Friday being the last day of the week that we have designated safe for snorkeling in the age of Covid, we decided to do something special. After packing a lunch, we headed north to Mahukona. It was a beautiful day up on the Kohala coast, with Maui rising like an enormous whale to the north. If our idea
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| A perfect morning at Mahukona. |
was to stay virus free by avoiding a crowd we had failed. I have never seen more cars in the area by the pier, or more people swimming. Not surprisingly, among the multitude was Wendy Noritake, our friend form Hawi. She and two friends were putting on their wet suits when I went to say hello.
As we were getting ready to swim, Sandra reminded me that I had received a notification about Kathy Yoder's birthday. On her visit exactly one year ago, we had brought her and her brother up to Mahukona. The water was just a little rough yesterday. A year ago the surge had been significant. I texted Kathy the picture you see here, wished her a happy birthday and asked if she remembered Mahukona. This was a bit like asking Amos the Mouse (from that wonderful Goldenbook classic, Ben and Me) if he remembered his ride in the kite into the lightening storm. Her reply, "I remember holding on for dear life, clutching to that ladder!"
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| A trio of Sidespot Goatfish, Mahukona December 2020 |
Well, yesterday wasn't nearly that rough and Sandra and I got in with no problem. The water wasn't as clear as one might like, but in the bay we saw a myriad of Sidespot Goatfish and at least one adolescent Pinktail Triggerfish with an orange tail.
Soon we were out on the north cusp where the swell was crashing over the ragged rocks. We watched a large yellow trumpetfish mingling with a school of yellow tangs and then swam towards the reef.
Suddenly right in front of me there was a huge Surge Wrasse. I had the camera in my hand and, although he fled over the shallow reef, I was able to squeeze off three shots before he disappeared into the foaming bubbles. To get the last picture, which was nothing special to look at, I had followed him over the lip of the rocks and found myself in a wave swept rocky depression from which I was able to extricate
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| Surge Wrasse male, Mahukona, December 2020 |
myself with only one bump to my thigh.
Sandra was lucky enough to see the beautiful beast a couple minutes later. When she last saw it, it was heading deep. We patrolled the rocky reef for another ten minutes, finding nothing, but glad that we had both had a good look.
The Surge Wrasse is Hawaii's largest wrasse. And a full grown breeding male may be one of the most colorful fish in the world. After my first glimpse of the fish, I knew that I had to get a look at the face pattern. The big difference from the standpoint of coloration between Surge Wrasse and the smaller and more common Christmas Wrasse, is a lack of face pattern in the latter. Not only did this fish have green and red markings so bright that one might have thought they were made from foil ribbon, he had rich purple and red face markings.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and my three pictures, although adequate for the identification, do not begin to show the colorful markings. And so you are also being treated to a picture from
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| Surge Wrasse Thalassoma purpureum December 2020 |
pinterest. In the parking lot after the swim I was delighted to see that I had three pictures. Only when I got home and got the pictures on the computer, did I find how little color was visible. Bummer. I've spent the last day trying to figure out why there is so little color in my pictures. Apparently I was much further away from the fish than I thought. Although it was a clear day, it was morning and maybe the light wasn't so strong. The water was a little cloudy and the fish was, indeed, fast moving. I still don't get it.
Once every two or three years I see a smaller male Surge Wrasse at the outer limit of the Inner Harbour, at the end of the small jetty that protects Kamehameha's heiau at the King Kam Hotel.. The water there is inevitably turbulent and cloudy. So I have seen these face markings before, but they never looked half as impressive.
The rest of our swim produced things that one would expect to see at Mahukona: Bluestripe and Milletseed butterflies, female Regal Parrotfish and Thompson's Surgeon. I checked in with Wendy before we hit the road, and she, too, had seen the Surge Wrasse. Her look was so fleeting that she did
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| Surge Wrasse courtesy of Pinterest |
not have time to attempt a photo. (In addition to being an author, Wendy is a skilled underwater photographer. If you have a chance to see her pictures you should not miss the opportunity.)
On the drive home, Sandra was looking through John Hoover's first book. She noted that he placed the maximum length for a Surge Wrasse at 16 inches. Posing this as a question to me, I said that I thought our fish must have been twenty. The books say that the male Ember Parrotfish, the closest thing we have to a really large wrasse, maxes out at 28 inches. The old expression is that water magnifies 25% and your imagination does the rest. Regardless, this was no small fish. Look at the size of his lips and the hump on his back. What a beast! We see lots of juvenile Surge Wrasses; when you look at this guy, you have an inkling about who be their daddy. Woof.
Here's another interesting question: Was this the biggest wrasse we have ever seen? If I'm asking the question you are guessing that the answer is no. Well, the biggest wrasse we have ever seen was six years ago in Tulamben. Located on the southeast coast of Bali, and the site of the wreck dive US
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| The Napoleon Wrasse, Cheilinus undulatus. Tulamben November 2014 |
Liberty, this is a fantastic place to watch fish. On that November day Sandra and I saw the Napoleon Wrasse. Going by a variety of names, including Maori Wrasse and Humphead Wrasse, this fish does not look like any wrasse you have ever seen. It is, on the other hand, big and ugly. Perhaps we should call it bubba. If you go drunk drivin' in Bali, you gonna spend the night in a cell with bubba. The picture I'm including shows your old friend the Orangespine Unicornfish for comparison. That unicorn is not a small fish, but bubba makes him look like a guppy. Supposedly Cheilinus undulatus can grow up to 7 feet in length, if you like metric, that's over 200 cm. As far as I can tell, this is the only wrasse that is greater than 2 1/2 feet in length. A true aberration.
We have nothing like the Napoleonfish here in Hawaii. For now, our Surge Wrasse will do nicely.
jeff
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| An original Disney drawing of Amos and the kite. |
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