Prince Kahooey Day

You got some 'splainin' to do!

    Last night I received a call from that noted shark hunter, Gail DeLuke.  She and Martin will be arriving to house exchange in a month or so and with that in mind she was interested in any changes to the physical plant and routine at Casa Ono.  However, the real reason she called was to pester

me about writing another blog and to find out if the ocean had warmed up.  To borrow a phrase from Ricky Ricardo, I had some 'splainin' to do.

    Rushing to my defense, I told her about the wicked dermatologist, the resections and the 5 flourouracil treatment.  As it turns out, Martin has gone through the 5 FU treatment, so they knew all about it.  For those of you who don't have skin cancers, this involves putting a chemotherapeutic ointment on your skin twice a day for two weeks and staying out of the sun for an additional two weeks.  I lasted five days

Prince Jonah Kuhio, the only royal representative

before deciding that the routine at Casa Ono was totally inconsistent with staying out of the sun for a month.  What was the dermatologist thinking?  So unlike Martin DeLuke, I have not completed a 5FU treatment.  In truth, I can not foresee a situation where I can spend four weeks in the shade.

    I also told Gail that between getting my skin cancers whacked off and starting the 5FU, I did go swimming.  I snorkeled the late Paul Allen's Reef, saw the coral croucher but little else, and decided that there just wasn't a blog in there.  She let me off the hook with a promise to try again ...soon.

The 45th President comes to the luau as the honored guest

   Which brings us to today, Prince Kuhio Day.  Starting in 1903, Prince Kuhio served as the representative of the Territory of Hawaii  to the U.S. House of Representatives and is the only person to serve in that body who was born as royalty.  He appears to have been substantially less dissolute than many of the royal males who preceded him.  That alone may be reason enough to celebrate his life.  In 1920 he introduced a bill in Congress to admit Hawaii as a state.  Curiously, latter day Hawaiians  blame the notion of statehood entirely on the white man.

    As an aside, I would point out that while Donald trump is a royal pain in the ass, he is not a representative.

   At any rate, the state celebrated both Monday and Tuesday as holidays, in much the same way many people take off the Friday after Thanksgiving, which the Hawaiians get as well.  For my part, I celebrated by allowing Sandra to take me swimming.   My sweetie is more than a little Hawaiian challenged and she has dubbed this holiday Prince Kahooey Day.  To be fair, there are way too many Hs and Ks in Hawaiian.  Sandra dropped me off at the pier and then headed to Costco where she 
would purchase a roast suckling pig for the Kahooey Day Luau to be held later in the afternoon.  

   While Sandra shopped, I went swimming.  Thus I can assure Ms. DeLuke that the water is not warm yet.  It was fairly clear, though, considering that it rained heavily last night.  Sadly, for the most part the clarity went begging; there was a prevailing paucity of friends with fins.  From the photographic point of view, I was reduced to taking a picture of a new swim buoy that has appeared about twenty yards beyond the last regulation marker.  This one says one third mile buoy and if one positions himself just right, he can get the buoy, the palace and the church steeple all in one delicious frame.  I'm not sure who placed this buoy and what might be the meaning of the cat.  Most cats that I know can not swim a third of a mile.

    On the way back in, swimming what we now know to be one sixth of a mile (does that have something to do with Pi?) I struck pay dirt.  In the shallows not far from the malecon I spotted a medium sized yellow fish that was not a yellow tang.  A bit of investigation revealed it to be an

Red Shouldered Tang, Adolescent  Kailua Pier March 2019

adolescent red shouldered tang.  Considering how common red shouldered tangs are in our protected bays, it is surprising how seldom we see their keikis.  The babies, which are more of an elongated oval are somewhat more common than these adolescents.  As you can see, at this age he has a very distinctive shape and the red shoulder mark is clearly visible.  If one looks carefully, one can see the beginnings of the two tone, darker in the trailing half, that this fish will wear proudly as an adult.  This fish was determined to lead me on a merry chase, dodging among the coral rubble.  Hopefully you will appreciate the fruits of this near drowning experience.

    At the suggestion of my proof reader, I am including a picture of the two toned adult red shoulder tang.  As this fish is so common, I rarely take her picture.  This one we found in a file from nine years back.  Paradoxically, in my files there are plenty of pictures of adolescents, even though I have seen less than a handful.

    Back in the warm car, Sandra told me that she had been successful.  The nice people from Kirkland, Wa sold her three dozen veggie burgers for a paltry eleven clams.  It is our plan to serve them in brown gravy and pretend that they are egg foo young.  Now what could be more Hawaiian than that?

    With any luck, while she is house exchanging, that devil may care shark hunter will consume a few of the veggie burgers.  It will be like veggie burger baksish on credit, the  next time I can't find material for a blog.

jeff

Editors note:  After the publication of the last blog we received a note from that world famous

Red Shouldered Tang Adult  2010 Kahalu'u

carcinologist, Bob Hillis.  He stated that as the lobster shell in two parts was essentially whole, this was most likely the result of a lobster molting.  If someone had caught and eaten the lobster, he said, the shell would have been crushed into tiny parts.  He went on to say that God arranged for the joint between the carapace and tail to weaken at this critical moment, enabling the disrobing crustacean to slip more easily from his shell.  Hence, the shell was tucked under our windshield wiper in two parts, as found by the lobster tucker.  Rather than calling this vandalism, Bob thinks that the tucking was done by some professorial type who wished to augment our knowledge of spiny lobster biology.  Further  (I don't think he was kidding about this, but they don't call me Mr. Gullible for nothing) he said we should have taken a good whiff of the shell, as a recently molted lobster has a distinctive aroma due to a chemical the lobster excretes to aid in the process.  Perhaps like a cross between a Crisco and WD 40.  Next time we will give it the sniff test.

jeff

Adios.