A Great Day at Honokohau

   Over the years I have tried to write about bird watching trips and the work in the field devolves into "then we saw this and then we saw that."   Yesterday we took a swim at Honokohau.  The fish watching was so good that I am going to have to watch myself or that's what we'll end up with...an annotated list.

A view of the beach at Honokohau.

    The trip began by taking friends to the airport for their 1 PM flight back to PDX.  Don and Loretta will be spending Christmas with their children and grandchildren in Salem and Beaverton.  Sounds like a Chilly Kalikimaka.  Stuck here in Kona, Sandra and I will just have to make the best of things.
    Its a short drive back from the airport to Honokohau.  You will recall from one of the introductory entries that this is the boat harbor and that there is a short walk over a lava ridge from the unimproved lava car park to a sweet little beach.  I nabbed this picture before we got in.  Wasn't it a pretty day?   There were a couple border collies scampering on the beach. (No pit bulls on this day.)   

A Stareye Parrotfish , Honokohau 2011

     The water was warm and the bar was flat.  Often we swim through waves breaking on the bar, but not today.  Just over the bar we spotted two pretty good fish, a Barred Jack which swam away before I could snap a good picture and a Star-eye Parrotfish, which posed cooperatively in about fifteen feet of crystal clear water.
     We swam over the boulders near the shore and then around the second dive boat into the deeper water.  There was nothing special in the seaward water column, but only a short period of observation yielded a pair of Potter's Angelfish in about 50 feet of clear Kona water.  Too deep for a photo, but this is a pretty fish, so I'm throwing you a link:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=potter%27s+angelfish&hl=en&sa=G&biw=1280&bih=619&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=d532Nxsd9StunM:&imgrefurl=http://saltwater.tropicalfishandaquariums.com/Angelfish/Centropyge-potteri.asp&docid=3JDxUqi2X8nbvM&imgurl=http://saltwater.tropicalfishandaquariums.com/Angelfish/Centropyge-potteri.jpg&w=650&h=440&ei=tsnXTvbBEOmWiAKg37GICg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=505&vpy=198&dur=1237&hovh=185&hovw=273&tx=169&ty=112&sig=103332346128262804817&page=1&tbnh=118&tbnw=159&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0

A portion of the school of Heller's Barracuda

   The mild conditions had left us with extra energy, so we decided to swim out to the far point before heading home.  We had gone only 10 yards when suddenly there was a large school of Heller's Barracuda right in front of us.  These fish are known to occur in schools, in fact they are usually pictured that way, but I don't think I had previously seen more than a handful together.  There must have been over a hundred of these sleek fish about ten feet below us.  Heller's is much smaller than Great Barracuda, so we didn't feel the same sort of apprehension we get around the bigger fish.  There's something about a large Great Barracuda that is reminiscent of a Rottweiler; it just looks like it wants to bite something (or someone!)  Here are a couple pictures for you.  The first shows a portion of the school and the second a close up so you can see the wide blue longitudinal stripe.  it was quite an experience.  That stripe is diagnostic for the species and the two books I use don't show it very well. 
    Later at the barbecue I was boring my friend Gary with the day's exploits.  (He was cooking a pork roast and was therefore a captive audience.) He told me that just the day before the barracuda at Honokohau had been pictured in the local rag, West Hawaii Today. I checked the internet and found two artists selling pictures of this very school.  Their pictures are crisper than mine, but don't show the blue stripe.  At any rate, it sounds like this school is pretty regular here and should be looked for.

Note the bright blue stripe on this Heller's Barracuda.

    As we had exhausted ourselves swimming around and diving the barracudas, we decided to  head for the beach. Just as we got to the last lava outcropping, the westward cusp of the bay, a large male wrasse swam by me, heading in the direction from which I just came.  I knew it was a life fish, so I turned and pursued him.  His deep body was gray green with fine vertical lines, he had a clearly demarcated lime green forehead and an indigo snout.  I chased him for a couple minutes, shooting about a dozen photos, always from behind, so I got a good shot of the tail!   We had to wait until we got home to the books to identify this as a terminal male Pearl Wrasse.  You've seen a picture of the intermediate, female phase in an earlier blog, red with rows of  white spots...like strings of pearls.  We see that fish every year.  This was my first male.

Terminal male Pearl Wrasse, Honokohau 2011

   We made it back onto the beach where we greeted a cute little bulldog before heading out to nearby Costco.  My charming neighbor Pearl (not to be confused with the eponymous wrasse) works there and does her best to tolerate me when I drop by for a chat while she ought to be working.   We scored some kalamata olives and a plump rotiserrie chicken.   Maybe tonight we'll have Chicken Pizza.

Finishing you off with a little Mayan humor,
jeff

(Sounds like Chichen Itza)