Its a beautiful spring day here in Kailua, sunny with just a few clouds. And my lovely wife informs me that it is our tenth anniversary. As we lived in sin for many years prior to tying the knot, I have trouble remembering this date, focusing on the 4th of July which is not only the day we met but a major holiday, hence much easier to keep at the the tip of my cerebral cortex.
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| Belted Wrasse Stethojulis balteata, Kahalu'u 4/21 |
It was a beautiful day yesterday, as well. We got a lot done in the morning, but both Sandra and I had received a fateful jab the day before and by the afternoon we were both hors de combat. The late afternoon found me wearing a fleece coat, sweatpants and a stocking cap. This is a complete turnaround from my usual home front outfit which might reasonably be described as, "as little as possible."
At any rate, this morning I was all better and we were down at Kahalu'u for our anniversary swim around 9 AM. Yasuko said 'Ohayo gozaimas." Vince said, "It was super clear yesterday and today looks even better", and I said, "Let's hope there's some fish."
As it turned out, this was a good day for snorkeling in Kailua with some excellent looks in clear water at a fine host of usual suspects. So, for those of you who enjoy a fresh look at our fish, we have some good pictures and a couple movie clips. Shoot a dropper full of saltwater up your nose and the experience should be complete.
As the bay was very calm, I decided to do the swim counter clockwise, heading along the rocky shore to the Rescue Shelter. Even over there the water was clear. I did not see my long lost leaf scorpionfish, but I did get several good looks at a male belted wrasse. This is not a rare fish, but usually he is in a hurry and difficult to photograph. He has four cousins in the western Pacific, but our Hawaiian endemic is the prettiest of the bunch.
Moving along I passed a couple cleaning stations that were being run by juvenile bird and saddle wrasses. I then happened upon a couple ornate butterflyfish. This is one of our prettiest fish and when the first pair was joined by a second I just had to take a short movie.
A few minutes later I happened upon A Pinktail Triggerfish, showing off in the clear water. For those crafty people out there who like to make mobiles and such at home this is an almost perfect profile of one of our classics
I had now rounded the corner and was swimming into the area near the bayside bar of the long- shuttered Keahou Beach Hotel. The rest of the place is completely razed. No more hotel. And the charming facsimile of David Kalakaua's beach bungalow vanished years ago. But the deserted bar still remains. As I looked at it today, I noticed that half of the roof has been removed. "Why only half?" I wondered. In fact, nothing about the dismemberment of this classic Kona hotel makes any sense to me. Its, like, a travesty, Dude!
Just up ahead I encountered a pair of Sailfin Tangs, as always, one was much larger than the other. I followed them for a minute and they led me to a delightful cleaning station. Above you see a video of the cleaning station. Do you see both of the pair of Cleaner Wrasses? While your examining the film, how many species of fish do you see?
A moment later the cleaning action moved to the other side of the rock. Here you see one of the cleaners doing his job on the larger Sailfin Tang. I swam around and caught the Sailfin Tang filled out in total repose. Presumably the Cleaner Wrasse is cleaning on the other side of this plate sized surgeon fish.
Now I told you up front that there were going to be a lot of fish pictures. After leaving the cleaning station I found a handsome Arc-eye Hawkfish waitng patiently on a dead coral. This fish comes in two flavors, dark chocolate and pictured here,
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| Arc Eye Hawkfish P. arcatus, Kahalu'u April 2021 |
ice cream sandwich. The arc-eye is widely distributed in the Pacific, so its not an endemic, but from my earliest times snorkeling here in Hawaii it has been one of my favorites. This fish is fairly common and its easy to get a picture, but all hawkfish are a bit flighty, probably because they hang out in the open. In this instance, the hawkfish was in very clear water and when I dove down for a hand hold he did not dart away. I was able to maneuver to within four feet and hold very still while I snapped the photo.
In spite of all of these wonderful pictures we were far from finished. I tore myself away from the hawkfish and circled back to the cleaning station. There, perched atop one of the coral heads, was a banded sea urchin (the more common of our black urchins with longer spines) which was wiggling its spines furiously.
When I looked closer I could see many "eggs" which the urchin was apparently expelling through that all purpose orifice on the top. There were fifty to a hundred of these "eggs", they were about two millimeters in diameter and slightly adherent to one another. It appeared that the vigorous spine movement was for the purpose of sending the "eggs" on their way, as they fell off the side of the urchin individually or in small groups.
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| A close up of the sea urchin pellets. |
I took multiple pictures and movies and then, like those small objects, I fell away fro the urchin. It took me only a few minutes to remember that echinoderms in general do not undergo internal fertilization, so they couldn't have been eggs. I revised my description to "pellets" and sent a question to John Hoover. He agreed with my new assumption, that these represent some sort of organized fecal product. But he wasn't sure and suggested that I contact Chris Mai, who writes the Echinoblog.
Chris turns out to be a post doc fellow at the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. who now indeed writes the Echinoblog. As the page I saw was devoted to marine worms and his bio implies that he is fascinated with weird starfish, right off the bat this didn't seem like the best referral. But things became even more peculiar. When I clicked a link that seemed to promise a contact page. I was shunted to another of Chris's web pages dedicated to Godzilla. Obviously, Chris would be right at home with the boys on the Big Bang Theory.
In case you think I'm making this up, here is the link that John sent me:
http://echinoblog.blogspot.
I have now forwarded my question to Marta de Maintenon, who is really smart and as far as I know has no interest what so ever in science fiction.
After documenting the Banded urchin it was time to start heading for the exit. Close in I ran into a nice trio of Rockmovers. Earlier, on my way out into the bay, I had trailed a large male Rockmover who swam away before I could get his picture. This trio was moving right along but I got close enough for the photo you see here.
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| Three Rockmovers are better than one! |
Finally I was ashore and back in the warm embrace of my beloved who had spent this portion of her tenth anniversary playing with her phone and watching the tourists. Unless I'm mistaken, spring has come to all of you, so enjoy the warm weather and watch out for sea urchin poop. Not to mention Godzilla.
jeff
Hot off the press comes the answer from the lovely and highly educated Dr. de Maintenon: "urchin poop"
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| Marta |
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