You Can Call Me Ray, Or You Can Call Me Jay, But She Doesn't Have To Call Me Mobula.

      Within hours of posting my story of the curious ray sighting in the Inner Harbour, I received an email from Bob Hillis.  My old compañero, now residing in the Rockies, has re-invented himself as a marine biology research assistant with a focus on the Sea of Cortez.  Considering that he lives in

A school of Bent Fin Devil Rays  Elasmodiver.com

southern Utah, this is quite a feat. At any rate, with this new marine focus, certain species are closer to the tip of his cerebral cortex than may be true for those of us who are somewhat limited to the biology of the Hawaiian Islands.  

    In this instance Bob thought of an animal which I have seen only once, at an extreme distance...the Bent Fin Devil Ray.  Also known as Smooth Tail Mobula or Thurston's Devil Ray, this ray occurs near shore in tropical seas around the world.  Curiously, it is less common in Hawaiian waters than many other places.  It is far more common, for example, in the Sea of Cortez.  My one sighting was at Cabo Pulmo, 40 miles north and a world away from San Jose del Cabo.  From a deserted beach on the south side of the cape, Sandra and I watched these rays leap from the ocean.  Although we were a hundred yards away, the image of a large ray leaping clear of the water remains indelible. 

    This was back in 2005, before I had friends like Bob Hillis and Peter Krottje to prod me towards better scholarship.  I composed my fishlist for the trip to Cabo Pulmo from a field guide by Thomson,

Thomson et al and the Cabo Pulmo Brochere With Flying Mobulas

Findley and Kersitch.  It was written in 1979 and reprinted in 1987.  Being ichthyologists, they have the fish in the correct order.  This does not explain why they made a separate chapter for rays and sharks, which we all agree are fish, towards the end of the book. (Any ichthyologist knows that the cartilaginous fishes, being more primitive, belong at the beginning of the list.) Can you feel an excuse coming on?  Being a bad ichthyologist myself, I put the sharks and rays at the end of my list and left out the Smooth Tail Mobula.    Along with a picture of this old field guide I have included a brochure givento  me at the Cabo Pulmo Dive shop featuring a picture of the not-so-notorious STM.  Nevertheless, when Sandra and I saw these leaping rays they were duly recorded.  

    As a total aside, this was an incredible vacation.  The small resort was in the middle of nowhere, right on the beach.  Sandra and I had a tiny casita with a propane refrigerator and stove.  Every day a different pickup would come down from LaPaz selling something..bread one day, fish the next.  I'd love to go back.  

Manta Ray, Kawaihae  September 2020

Mobula thurstoni is one third the size of coastal manta rays and the pups are smaller, too.  Bob worked as a dive guide here in Hawaii and thought that these rays, though rare, would be possible here and might be what we saw.  With this in mind he recommended that I consult Deron Verbeck, who is perhaps the premier blue water guide here in Kona.  Fortunately I met Deron two years ago when he showed us the tiger sharks near the airport.  Here is what Deron said: 

In my 28 years in Hawaii I have only seen mobula rays twice, once from the boat and once in the water. Neither were near shore, but a friend saw one last week over the deep reef.  In my humble opinion what ray the person was indicating was a spotted eagle ray. Size (of the ray) and area (in which) it was sighted would lead me to believe this. 

 

    I praise Bob for bringing this unusual species to our attention and congratulate him for turning me into his research assistant.   And thanks to Bruce Mundy and Deron Verbeck for their help.  But now I want to go back to Cabo Pulmo and take another crack at those flying rays!

   Yesterday we drove up to Kawaihae where we met up with Peter and Marla.  They have completed

their two week quarantine and were eager to go swimming.  As we arrived Lottie alerted us that the mantas rays were in.  As we arrived at the top of the stairs, we could see a fin about twenty yards away.  As it turned out, we all swam about fifty yards before encountering our first ray.  

