Old Lady Baby

   Yesterday was Saturday, one of three days in the week when we can drop off yard debris locally, at the Kealakehe Transfer Station.  We don't miss many of those precious opportunities and so we devised a plan to go to the transfer station, following which Sandra would drop me off at the pier, much like a trash can full of leaves and branches.  She would go to Target while I swam. 

Blacktail Wrasse, juvenile, Kahalu'u July 2020

   As we approached the pier, it was apparent that this plan was not going meet with fruition.  In front of the shuttered King Kamehameha Hotel a policeman had placed a strip of danger tape across Alii Drive.  From that vantage point we could see a police SUV with its blue flashers in the turn around at the pier. Clearly this avenue of pleasure was not available.  With that in mind, we bypassed the pier and reconnected with Alii Drive at Lunapule, winding our way down to Kahalu'u.  As I drove, Sandra looked up the tides on her phone and announced that we were going to hit the low high tide, 1.2 feet, on the nose.

   Despite the fact that it was Saturday, there were few people at Kahalu'u.  With the absence of tourists and gatherings such as baby luaus not currently permitted, our jewel of a bay is virtually unused, even on a weekend.

   The water was indeed high enough that access was a breeze.  For most of my swim I didn't see anything unusual.  I did have some close approaches to a large male ember parrotfish.  One rarely gets within four feet of this handsome fish.  There is a very good reason for this.  As this big uhu is seen with regularity on the menu, it behooves him to be wary.  Are there fewer spear fisherman at Kahalu'u these days?  For whatever reason, this big fellow swam quite close to me on several occasions.  What a

Old Lady Wrasse, Kahalu'u 2020

treat!

    Towards the end of my swim, over by the Rescue Shelter, I hit pay dirt.  Every time out, as I swim around the coral in the middle, I am looking for the tiny green wrasse that is the juvenile of the Old Lady wrasse.  The terminal male of this species is very rare at snorkeling depths.  I have seen the intermediate form, a handsome medium sized wrasse with a black tail on several occasions, but not in the last three years.  It is probably this most commonly seen stage of the species that gives it its other common name, the blacktail wrasse.  On this day I saw a somewhat larger version of the juvenile.  This guy was about four inches long, so not tiny.  He was swimming rapidly among the rocks on that mauka side of the bay.  Although he was quick, he was out most of the time, allowing me to take many pictures over the course of five or ten minutes.  This one definitely makes it onto the list of seldom seen species.

   Yesterday evening, as we were watching the Honolulu news, it was announced that a sewer pipe had broken in downtown Kailua Kona and a huge amount of sewage was washed into Kailua Bay.  And that, my friends, is why we take a shower after we go snorkeling! 

jeff

The big uhu with his friend.  Unmolested.