A Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Eve

     As this year we had a social event scheduled for Christmas Day, I decided that I could start looking for the Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Eve.  We would look at Kahalu'u iin the morning and if that failed, consider an afternoon swim on Paul Allen's Reef.  And so, at 8:00 AM sweetie and I were on the final approach to

Raccoon Butterfly Christmas Eve 2021 Kahalu'u

K Bay.  As we passed the little blue church, we were greeted by a view of a youth on a motorized boogie board, doing tricks on the waves that rippled the surface of the bay. Ever concerned for my well being, Sandra was concerned about the waves and the, albeit remote  possibility. that in my search I might be chopped up into bite size chunks.  

     Undeterred by a high tide and waves, I was soon in the water, along with a surprisingly large number of fellow snorkelers, most of which were (and I'm not too good at this) Chinese.  Despite appearances to the contrary, the water was only a little bumpy and had very little in the way of adverse current.  Not terribly cold, it was more than a little cloudy.

     While the lack of clarity was unfortunate, it was offset by a fairly large number of fishies. You may recall that when Sandra and I made our preparatory swim a week ago, the paucity of finned friends was depressing.  Or to put it in seasonal jargon, our spirits were not bright.

Threadfin Butterfly, Christmas Eve 2021

     I saw nothing spectacular until I got over by the Rescue Shelter.  In some clearer water I snapped photos of raccoons, threadfins and a stocky hawkfish, who was pretending that I couldn't see him.  Then, in the murky water, among the submerged pahoehoe, I saw a familiar twisting fish.  I approached rapidly and nabbed a good five second look at an adult Christmas Wrasse.  Despite the cloudy water, I enjoyed his bright, adult coloration.  Of course, by the time I got the camera out he was long gone; no amount of swimming among the wave splashed rocks could bring him back.  

    And so, with the annual mission accomplished I swam along the rocky shallows,  This is not the most handsome portion of Kahalu'u Bay, but it may be the most productive in relation to unusual animals.  I've seen pearl wrasse, octopus and a leaf scorpionfish over in this corner in the recent past, so I always give it a special look.  This time I was surprised to see a fleshy invertebrate clinging to one of the rocks.  

    The animal was long and skinny with a pair of blunt rhinophores leading him over the rock.  I watched him for a couple minutes, certain that I had found a new species of nudibranch, or some similar mollusc.  There was one puzzling aspect of this wannabe nudibranch, I could detect no external gills, which as you will recall, sprout from the after the  third on the dorsal side of any self-respecting nudi, often in a colorful, feathery array.  I took my photographs and began composing my letter to distinguished authorities.  

Not a Sap Sucking Sea Slug

 

    Right in mid-paragraph, I was interrupted by the appearance of a juvenile Christmas Wrasse.  This time, from the stand point of documentation, I had the camera in my hand.  His coloration was subdued, as befits his lowly station in the Yuletide pageant, but, as you can see, there was no mistaking that the Baby Jesus had given us a second Christmas Wrasse with which to celebrate his special day.  Hosanna in the highest!

    You may wonder why I didn't have the camera in my hand when I saw the first Christmas Wrasse. Well, I've gotten old and sometimes I need both hands to swim.  Not only that, but ever since I fell off the bleachers at Colsen's baseball game last September, I have been more cautious about bipedal locomotion.  Luckily, as I hit the beach, one of the Chinese snorkelers was there to give me helping hand over the rocks.   Shay shay.

But an Automatized Starfish Arm!

    Even though it was Christmas Eve, the Reef Teachers were there to provide whatever it is that they do.  I spoke to an earnest young man named Chris, who produced a well-thumbed copy of John Hoover's critter book.  We looked at my pictures on the camera and compared them with those in the book.  In this manner, we found something like a nudibranch called a sap sucking slug ( you can't make up shit like this!) which didn't have obvious external gills.  Chris and I left the book open to the sap sucking slug page, in hopes that Kathleen Clark soon would be there.

   Following this bit of research,  I put my finger beside my nose and Sandra and I, up the highway we rose.

    Once we were safely ensconced in Casa Ono, warmed by several layers of fleece and a cup of hot cocoa, I processed my pictures and sent off letters to my three consultants, John Hoover, Pauline Fiene and a professor who will remain un-named.  These were wonderful letters, warm with anticipation and holiday cheer.  