 

    This was the second time we had seen mantas at this location.  The first time was in April and the visibility was deplorable.  Yesterday visibility was about 20 feet. We swam with the rays for over an hour, it being summer and the water in the comfortable mid 80s.  During this time we had perhaps ten encounters that lasted 20 to 30 seconds.  When you see a ray swim by and then watch it turn back towards you it is quite a thrill.  As you can see, I took  a few still pictures but tried really hard to come up with some video.

 

   Mostly the rays appeared singly or in pairs.  It was difficult to tell how many individuals we saw.  It might have been 5, or possibly only 3.  Assuming it was only three, which I think is likely, they had wing spans of seven, eight, and ten feet. 

 

    Ashore we had a nice chat with all our friends.  I'm glad to report that baby Naia is full of smiles.  and so were we after spending some quality time with the manta rays.   

 

 

 

Well, you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay...

  

   The best manta ray video was too large to be downloaded on this platform.  We here at the blog are working on handling those files.  In the meantime we will attempt to take videos less than 20 seconds n duration.

        

But she doesn't have to call me Mobula

 

   

Baby Manta Rays at the King Kam Hotel. Or not.

    Its late September and Kailua Kona should be in the grip of Ironman Fever.  There should be Germans biking on the highway, Austrians and Czechs swimming at the pier and Frenchmen running up and down Alii Drive.  Sadly, the only thing currently on Alii Drive is a brace of trucks dedicated to fixing the sewer.  That just about says it for our little beach community...we're in the sewer.  

   Both Palani and Alii Drive, which together form the boundary of the village,  have been closed to through traffic Monday through Friday.  The Fish Hopper, across the street from the malecon was open, against all odds until two weeks ago, but it, too, is currently shuttered.  The King Kam Hotel, the yearly heart of the Ironman, hasn't seen a guest in five months.  One has to assume, were he to break in, one would not see the Flags of the Nations hanging from the rafters of the lobby.

Acqua alta and itinerant ablutions.  But where are all the Ironmen?

   It was into this ghost town that I descended yesterday morning.  Sandra dropped me off in the parking lot above the shuttered shops and I walked down the mostly deserted Alii Drive to the pier.  On the Paul Allen side, on the beach in front of the hotel, it was acqua alta; just like a flood in Venezia, the water was ankle deep at the foot of sea wall.  While I changed into my swim shirt and put defogger in my mask, I was able to take in the sight of a local gentleman enjoying a sudsy shampoo under the single spigot that the authorities now provide for after swim showering.  I suppose its a good thing that all those Germans and Australians aren't here...where would they shower?Suitably attired, I turned in the ankle deep water and waded into the Inner Harbour.  There was a single gentleman standing waist deep in the cool, cloudy water.  He quietly greeted me with a howsit? and then said, "Its too bad you weren't here two minutes ago.  There were four small manta rays swimming around the bay."  I pointed towards the heiau and asked, "You mean right out there?"  He pointed to the water by his feet and said, "No. Right here!"  

    Or to put it another way, if I hadn't spent so much time admiring the itinerant's ablutions, I could have seen baby manta rays."  Bummer.

     My reporter then turned to a couple sitting on the parking barrier by the seawall, about forty feet away, and asked, "Are they still there?"  Perhaps the couple didn't hear him , but they stood up and walked away, which I took as a negative.

     On that curious note, I headed out.  I didn't see any small mantas as I swam out, stopping now and then to look for fin tips poking out of the water.  Out in the bay beyond the breakwater, things were about as I remembered it, with lots of coral just hanging on to life and lots more having gone to the great reef in the sky. 

    Soon enough I made it to the entrance to Paul Allen's lagoon  (perhaps at that moment, Paul was enjoying a performance of Madame Butterfly with the Notorious RBG) and identified the cauliflower coral where we have been tracking the eponymous croucher.  Part of that morning's program involved obtaining videos for youse guys and I attempted a couple, catching among others, a yellow spotted guard crab.  Now, you may think that is a pretty rotten video, and I agree with you, but when I compare this result with my attempts at still photography of this furtive crustacean, hunkered down between the coral leaves, it really isn't all that bad. 

