this morning. The line break is down and my drivel is dribbling off into the sunset.
The pictures won't wrap around. It being Christmas, whoever is supposed to care
about these things is out drinking egg nog. In spite of all this, if you bear with me,
you still might enjoy the story.
to Christmas Eve. Although this may seem as if we abandoned the raison d'etre of the
occasion, we had a very good excuse. Obligations for Christmas Day were mounting
up. and with the general absence of adult Christmas wrasses in the immediate vicinity,
we felt that to be successful, we needed to go somewhere else. We chose Mahukona,
the place we are familiar with, that seems to have the best fish, as the location for our
hunt. Initially thought that we could make it to Mahu and back, shower, change and
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| Mahukona, the Accord and Maui rising out of the cloud bank |
get to a Christmas potluck by 12:30. My own little Magus (the singular, I believe, of magi)
pointed out that this was idiocy. And so, with due respect to the calendar and St.
Nicholas, we moved the official day of the search to Christmas Eve.
It always strikes me as a little crazy to designate the morning of the 24th as eve.
Shouldn't eve refer to evening? Like the sun is going down, Mary and Joseph are looking
for a place to stay for the night, the sleigh is packed and the Grinch is strapping the fake
antlers onto his unwitting accomplice, Max.
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| The Ornate Wrasse as interpreted by Phillip Weisgerber |
Anyway, Christmas eve was a beautiful morning. We had packed the sleigh the night
before, and were passing Waikoloa about 9 AM. It was a little hazy in the valley that faces
Kohala Mountain and it wasn't until we were almost to Kawaihae that we could make out
the summit of Haleakalā poking his head above a bank of clouds. We were parked at
Mahukona before 9:30. Haleakalā was clearly visible and the waves were crashing against
the pier, flicking foam in the general direction of our aging Accord.
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| Phillip Weisgerber, Artist. With his pet falcon, Max. |
Sandra and checked out the ladder entry and decided that things were no worse than when
we had entered with the Kathy et al a week or so ago, and the water was definitely less cloudy.
As we entered, I immediately spotted a juvenile Christmas wrasse. This is a small fish that
looks like a trout that you would throw in the creel only if you were desperate. If one wanted
to be technical, I suppose one could say we had completed the quest. Of course, to us the
Christmas wrasse is the adult with the bright red and green markings. A big, fat St.Nick of a
fish. And so, full of Christmas cheer, we pressed on.
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| The Ornate Wrasse, Halichoeres ornatissimus, Mahukona, December 24th, 2019 |
Although the water was a bit cloudy, it did not prevent us from enjoying a fine variety of
fish. Our friend Peter will tell you that the variety at Mahukona ain't what it used to be,
just five years ago, but it is still dramatically better than the Kailua pier. Early on, I spotted
a nice mature Ornate wrasse. He patiently allowed me to take the picture you see here.
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| The Checkerboard Wrsse, H. hortulanus, Bali 2017 Crown me! |
The male ornate wrasse holds a special spot in the evolution of my fish watching. I saw
my first reef fish at Hanuma Bay in 1979. Six short years before, Gar Goodson authored the
first guide to reef fish aimed at hobbyists, The Many Splendored Fishes of Hawaii. The
book was relatively small, as opposed to the dictionary sized book by Dr. Tinker, and
contained beautiful colored pictures. These watercolors were created by Phillip Weisgerber.
It is strange that in an extensive search of the internet, in addition to scouring his books, I can
find virtually nothing about Gar, where he lived and worked. We now know that Mr.
Weisberger was a renowned artist and lived in Redondo Beach, California. He looked like a
hippie with wild hair and bushy muttonchops. I suppose he rode a Harley.
