Netherlands 2 - Italy 0 or A Sunny Morning at Kahalu'u

    Its funny how things work out.  Yesterday I was going to waste the better part of the day watching young women play soccer halfway around the world in France.  Strange man that I am, I was looking forward to this.

     I had become a fan of the team from the Netherlands while our car was being repaired.  Two hours

of forced leisure had been imposed upon me, so I made may way a few blocks to Daylight Mind Coffee, which happily provides a decent cuppa  joe and a killer view of Kailua Kona.  Eschewing the view, I had plugged both my phone and tablet into a surger and proceeded to waste those two hours texting my friends and watching the Netherlands beat Japan in a squeaker.  The Dutch pulled ahead in the 89th minute on a penalty kick.  Netherlands 2 - Japan 1.  I really got behind the Dutch girls so, with a little help from my friend Paul Simon, I wrote them a bit of a fight song:

   She's a Dutch girl, she doesn't try to hide it
   She's got Orange on the soles of her shoes,
   She's a Dutch girl, She used to play for Leiden,
   Now she's in the World Cup with nothin' to lose.
   Tanana. Tanana.  She's got orange on the soles of her shoes.

   As I was settling in beside the television, Sandra was preparing her escape; she was off to the church for a class in making leis.  But hold the presses!  FS 1 did not have the soccer game.  I pulled

Longnose Butterfly and Yellow Tang.  Amarillo By Morning.

out my phone and asked Google about Netherlands - Italy.  In Mountainview, Ca. at Google Headquarters there is a lady who, much like the Great Oz, sits on a stool behind a curtain and, among her many other duties, she keeps track of the starting time of sporting events and translates them into Hawaii Time.  If one has messed up and the event has already occurred, she provides the final score.  In this instance she stated, Netherlands 2 - Italy 1.

    Suddenly, I had the morning free.  It took me only a few minutes to change into my swimsuit and throw my snorkel and camera into the mesh bag, Then we were off to Kahalu'u, with a quick stop at the Kona Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity la dee doo dah.

   It was actually a glorious morning, the sky washed to a clear blue, and I should have been ashamed to think that I was going to waste it in front of the TV.  Luckily I have no pride.

   The water was warm and I set off with a fine sense of optimism.  Sandra and I had gone to the City of Refuge with our friends Peter and Marla just two days earlier and had seen nothing of merit.  I was

Gosline's Sharpnose Blenny  Deos the TG 5 rock or what?

sure that the welcoming waters of K Bay would be more productive.  At the start, there were not a lot of fish, but the ones that were present were cooperative, sort of languid as they cruised leisurely along on this Saturday morning.

   At this juncture you will be treated to a bit of a slide show.  I didn't see anything world shaking or have any scientific epiphanies, but I did get a few shots that may amuse you.  The lovely palenose parrotfish speaks for herself and the longnose butterfly and yellow tang make a cute pair.  Especially if you are partial to the color yellow. Sadly, in spite of the pretty fish, these pictures do a fair job of highlighting the state of the coral in this once magnificent bay.

   The camera and I did pull off one coup.  In a small pond I found a Gosline's fanged blenny.  These little wiggle worms make their living by imitating cleaner wrasses and nipping scales off unsuspecting customers. They are about the size of those stubby pencils they give you to keep score when you play miniature golf.  Maybe not quite that big around.  You know...tiny.  In such an instance, all you can do is point the camera in the right direction and hope that it discerns what it is that you want it to focus upon.  As you can see, the TG 5 picked off the blenny magnificently.  Do you like those luxurious fins?  In real life with only your eyes, you will never see the fins.

The adolescent Freckle faced hawk gives yours truly the fish eye.

    Shortly after my blenny encounter I ran into one of my favorite fish, the juvenile of the freckle faced hawkfish.  So different is this keiki from his parents, that I have in the past given him a different name, Forster's Hawkfish, after the species name, P. forsteri.  This fellow,who was attempting to hide under a ledge, was larger than any other I had seen before.  As you can see, his chartreuse cap is fading and his freckles are becoming larger and darker.  Does he need to see my dermatologist?  I took the picture using a fill in flash, not appreciating that there was a bit of sediment between me and my subject.  I hope you are able to ignore the illuminated specks and enjoy this adolescent hawk.

   I was watching a pretty pink tailed triggerfish when a large peppered moray broke cover.  When one thinks about moray eels that are active during the day, one tends to think of the whitemouth moray.  This large eel may not be quite so common as the whitemouth, but especially at the Kailua pier, he has quite a diurnal presence.  This individual was six feet long and, when he flexed, as big around as my thigh.  He swam and

Big, bad peppered moray cruises the coral in K Bay.

swam, working through and around what was left of the coral.  I followed him for almost two minutes.

    Over by the Rescue Shelter I found a pair of Canthigaster jacator, our cute little Hawaiian puffer.  They made a cute couple but I couldn't get them to pose together in the open.

    The swim was winding down, but before I got out I was treated to a show by a group of yellow tail coris.  There were two large males and a number of females.  Here I am including a picture of the latter. She is twisted in such away as to call attention to the deep orange base of her pectoral fin.  This is seldom displayed in this way and gives a pretty accent to her flank.

    After I showered and changed, I sat in the shelter and enjoyed the cool morning breeze.  While I was checking out the pictures on the camera, I struck up a conversation with a young couple who were preparing to go snorkeling. They were about thirty and on a single week trip to Hawaii from New Zealand.  The guy was handsome as a movie star and his wife was equally attractive.  She

Yellowtail Coris female, The orange pectorals accent her flank.

reminded me a bit of Carli Lloyd, one of the stars of the U.S. women's team.  For being so attractive, Carli is a real beast.  A big, strong girl that scores a lot of goals for the stars and stripes, she is married to professional golfer.  Now I ask you, what do you get when you mate an aggressive striker with a golfer?  A hockey player?  I just hope that Carli and her husband are happy.

   The kids from Kiwi-land seemed to be happy.  They took turns spraying each other with sun screen then headed into K bay.  I'm sure they saw some good fish.  Or barring that, at least had some fun in the warm water.

    By the way, our mechanic could not pinpoint the noise in the Honda.  He told me to come back when it got worse.  Sandra made a beautiful lei from plumeria and pua keni keni. I'm hoping she wears it to church. And the Dutch girls play Sweden on Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern Time in Lyon.  That should make it 8 PM in France and 9 AM in Hawaii.  If you want to know when you should tune in, just ask the lady behind the curtain.

jeff

   

Carli Lloyd.  The U.S. plays England on Tuesday in Lyon.  See you there.