On the Trail of the Kailua Reef Shark

     There was an up-tick in the number of tourists last week.  This led to more traffic on the Kuakini Highway and more old people navigating the aisles at Costco during Kapuna Hours..  I suppose that this was because it was Ironman week.  Although the powers that be cancelled the Ironman a month ago,  it would appear that a number of folks who had reservations for air travel and accommodations decided they just might as well go to Kona for the week as opposed to going to all the trouble to cancel and hanging out in Tacoma.  If anything, the water is warmer in Hawaii than it is in Puget Sound. 

The usual suspects.  Four Spot and Moorish Idol at Kahalu'u

    Kona has been going through a period of high surf.  I don't think that this had much effect on the tourists, but we had a small hiatus in snorkeling.  Things flattened out two days ago and I was able to convince Sandra to go swimming with me at Kahalu'u.  The water is still cool, as opposed to cold, and with the low surf it was fairly clear.  It was late in the morning and there were plenty of swimmers, but not nearly so many as we had encountered the week before. 

    And there were lots of fish.  I'm including a couple pictures of the usual suspects that we encountered, as we didn't see anything particularly noteworthy.  I hope you like the Moorish idol and the Four spot Butterflyfish swimming together.  And who doesn't have a soft spot in his heart for a fat freckled hawkfish pretending that he's just part of the coral?

    With a pleasant hour of fish watching under her sarong, it wasn't difficult to get Sandra down to the pier the following morning.  The focusof this excursion was to locate the bait ball and, with some luck, see the white tipped reef shark that had been accompanying it.  And I had another goal.   Since our return, I had yet to see an Oval Butterflyfish, which should be a dependable species at the pier.  On this day we would look specifically for this regularly occurring beauty.

Freckled Hawkfish  Kahalu'u 2021

    As we arrived, we were delighted to find almost no one at the cubbies.  The only ones around were a gentleman wearing flotation and a lady, perhaps in the vicinity of sixty who had been for a recreational swim.  They were talking about the Ironman, which is scheduled to return to Kona next October.  The lady revealed that she had competed in the ersatz world championships, held two weeks ago in St. George, Utah.  Her report was that the event was well supported by organizers and volunteers, there were remarkably few contestants and absolutely nobody was wearing a mask.  As we made our way down to the beach, home of the real Ironman swim, she was muttering about shark and bait ball.  And I was thinking, "Let's hope so."

     The water was as clear as we have seen it since our return and Sandra said, "Where's all the fish?"  At least currently, the Ironman side of the pier is not swarming with reef  fish.  We made a bee line for the third of a mile buoy. On the way past the last swim buoy I spotted a small fish wiggling around near the bottom.  The water here was about twenty feet deep, so i was only able to dive half way to this little fellow, which turned out to be a small juvenile Peacock Razorfish.  I have seen one of these here before many years ago.  I think this might be my fourth such juvenile.  And it was the first unusual fish we have seen since our return three weeks ago.  Although not particularly uncommon, razorfish, a medium size wrasse, live their lives buried in the sand and are not often seen by snorkelers.

Oval Butterflyfish, Kailua Kona Pier March 2016

      We swam concentric circles around the third of a mile buoy, eventually extending twenty yards seaward and south without finding the bait ball.  I couldn't imagine where all those fish have gone.  Suffice it to say, without the multitude of big eye scads there was no chance to see the reef shark.  we did see a nice adolescent Big Eye Emperor and a Red Bar Kawkfish, but we did not see the Oval Butterflyfish.  We hope to go to Kawaihae tomorrow which is a good spot for oval butterfly and a possibility for sharks.  We'll keep you posted.