the girls swimsuit under her cover up.  It turns out that they were from Hilo and they came to the Kona side to get out of the rain for a day."  Whoops.

   Well, that's life on the beach.  Watch out for those rain clouds  not to mention them Ruskies.