Snorkeling with Weights and the Gulf Fritillary

    For about the last week or so I have added a weight belt to my standard snorkeling equipment and I've been swimming with four pounds of modestly expensive lead.  The expense might surprise you, as it did me.  A weight belt and two 2 pound weights costs about as much as a reasonably good snorkel mask.

The arc eye hawkfish bemoans the loss of his pal the croucher.

    The change was driven by Hai and his fantastic nudibranch pictures; clearly his technique was improved with weights..  He lead the charge (pun intended) and now Peter and Marla are wearing weights, too.  Just sign on to onebreathkohala and you will see Peter's beautiful pictures. 

    My first day with the extra weight was at the the Paul Allen side of the pier.  It was a rough day, so it was hard to say if the extra weight had any beneficial effect.  The best fish was a super male five stripe wrasse.  He was in the turbulent water just outside the little jetty.  Everything was moving and the water was full of debris, so although I tried, I didn't get much of a picture. 

   I made it out to the coral head where the croucher resides.  There was quite a bit of surge, but I dove down and held on while the waves swept over me.  Although I have never ridden a mechanical bull, the degree of tossing back and forth must have been about the same.  I did not find the crouchers: I'm going to wait until I have one more shot before declaring their run on this coral head at an end.  Perhaps as a benefit of the weights, I was able to nab the picture you see of an arc eye hawkfish giving me the fish eye from inside the cauliflower coral.

The free floating, slightly cubist, elegant hermit crab.  Makes me want to sing My Way

    Our second outing with the lead was up to Mahukona.  We met our friends and Peter showed us his new stake out for the rock damsel.  You will recall this obscure fish, which looks somewhat like a Pacific Gregory with three light vertical stripes.  It lives in the surge zone.  This small family can be found in the boulders very near the south end of pier as it faces the ocean.  We had several good looks, but although the water was clear, the movement was extreme and the fish is furtive to the max.

   In the same area,   I spied a small triton shell about eight feet down.  With the added weight I was able to get down and snag it with ease.  Inside was a small elegant hermit crab.  He was a brave little fellow, coming all the way out of his shell and nipping at my glove with his claws.  Peter and I passed this treasure back and forth, after which I nabbed  a handful of pictures while holding the shell and crab in my gloved hand.   Two of the five pictures were in focus.  I took the best and photo shopped out the glove, recreating a little bit of shell in the

The Stocky Hawkfish and Peter's crevasse.  "Maybe he'll crash this time."

process. Some of the water looks a little cubist and the crab seems to be floating in mid-air (or water).  Nevertheless, I think its a pretty interesting result.

   The second part of this excursion involved swimming across the bay to the spot where Peter sees the gargantuan blenny.  His stake out for this fish is a lava crevice about three feet deep surrounded by wave swept rock festooned with rotten, dying coral.  Suffice it to say, this fish, too, lives in the surge zone.  On this moderately rough day we were asked to sweep with the surge, back and forth over the crevice, while fending off the projecting rocks and coral with our gloved hand and look into the depths for a glimpse of the gargantuan blenny.   We didn't see the gargantuan blenny, a large black blenny with shiny blue spots, but there was a stocky hawkfish perched on the edge of the crevasse who took some pleasure in watching me swoop back and forth, all the while, like a spectator at the Indy 500, hoping for a spectacular crash.

   Later in our swim I saw a snowflake moray eel in about twenty feet.  With the weights I was able to dive deeper and stay down with ease.  Swimming back to the surface was not difficult, but if one chose not to swim up, he would not be drawn up like a bubble.

 So there you have it...a choice.


  Marla keeps a wonderful garden and she gave us a bunch of calamondin.  Although they are the size of tangerines, they look more like small oranges.  They are quite juicy.  The juice tastes slightly of orange, but the over riding characteristic is its  high acidity.  I found it palatable when the juice of half of one small fruit was diluted in six ounces of water and sweetened with half a packet of splenda.  This advice will probably not help you unless you are friends with Marla.  I've never seen this fruit anywhere else and I suppose you can guess why.  On the other hand, didn't Sandra take a delightful picture of the calalmondin with the purple flowers that grow in our yard? 

    We don't know the name of those flowers, which I have been able to propagate with cuttings.  As a result, we have a bunch of them.  If you would like to drop by and take a cutting you are more than welcome. We might even give you a calalmondin cooler.   Better yet, if you know the name of those lovely Husky colored flowers, don't keep it a

secret.  If you can give us the name we might send you a calamondin cooler.

    First prize, a calamondin cooler.  Second prize, two calamondin coolers,

   While I was enjoying my calamondin cooler, I finished putting the mod podge on my rendition of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly.  It took a lot of work, but I like the result.  Now we just have to catch up with Denise and secure a show at the library.

Jeff

The Gulf Fritillary ala Jeff