Snorkeling With Bart O'Kavanaugh

   This week the blog comes to you from the land of Bart O'Kavanaugh, where up is down, things go

Bart O'Kavanaugh.  I think I'm going to ralph.

sideways and, when all else fails, you can have another beer.  Beer is a judicial beverage.  I like beer.   So does Bart.

  A couple days ago I went snorkeling down at the pier.  the giant cruise ship that goes back and forth between Vancouver and Sydney was anchored off shore and there was a veritable mob on the mean streets of Kailua.

     While I was getting ready, I had a nice conversation with a young man who had just completed a training swim.  He was from So Cal, down near Oceanside and his uncle lives here in Kailua.  As you might guess, he was here preparing for the Ironman.  And yes, we need to be more careful out on the highways and byways, for the Ironmen are zipping hither and thither on their bicycles.  Best to forego that judicial beverage if you're going to drive in Kona this week.

A trio of juvenile moorish idols, Kailua Bay September 2018

     Considering how many people were hanging around the pier, there were relatively few in the water.  The water was pleasant, in the mid eighties, and not all that cloudy considering that there has
been some pretty good surfing conditions over the last few days.  Not to mention several days of rain.  

    On the way out I saw nothing, but did manage to run into the only other snorkeler in the bay.  Luckily, neither of us was a belligerent swimmer.  We shook hands and promised to meet out at the old airport later in the day where the 100 Keg or Bust event was being hosted by Mark Judge.   What an appropriate name for the purveyor of judicial beverages.  N'est pas?

A flowery flounder regards us with his widely spaced peepers.  Kailua 2018

     Shortly after that friendly collision, I saw a large, pale flatfish.  Despite its lack of remarkable pattern, it was probably a flowery flounder.  to paraphrase John Lennon, "Its all in the eyes, you know."  This guy has widely spaced eyes to the left of his mouth, which, I am sad to say (because I always want it to be a rare fish) is pretty much the end of the story.  Regardless, there is something compelling about these strange, compressed fish who fly across the sand like Alladin's magic carpet.

    Its almost enough to get one humming the eponymous rock classic by Steppenwolf, which I am told was on the sound track of the 100 Keg spectacular out at the Old Airport

    Small groups of juvenile Moorish Idol were in residence and virtually begged to have their picture taken.  And then, close in, I discovered a juvenile barred filefish and a lagoon triggerfish messing with something under a coral.  The spotted juvenile filefish is a late summer specialty.   Ordinarily he

A juvenile (17 perhaps) filefish and a Lagoon Trigger looking for beer.

is quite shy and I don't think I have ever seen him working with another fish ... file, trigger or otherwise.   Eventually the three of us tired of this rendezvous and went our separate ways, the fish to gnaw on a hunk of coral and I, your candidate of choice, in search of a beer.  Did I mention that I like beer?

   Apres swim I was showering with a young, tall gentleman from Australia.  In fact,  he was dousing his children as well as himself.  I asked if he was here for the Ironman and he replied no.  He was off the cruise ship.  Over the next minute or so he revealed that the family of four had flown to LA, gone to Disneyland etc., flown to Vancouver and boarded the ship the very next day.  They were going to disembark a couple days hence and fly home to Sydney from HNL.  Such a family man was this bloke that he called this pilgrimage a holiday.

Photo courtesy of Chuck Hill the Younger.  Preposterous!

    As a bit of a post script, I would like to bring your attention to a photo that found its way into the blog's in-box.  It appears to have been taken on the slopes of Mauna Kea within the last month. When I showed it to Sarah Sanders, she pronounced it preposterous.  But, as Sarah knows, presumably better than most, truth is in the eye of beholder.

jeff