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| Pinstriped Wrasse, H. melanurus, Bali, 2017 |
You may be puzzling as to why I am obsessed by these guys. Well, here's the thing, Gar
included 25 species of wrasses in his seminal work, several of which are accidental in
Hawaii. That's bird watching speak "for don't actually exist under normal circumstances." But
much worse, he omitted the Christmas wrasse. If you are not a birdwatcher, you may not
realize that a bird watcher goes through his book at the end of each day and checks off the
ones he has seen. It is axiomatic that the birds in the book are what is possible. I bestowed
on Gar Goodson the same trust that I gave the sainted Roger Tory Peterson, he of the first
useful field guides for North American birds. If it wasn't in Gar's book, as far as I was
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| Juvenile Ornate Butterflyfish on Christmas Eve |
concerned, it didn't exist. For at least a couple years, as I embarked on fish watching in Hawaii,
the fish included in his book constituted what was possible. To add insult to injury, the only
picture I had of the Ornate wrasse was the one in Many Splendored Fishes. I can not believe
that Phillip Weisgerber ever saw that fish alive, even in an aquarium. So unlike the real
animal is this picture, that I wonder if someone described the fish to him in a letter and he
made up the rest. I saw a Christmas wrasse the very first time I snorkeled, at Hanuma Bay
near Honolulu. More than any other fish I saw that day, the Christmas wrasse turned me
into a fishwatcher. Of course, with Many Splendored Fishes in hand, I identified it as an
Ornate wrasse. Curiously, Gar Goodson , in his forward written in in 1972, tells us that his
first snorkeling experience was at Hanuma Bay. Is it possible that he didn't see a Christmas
wrasse? Go figure.
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| A large school of Convict Tangs on Christmas Eve. |
The ornate wrasse is a member of the genus Halichoeres. It is the only member of that
genus to occur in Hawaii. When we went to Bali a couple years ago, we saw eight species
of Halichoeres! The ornatewrasse may be found in Bali, but we didn't see it there. As a
Christmas treat I'm including a couple of the Halichores from Bali that I was able to catch
on film, as it were.
We were expecting to see the Christmas wrasse out on the wave washed north cusp. On
the way out we saw a juvenile ornate butterflyfish. A Christmas treat in a small package.
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| Spectacled Parrotfish Female, photo courtesy of Botany Hawaii |
As one approaches the north point at Mahukona, he swims over a deeper patch leading to
a tall lava wall that becomes the reef. In the deeper area we saw large schools of convict
tangs and whitebar surgeons. We also saw female forms of the large spectacled parrotfish
and the smaller regal parrot fish. Neither of these fish are very attractive, but for those of
us who live in the south, they are quite special.
What we did not see was the Christmas wrasse. The wave washed point is often a good
spot for this fish, but no matter how long we looked, we could not find one. The other fish
we did not see was the Achilles Tang. This was one of the first fish my boys learned to identify
30 plus years ago. Once common, like the Christmas wrasse it is now a rare treat.
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| Bluestripe Butterfly at the pier in Kailua, January 2014 |
north shore of the inner bay for the wrasse. Obviously she had no hope for the southern shore.
And she was right. Aside from a nice blue stripe butterflyfish, we saw nothing of interest on
that side.
Finally we were back at the foot of the bay. As Sandra had suggested, we worked the area by
the old landing. There was a juvenile Big eye emperor, the third one we had seen that day.
And he was very cooperative. We were both in our neoprene, so we weren't getting cold, but
we had been at it for over an hour. It seemed like it was about time to go. We decided that we
would swim out a bit and then head in. As we hit the end of the old landing, we suddenly came
across our Christmas wrasse. He was a nice adult, not as big as some, but full of color. We both
got a good look as he swam rapidly away. Luckily I had the camera in my hand and I snapped
three quick ones.
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| Our Christmas wrasse swims rapidly away, Mahukona, Christmas Eve, 2019 |
We surface, exchanged high fives and Sandra said, "Now we'll have good luck all year."
Sandra and I wish that for you, as well.
Mele Kalikimaka, jeff
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| By popular demand: A trio of Christmas Tree Worms at Kawaihae Harbor, April 2019 |
O Little Town Kailuaville
O little town Kailuaville, how still we see thee rise,
Upon thy deep and dreamless reef, the silent fish swim by.
Yet in the dark depths shineth, the phosphorescent light.
The sharks and rays who sleep by day will swim with us tonight.
The Keiki dream of sugar cane, while Maui seeks the sun.
Please save the fish and grant this wish:
God bless us everyone.
O little town Kailuaville, how brave on Christmas Day.
While pilgrims pray and palm trees sway, the dolphins swim the bay.
Yet ‘neath your shining waters, the Christmas wrasse doth dwell.
His brilliant colors herald in Our Lord, Emmanuel.
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