   On my third dive I found the coral croucher.  He was nose down, deep between two leaves, but it was a firm identification.  The legend lives on.

   I progressed around the point where I attempted another video.  The water was cloudy and the video sucks. (Did I say that?) There were a few reasonable fish which I failed to capture in my video, including a pair of Teardrop Butterflies and a female Whitley's Boxfish.  I wanted to give myself a few extra minutes searching for the mantas in the lagoon, so at this point I headed back. 

Wjitley's Boxfish, Kailua Pier 2015

    I swam around the lagoon for ten minutes, not seeing much.  As I was getting out, standing in the shallows with my fins in hand, I noticed that the couple had returned to their perch.  I called to them and the fellow, who looked like a smaller and weasleier version of Adam Sandler, said that a manta was there right then.  I inquired as to its size and he held up his hands indicating roughly 16 inches.  

    I swam over but by the time i got there the ray was gone.  

   Once ashore, I wandered over to where the couple sat.  They were feeding crumbs of bread to a diverse group of fish including a large female ember parrotfish.  I watched for a few minutes, my hosts wandered off and then, so did I.

   So what was in the lagoon?  There is some disagreement among sources as to the size of a manta at birth.  Manta Ray Advocates says Coastal Mantas, Mobula alfredi. have pups in the 2 to 3 foot range. Animaldiversity.org says 1.1 to 1.4 meters, substantially larger.  No one is suggesting a manta, even at birth, is less than two feet from tip to tip.  Furthermore, manta rays are far from prolific breeders.  A manta may live up to 40 years and does not reach maturity, breeding age, until 10 years.  A female manta has a gestation period of 10 months and produces a single pup once every other year under the best of circumstances.  In this way they are sort of like elephants and some humans. 

Eagle Rays, Bob Hillis 2015

   Yesterday we ran this scenario by John Hoover, who was very patient and asked lots of questions.  The Great Oz would like to believe that it might have been four very small mantas.   Although manta rays are very distinctive animals, I'm going to bet that these people were not knowledgeable observers and may not have been aware of eagle rays.  One might reasonably ask, "Is it possible to live in Kona and not be aware of eagle rays?"     But perhaps in this instance we need to refer to that noted ichthyologist P.T. Barnum who said, "One never went broke under estimating the intelligence of the American public."

    So I'm voting for a school of juvenile eagle rays.  Eagle rays give birth to 2 to 4 pups at a time.  And the pups are, indeed, as small as 16 inches. And really, it seems incredible that there was a school of four mantas at the extreme lower end of the size for the species.

   As I emerged from the lagoon I struck up a conversation with a 50 something lady enjoying a smoke.  It was her opinion that anything is possible.  In these days of Donald Trump and the pandemic, those are words to live by.

jeff

    

A Follow Up to the baby oval butterflyfish

 We see lots of interesting things in the ocean.  Often times these would be best displayed in the form of a video, giving you a better idea of just what we experienced with the animal, plant or other phenomenon.  At my late age I am attempting to take a step forward and present you with a couple videos from Kawaihae Harbor.  Recently we have seen the juvenile oval butterflyfish living in a coral attached to the first platform at Kawaihae.  Yesterday Sandra and I made a special trip to Kawaihae to capture the butterflyfish on video. I'm also including a video of a feather duster worm that was living on the rip rap opposite the platforms.  This isn't quite as rare as the keiki butterflyfish, but Kawaihae is the only place that we see these beautiful animals.  It may be of some interest to you to see what this interesting animal is like in the sea.  

 

 

So here is the baby oval butterflyfish.  Note how she flits around as she is grazing on the coral polyps.  Juvenile Hawaiian damselfish are among our favorites and this brief clip gives you a look at a few of those tiny beauties as well.   With luck, we will improve our video skills for your future enjoyment.

  And here is a tiny paper mache brooch that I made, handsomely displayed on a beer coaster, to commemorate this historic sighting. 