   John Hoover wrote back first, saying, "Jeff, I don’t think it’s a mollusk, but rather the automatized arm of a starfish! Probably Linckia multifora. You can see how it’s just beginning to grow a couple of new arms at the closer end. Let me know what the others think.  May your starfish be merry and bright! — John

A juvenile Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Eve 2021

    Suffice it to say, this was interesting, if somewhat deflating,  news.  What I had  assumed were blunt rhinophores were actually a  matched pair of developing starfish arms.  Bummer.

   Upon receiving the news from the Great Oz,  Sandra grabbed the critter book and found John's piece on Linkia starfish.  As it turns out, these starfish do something to make an arm self-sufficient..they "automatize" the arm...and then shed it.  At this point the arm, hard as this is to believe, becomes a self sufficient animal.  It crawls over the sea bed and digests algae through its tube feet, which in this automatized state now have a digestive function. And, it begins to grow four more arms.

  If this sounds a bit like a zombie movie, I suggest you go out to Forks, Washington, book a table at the Vampire Bar and Grill and order the starfish arm special.  As long as you don't look like algae, I believe you will be safe.

    Pauline wrote back in a bit confirming John's identification, including a heart warming Christmas greeting.  My professor, who will remain nameless, wrote back a bit later, saying she had never seen anything like that in her entire life. Now please pass the eggnog.  

    Once upon a time, John Hoover wrote that if you wanted to picture an alien, you could do worse than envisioning an echinoderm.  And with those sage words, Sandra and I bid you all a Merry Christmas.

 

jeff   

Christmas Traditions

   Christmas is almost upon us and it seemed like it was time to set aside the gardening implements and get on with the fish watching business. Most notably, we needed to prepare for our Yuletide search for the Christmas Wrasse.

    Yet one sad bit of horticultural obligation stood in the way. Our beloved avocado tree, following the lead of many of her sisters here on the Big Island, was infested with the Avocado Lace Bug. These tiny insects, originally from South America,  colonize the underside of the leaves.  Like aphids, they suck the sap from the leaves and in short order turn them a rust brown, eventually killing both the leaves and the new growth stems to which they were attached.  Hence, we had a mostly barren tree, surrounded by leaf litter and dead stems.  Que triste.

The HMS Avocado beating to windward.  Damn the bugs!

   And, yes, we speak of those leaves and stems in the past tense as I was forced to cut down my long time friend. This was a big tree, thirty feet at least, in height. She bore us many a fine crop of avocados,these were each plucked with my twelve foot fruit grabbing device. and when carefully brought to ripeness on the kitchen counter, made the most wonderful guacamole. And yet, me and my battery powered chain saw were able, in less than a week, to bring her down and haul her bones to the yard debris

 So tear that noble fruit tree down, long has she borne on high, such scrumptious avos ripened well made guacamole pie.

With thanks to Oliver Wendell Holmes

    As I'm sure you will recall, Guacamole Pie was a specialty of Killick's (the captain's steward) when Hornblower was stationed in the Leeward Islands, blockading Martinique.  

    Or alternatively,  picture me dressed in black, sitting on the last two feet of stump and contemplating a gnarled fragment of branch:

   Alas, poor Avocado.   I knew him Horatio.  A tree of infinite jest and most wondrous guacs.

   It's not clear if Anne Hathaway and the bard himself, sitting on the lanai overlooking the River Avon, ever shared a bowl of guacamole and chips.  But given the opportunity, I'm sure they would have.

   As for Hamlet, he had Ophelia put avos in his omelet.

   Soon enough, the avocado tree was in repose at the green waste depository and it was time to hit the beach.  Early last week we went to Kahalu'u twice.  Suffice it to say, it was disappointing.   We saw no Christmas Wrasse and not much of anything else.  The only high point was provided by our petite friend Yasuko, who happily accepted a paper mache butterflyfish, bowing and exclaiming "Arigato!"

