A Close encounter witha Box Jelly

      Yesterday I got dropped off for a morning swim at the pier.   It was just before 9 AM and there was a congregation of recreational swimmers, some with floats, waiting in a line, waist deep in the cool water.  They were accompanied by a leader and someone on a paddle board.  Was this the race committee?  I had no idea what was going on.

Recreational Swimmers and their escort.  What are they up to?

     I skirted the waiting swimmers and headed off into the bay.  Ten minutes later I was out by the fourth swim buoy and as far as I could tell the swimmers were still in line.  I had not seen much up to that point, but then things picked up.  Hiding beneath a coral ledge I saw my first Palani of the year.  This is the fish for which one of our main thoroughfares is named and it is usually plentiful out here in the bay.  This is another instance of a common fish being more difficult than one would expect. 

   A couple cleaning stations yielded usual suspects and then I spied a medium sized native snapper.  The wonderfully named opakapaka is rarely seen to close to shore, although it is a larger fish and can sometimes be seen whole, with its orange tail, in the markets.  The small tooth jobfish and the green jobfish are occasionally seen close in.  They are hard to tell apart and I usually do it by size.  I don't know what sort of job these smaller snappers do, but I'm sure they're good at it.  I called this one green.  

Palani, Kailua Bay, 2010

   By this time the swimmers from the beach were all around me.  They didn't seem to be racing, more like swimming around and talking to one another.  Time had passed on and I left them, still in the dark as to their modus operandi.   I swam back to the pier without seeing anything special.  When I was about ten yards from the pier, near the first swim buoy, I caught sight of small glistening trailers.  Was this the long sought after African Pomapano, the juvenile of which is called the Threadfin Jack?  

Extreme Danger!  Box Jellyfish!

   Another second and I caught a look at the whole animal and it was no fish.  This was a box jellyfish with its four stinging tentacles trailing behind a clear tubular body.  The whole thing, tentacles and all might fit inside a can made for three tennis balls.  It was incredibly beautiful.  Body and tentacles were remarkably translucent and glimmered in the sunlit water.  I did not, however, stick around to admire this nemesis of the sea, nor to take his picture.  I swam away watching for more jellyfish. 

   Box jellyfish stings are apparently very painful.  In Hawaii they are rarely fatal.  On the south facing beaches of Oahu they are expected about ten days after a full moon.  Here in Kona they are rare.  this was only my second box jellyfish in many years of snorkeling.  And I hope to keep it that way!  jeff