  Kawaihae is an especially good site for snorkeling photography in that one is not being bounced around by the surf.  Last week we missed the opportunity to take a video of the juvenile scribbled filefish.  Here's hoping that the dear good Lord will give us another chance.  In the meantime, stay tuned.  More videos are on the way!

jeff
 

The Baby Oval Butterflish At Kawaihae

    It had been more than three weeks since we had visited the protected confines of Kawaihae Harbor and with the surf pounding in Kailua it seemed like it was time to venture north.  We kept busy on the drive, receiving texts and calls from our friends and relatives in Oregon.  If you haven't been in a cave for the last week, you know it was all about the fires. Sandra's daughter, has evacuated from Oregon City is still enjoying

Kathy has the happiest goats!

the plush, if minuscule pleasures of Chateau Vancouver.   Charles and Jeffrey were starting to emerge from the air conditioned safety of his house in Tualatin.  Although that neighborhood is heavily forested, it had been spared.  From a perspective that the evening news has not covered, there has been a capricious nature to the fires.  Why Oregon City and not Tualatin? 

    Most touching was a long text we received from Kathy, who lives in the woods near Mollala.  She and Vernon had made it back to the ranch (mind you, this is a real ranch) just that morning to find that the fire had not encroached upon their acres of woods.  She praised a group of neighbors who had been going out daily to help battle the flames.  With any luck, Kathy's pet goats will soon be back in their barn enjoying bucketfuls for goodies from their adoring mistress.  Unless I am mistaken, this may represent the very and most endearing essence of capricious.  Kathy loves the fish in Kona, but I'm pretty sure she loves her goats more.

     With all of our friends and children (and grandchildren) safe, we arrived at Kawaihae in a peaceful state of mind.  Soon we were across the giant car park and entering the water at the foot of the

A Banded Coral Shrimp Ventures Out.  Kawaihea September 2020

 LST landing ramp.  Heading out to the first platform I spotted a handsome cushion starfish on the bottom.  Dressed in crimson and gold, it merited a photo, but I knew that picture would not make it into the blog.  This is Kawaihae, for crying out load...we were sure to see something better than a cushion starfish!

   Schmoopie and I reached the first platform, about twenty yards out from the ramp, swam around to the back side and were greeted by a banded coral shrimp.  If you know how to do it, which is diving down ten feet, hanging on and looking around a corner, these colorful crustaceans are a sure thing at the first platform.  This fellow, on the other hand, was on the side of a pylon about a foot below the surface and not especially frightened of us.  I called Sandra over and she got her first excellent look at this charming animal.  I nabbed a number of pictures with and without the flash.  Unfortunately, the camera did not focus all that well except for one picture.  As you can see, these are fairly big shrimp, measuring about five inches from elbow to elbow. 

    After about a minute the shrimp scuttled around to the inner side of his pillar and we swam around to

Oval Butterflyfish, juvenile  Kawaihae September 2020

the other side of the platform.  Currently back in Kona, the Reef Teachers at Kahalu'u are all agog about a single juvenile Hawaiian dascyllus, which they delight in naming the Domino Dascyllus. I love that fish as well, but almost every Pocillopora coral on the pillars here at Kawaihae is home to a few of these endearing little fish. So that Lone Ranger at K Bay does not hold as much interest for me. I was setting up to take a few pictures of the dascyllus on a large cauliflower coral when what should I see, darting among the stony leaves, but a tiny juvenile butterfly.  And not just any juvenile butterfly, but an oval!  I don't know how you cont 'em, but I have a special list for distinct juvenile fish.  As you can see, this tot is super distinctive, so there I was, basking in the glow of life fish city.  

    There are several distinctive features about this fish.  The shape, certainly, which is dominated by the distinctive dorsal fin bearing a handful of erect spines.  But look at that odd spot on the caudal peduncle.  I mean, what is that bright yellow slash all about?  Additionally, he has a curiously shaped caudal fin that is a dark chocolate on the outside and creamy white in the middle.  Yummy! And the yellow leading spines mirror the bright yellow pectoral fins.  Were it not for those burgundy longitudinal stripes, I wouldn't have been able to put a name on it. 

An orgy of painted nudibranchs,  Count the five gill clusters.

