A Kailua Pier Update...Snorkeling on Mother's Day

   Yesterday was Mother's Day.  The authorities took note of that auspicious celebration of motherhood, and in a biologic sense, sexual reproduction.  And they carried it to its logical extreme.  This year Mother's Day coincided with the spawning of the cauliflower coral.  Some bureaucrat decided that even a paltry few swimmers would decrease the success of this activity and closed

A Mellow Yellow Red Shouldered Tang adolescent  Kailua Bay May 2020

several Big Island beaches to swimming for the five days projected for cauliflower coral spawning.

   It was only three years ago when Lindsey Kramer, our DLNR marine biologist, encouraged me and other narture-minded snorkelers to check out the coral in the morning during this period.   The water at the pier was cold and I didn't witness any spawning coral.  Over the last two years though, associated with cooler summer water, a variety of pocillipora coras have started to make a foothold around Kona.

   Compared to any previois year, when swimming was encouraged during this coral spawning period and there were legions of visitors thrashing the waters at Kahalu'u, there are incredibly few snorkelers at K Bay.  So this decision to close the bay to this paltry few seems odd at best.  I wonder where the bureaucrats got the idea?

   At any rate, Kahalu'u was not available for a morning swim, so Sandra and I came up with a plan for a Mothers Day swim at the pier.  We arrived a little after 9 AM and there were already lots of swimmers.  I got changed and left my stuff on the ground, eschewing the cubbyholes, which were, in any event, quite full.  What this meant was that the recreational swimmers are back in force.

Guineafowl Puffer, Kailua Bay May 2020

    Out in the water I immediately saw a juvenile red shouldered tang.  This keiki starts out all yellow, usually with a faint orange shoulder patch.  As he matures he trades up to the two tones of gray and a progressively prominent red shoulder patch.  The fish I saw was eight or nine inches, clearly a teenager, but he was still completely yellow.  He was cooperative enough to let me take this picture so you can see for
yourself.  We have seen these persistently yellow fish before, but this was an especially nice one.

 I swam out in the the shallow area, thus keeping out of the way of the swimmers.  In the shallows I caught a very cooperative Guineafowl Puffer who was just itching to have his picture taken.

   At about this time I noticed that there were no boats using the pier or the mooring buoys.  Figuring it was safe, I spent the next twenty minutes on the other side of the swim buoys.  It is interesting that out where the large boats tie up to the buoys, the coral is dramatically better than on the mauka side of the swim buoys.   Although it is a little deeper there, one has to assume that the better coral is

Ornate Wrasse Kailua Pier   May 2020

related to less pressure from thoughtless swimmers. Maybe those beach-closing bureaucrats had a point, after all.

    Unfortunately, all of this did not correlate with a whole bunch of interesting fish.  Out by the last swim buoy I found a nice male Ornate Wrasse.  He was down around ten feet, but I was able to dive down several times and take his picture.  From above, one got the full effect of his iridescent green lines.  From the side, we get the color on his face.  Neither photo is perfect.

   Ornate wrasse is not an uncommon fish, but it is not found frequently at Kawaihae or Kahalu'u, so I was happy to see it. 

   I got ashore in time to shower before getting picked up by my sweetie.  I was surprised to see that the government has turned off all but one shower head and posted a sign about social distancing in the shower.  This did not affect the social distancing while waiting in line for a shower, but everyone

Ornate Wrasse  Kailua Pier   May 2020

seemed smart and determined to do the right thing.

   The one other thing that the government has done is to close the dressing rooms, replacing them with two porta-potties on the ladies side of the building.  I wasn't going to change in any event and I didn't walk around the mauka side of the building to count the homeless.  My sense is that closing that brick and mortar restroom has forced the unfortunate to find other facilities.

    So my Mothers Day snorkel turned out pretty well.  There is plenty of swimming taking place at the pier, the various boats that use the pier may be elsewhere and the facilities have been reclaimed by the citizenry. Perhaps I will see you down there.

jeff