Waika-Blowah

    First the good news.  Yesterday morning I presented myself bright and early to the Fish Nazi. He's not exactly a Nazi but he does sell fish.  His name is Brad.  Brad goes out fishing on Friday nights, brings the catch home, packages it and then shows up at the Saturday Farmer's Market at the Keahou Shopping Center and sells this delicious fresh fish at extraordinarily affordable prices.  People line up and pay him in cash, similar to the Soup Nazi on that old Seinfeld episode.  Brad had been away attending his father who was ill in Thunder Bay, Ontario and had only made it back on Thanksgiving Day.   He had not yet gone fishing, but he promised to have fish next Saturday.   No fish for me.  That's not the good news.
    Following my failed fish purchase, I went to Kahaluu.  A group, perhaps a Hawaiian motorcycle club, was setting up for a private party.   A giant guy with a scruffy beard (and two moderately sized assistants) were preparing three huge woks with pulled pork and chilis.  The club had walled off the kiosk with grass mats and ladies were applying philodendron leaves to their bamboo walls.  They didn't invite me to the luau, but that's OK.  I had to go swimming.    

Saddleback Butterfly at Kahaluu

    I hit the water about 9:20.  The water was calm and there were a moderate amount of the usual fish. The Snorkelkids have a theory that the fish are not all awake and present before 10 AM and as I swam I acknowledged that the numbers were down. Towards the end of my circuit, I found an Eightline Wrasse, the first for this winter.  The Eightline Wrasse is a very small fish that one encounters as a glimpse as it moves through the interstices of the coral.  I will never take a good picture of this fish in the wild.  Here is a link so you can see this beautiful, small and furtive fish:
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1280&bih=619&tbm=isch&tbnid=HFLQYacrjHLmaM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.captive-aquatics.com/captive_aquatics/2010/11/fish-spotlight-cryptic-six-line-wrasse.html&docid=Ee-JvsfCzOmSeM&imgurl=http://blog.captive-aquatics.com/.a/6a010535f11c3d970c0134898fc77c970c-500wi&w=448&h=299&ei=0_3STri0JcnbiALd5v2DDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=353&vpy=296&dur=1120&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=157&ty=96&sig=103332346128262804817&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=172&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0
    About that same time I spotted a small green shrimp.  I've seen that fellow at Kahaluu before and as near as I can tell it is not in John Hoover's Critter Book.  Its fun to see these invertebrates, but there are truly a myriad of species and only the most common will be identified buy us amateurs.

Shortnose Wrasse at Beach 69

   Today we decided to take another pass at Beach 69, also known as Waialea Beach Park.  In my initial write up, I did not exactly mention how well we did there a couple weeks ago.  We saw one life fish, the Shortnose Wrasse and the Yellowstripe Coris, a fish that I saw I saw so long ago that I could not clearly remember the encounter. So it was almost as good as a life fish.  My pictures appeared in that first blog, but I'll show you the second best pictures from that lucky day here.
     Before we left Kona, I checked the computer for a weather prediction for Waikoloa, only ten miles south of Beach 69.  On our earlier trip the wind had been fairly strong and I was hoping for milder conditions.  The forecast said 5 to 10 from the south.   As we drove up, it was apparent that this was not the case, bending palms and whitecaps, not to mention that the car was being blown across the road, said that  there was big wind.  Indeed it was howling.  There were still lots of people at Waialea and in the words of Dorothy,   "We'd come such a long ways already."  (It wasn't a tornado, so I didn't expect any wicked witches.)

Yellow Stripe Coris on a clear day at Beach 69

     So we got in to have a look.  The surf has come up a teensy bit  and that, accompanied by the ferocious wind, had decreased  the visibility to 15 feet.
    Sandra and I did our job swimming among the rocks and coral, but didn't see anything spectacular. Mostly sandy water.  We swam back around the rocks and as we started to head back toward the beach, i could tell we were being pushed the wrong way.  Swimming in the ocean,  its common to have to deal with adverse currents.  Its unusual, though, to swim in a current generated only by a strong wind pushing the surface water.  Probably because sane people don't go for a casual swim in a 30 knot wind!  Taking note of the situation, Sandra and I put it in a higher gear and made it back to the beach.
   No life fish, but we did enjoy a good strong swim without adverse consequences.
   As an aside, this wind is created as the trades funnel through the gap between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  There is a community up the slope known as Waikoloa Village.  This forceful wind rips through that community about 70% of the days from November through May.  Hence, the nickname, "Waika-blowah."
   For those of you that might want to do better than I did this morning, here is a link for the weather at Hapuna Beach that may be superior to the page I found this morning:  
http://www.findlocalweather.com/pinpoint/us/hi/hapuna+beach+state+park/current13171.html

See a fish for me,
jeff