Oval Butterfly at the Kailua Pier, where it was once common.  2016

    After those fruitless expeditions, Sandra said,  "Enough of that.  Let's go north." As wavy conditions were predicted for Mahukona, we ended up going to Kawaihae Harbor.   The water here was cold, but as clear as ever I can recall.  The same old fish at Kawaihae are pretty good.  We saw a pair of saddle back butterflies, plenty of milletseeds and a single Oval Butterflyfish, presumably looking for a mate, the better with which to share a slice of guacamole pie.  This latter (the fish, not the pie)  has become, insidiously, a fairly rare fish.  Not so long ago, one could count on it out in front of Hulihee's Palace, but those days are apparently behind us.  With luck, this soldier will hang on for a couple weeks so he can be added to the 2022 list.

    The best thing we saw was a handsome Cushion Starfish, clinging to one of the pillars supporting the second platform.  This used to be a treasured find, but it is fairly common at Kawaihae.  You may have noticed that I didn't mention any nudibranchs, which is in a way, saying that we saw not a one.  The fouling organisms carpeting the pillars were not exactly luxuriant; this may be a result of the cool winter water.  Or maybe we just had bad luck and insufficient time to observe.  The water was cold and as a result Sandra and I swam for less than an hour.

Cushion Star with blue sponges, Kaawaihae December 2021

   As at Kahalu'u, the best part was the people on shore.  After our swim at Kawaihae, we encountered Hai, Lottie and Nai'a.  Nai'a will be two in February and naturally she is smart as a whip.  She was a little shy with me, but she and Auntie Sandra got on famously  

    Wednesday night we went to church and sang a few Christmas carols.  After the service, we had a nice chat with Rebekah Keizer, who is the pastor's wife.  A former college basketball player and the mother of two charming children, Rebekah is a delight. She asked us if we had any Christmas traditions.  Sandra told her about seeking the Christmas Wrasse on Christmas Day, and said that we would go to Mahukona to find it.  Of course, that depends on conditions, but why get caught up in all the details.

    Rebekah, in turn,  told us that their family gets up early Christmas morning and drives north to Kua Bay.  We are not so good with some of the Hawaiian names, which as they roll off the haole tongue sound much the same.  So we verified that this is what we call Cemetery Beach, as the entrance to the park is across the road from the entrance to a U.S. Military Cemetery.  You don't hear about this bay often in the blog because the rocks make for an interesting, intermediate (read dangerous) exit.  This is another reason we call it Cemetery Beach.  Also, three years ago there was a fatal shark attack here.  

Kua Bay, aka Cemetery Beach  Nice white sand , sharp rocks.

  Anyway, the Keizer family tries to be the first ones at Kua Bay on Christmas morning, hence leaving their footprints in the virgin sand. Virgin sand, virgin birth.  Nice, right?  Following this they return to Casa Keizer to open gifts.  At this juncture the two aforementioned children observe their colleagues in the street playing with toys that they opened two or three hours earlier. 

    Yesterday Sandra dropped me of at the pier.  I can't understand what it is about showering with drug addicts that she finds objectionable, but if she is happy to drop me off I am happy to swim.   In preparation for Christmas Day I chose to swim on the Paul Allen side, which has much better habitat (wave swept rocks) for the eponymous wrasse.  Try as I might, I did not see any Christmas wrasses.  But I did see a nice variety of fish.  Best was a heavenly host of menpachi, Epaulette Soldierfish to those of you who are not Japanese fishermen.  They were cavorting twenty feet down in some dying coral where we hope to see Potter's Angelfish, which did not appear this time. 

Johnston (Blue Eye) Damsel,Paul Allen's Reef, 12/17/21

    In the little bay outside the jetty, there were three nice heads of healthy meandrina Cauliflower Coral.  One green, one purple and one brown.  On the latter I spotted a pair of Johnston Island Damselfish.  The keikis are prettier but these bigger fish still have the striking blue eyes that provide their common name.  Quick on the draw, I got this picture for you to enjoy.

   Both going out and coming in I was treated to a large number of Red Pencil Sea Urchins which had climbed to the top of the rocks at the tip of the little jetty.  When the sea urchins climb to the top like this, it may be a harbinger of spawning.  This being the time of the full moon, breeding may be exactly the reason they were so prominent.  These urchins were in particularly good shape and the red of their spines was vibrant.  This is yet another reason to suspect that these animals, obviously looking their best, were breeding.

    On the way back I encountered a small whitemouth moray eel poking out near a couple of these many handsome urchins.  Maybe this picture will make it onto next year's Christmas card

jeff

A whitemouth moray and red pencil urchins with you a Merry Christmas!