     If you are unaware, that ventral fin is nothing like the same fin on the adult, neither in shape or coloration.

    The baby oval was quite active, as many baby butterflyfish are.  In addition, he spent the vast majority of his time between the leaves of the cauliflower coral.  He wasn't hiding in there, but actively foraging.  I assume he was nipping at the polyps (did you know that many butterflyfish eat coral polyps?)  He was only as big as a silver dollar and he would emerge only for an instant to reposition himself between a different set of leaves.  I worked on taking his picture for five minutes or so while Sandra swam circles over by the breakwater.  

A painted nudibranch plastered against the pillar

    Before we leave this tiny beauty, I would just like to point out that if you have a handy copy of John Hoover's Ultimate Guide handy, you will note that there is no picture of this fascinating juvenile.  You can be assured that he has access to pictures taken by all sorts of expert marine photographers.  To put it another way, this is some kinda rare sighting!  And John, if you're still out there you have my permission to use this picture in your next book.

    On the page facing the oval, John shows us the juvenile milletseed.  I haven't seen that one yet.  There are certainly plenty of milletseed adults in Kawaihae Harbor, which has proved itself to be quite the nursery, so we should keep ourselves alert for the milletseed keiki. 

   Soon we were out at the second platform.  I swam into the middle and found a tiny painted nudibranch nestled among some orange and purple sponges.  I was trying for a picture when Sandra called me away.  What she had found was a veritable orgy of painted nudibranchs.  I counted four, but as you can see from this less than delightful photograph there are five painted nudibranchs slithering around one another. A few feet away my beloved found a single painted nudibranch splayed out against the cement pillar.  While some nudibranchs routinely appear in this flattened posture, this is unusual for this species and gives us an interesting look at his coloration. 

Adolescent Scribble Filefish  Kawaihae September 2020

   Around the third platform we enjoyed a variety of feather duster worms and one nice trembling nudibranch that was bout ten feet down.  I was wearing my weights, so I was able to get am acceptable picture of this chubby little fellow.  Note that one of his rhinophores is aiming off to the side.  I don't spend a great deal of time watching the molluscs in my yard, so I don't know how much the snails and slugs manipulate their rhinophores (which in their case are also called tentacles) but I'll have to watch for that. There is no way that a land snail is going to rival a trembling nudibranch for sheer beauty, but they do have distinctive tentacles.

    As we were making our way back in I was looking for nudis around the second platform.  Suddenly from over by the breakwater Sandra yelled, "Come quick! Filefish!"  What she had was a gorgeous adolescent Scribbled filefish.  She got me onto it and I followed her for a couple minutes taking pictures.  It was so still and the fish moved slowly around the reef.  It was a magical experience.  

   Sometimes we forget how transparent the tail is on some of our fish.  In this instance the large broom-shaped tail is banded with dark brown and lighter areas.  If you look closely, halfway down the dorsal side of the tail you will note a bright coral that is visible even behind the tail.   

A second look a the oval keiki in the coral.

    On the way in, I stopped for another five minutes to get the picture of the juvenile oval butterflyfish that you saw earlier.  And then we were ashore.  While I was showering, our friend Hai came along, apparently at the end of a run.  We talked about the juvenile oval, and he remarked that it was difficult to photograph...this from the master of the reef.  After we got dried off, we wandered over to say hello to Lottie and baby Naia, who is now seven months. Naia was checking out the tail of a kite in the tree above her head.  As I mentioned earlier, Kawaihae is a remarkable nursery, as much for Naia as for the fishes.  

jeff

The adult oval butterfly, Kailua Pier 3016Add caption

The Trembling nudibranch says, "He went thata way."

Kahalu'u Bookends and the Optical Octopus

    Sandra and I have decided that snorkeling on the weekends is just to difficult, vis a vis social distancing.  With this in mind, I have been trying to get in a swim at the beginning and end of each week.  This time we went to Kahalu'u on Friday and Tuesday.  There was nothing spectacular, but I did take a couple pictures that may interest you.

A Female Ember Parrot Ushers a Christmas Wrasse.

  On Friday we connected with one of the Reef Teachers, Susan, and her husband John.  Sometime in
the blurry future they may join us at Kawaihae for some nudibranching.  On this day they related the tale of an eagle ray at Kahalu'u a few days previous.  A subsequent report from another reef teacher, Vincenzo, revealed that there was one large eagle ray, perhaps six feet from one wingtip to the other, and three smaller eagle rays.  They swam back and forth across the inner part of the bay for twenty minutes and were easily seen from shore.  Although two or three reef teachers are in the shelter on most days, that is not the case for snorkelers.  On this occasion no one was swimming.  One of the reef teachers went in the water but was unable to hook up with the rays.  Curious. 

   Six feet seemed like a big eagle ray to me, but John Hoover tells us they can attain ten feet.  Wow!

Christmas Wrasse, Kahalu'u  August 2020

  Out in the water I did not see anything earth shaking.  However, I did encounter a female Ember parrotfish that was accompanied by a nice Christmas wrasse.  I followed the pair for about five minutes and was lucky when the Christmas wrasse made a turn back away from the parrotfish.  He swam around me, about ten feet distant and not too fast.  I was able to snap off half a dozen shots, one of which I present for your consideration.

   This association of  ember parrot and Christmas wrasse is one of my favorites, perhaps because the male ember parrot is so big and the wrasse so distinctive.  Other associations, like goatfish and eels and octopus seem more explicable;  they are all hunting for invertebrates in their own way.  In this instance the parrotfish presumably is chomping coral polys while the wrasse is going for invertebrates hiding in the sand.  Despite my over developed brain (just kidding) I can not understand what the benefit is to either party.  Nevertheless, we see this fairly often.

   Towards the end of the swim I found a small pearl wrasse over by the rescue shelter.  As you can see

Pearl Wrasse, Party of Three.

this little lady looks just like the larger female and she was just as active, darting hither and yon.  I like this picture with the small saddle wrasse and the Pacific Gregory who, if I may indulge in a bit of anthropomorphism, looks a bit indignant.  

    Yesterday I returned to K Bay.  With the pier difficult to access, it is almost the only show in town. Vincezo was holding down the reef teaching post and related the complete story of the eagle rays.  

 The water was sufficiently warm for me to fear for the coral and more than a little cloudy.  The pair of juvenile raccoon butterflies were still hanging around the entrance.  Once I got past them I didn't see anything special for the next twenty minutes.

     Out in the middle I came across a small octopus residing in a coral.  He was brave enough and I took

The Optical Octopus Gives you the Fish Eye.

several pictures.  It is my contention that there is something peculiar about octopi and photography.  It is rare that I have an octopus picture look like anything but an indistinct mess.  This may be more on me than the cephalopods, as not everyone seems to have the same difficulty.  Before I left  I dove down  (it was only three feet) and held on.  From that awkward position I snapped two quick ones, sort of over my shoulder.  

    Back at the kiosk it looked like the first of those two pictures harbored some promise.  When I got home, though, the octopus was just a dark amorphous mass.  My tried and true photo processor, Ulead, will not work on this computer.  It is, after all, about 15 years old.  A year or so ago I purchased Corel Paint Shop, which is not as good, but way better than nothing.  This program came with a curious tool, fill light/clarity.  I have no idea how it works.  Our good friend Martin DeLuke, a genius of optics, may understand the black box magic therein, but it is beyond me. Regardless, as a last resort I cranked the fill light portion almost to the pin and came up with the picture you see here, which is somewhat better than an amorphous mass.  Good octopus. 

    The swim finished up back in the cloudy water with a turtle and a pair of saddleback butterflies. 

Saddleback Butterflies, Kahalu'u  September 2020

    All the time I was snorkeling I was the only one in the bay.  Starting tomorrow Governor Ige is closing all the beaches to social gatherings for the coming holiday week  One can anticipate that there will be even less swimming at Kahalu'u.  Its all pretty strange.  I hope you all stay safe.

jeff