The Eel With The Midas Touch

     The winter of turbulent seas has continued virtually unabated.  Our buddies Bob and Kim Hillis noted a break in the high surf and we made the most of it with a trip to 49 Black Sand Beach.  Although there was a surfeit of vog inland, the sky over the beach was a briliant blue.  The little bay was flat, but the water

A Recent Sighting on Alii Drive

was cloudy.   There were mostly usual suspects, along with more snorkelers than I have previously seen at this venue.  We all had a nice swim and then enjoyed some spectacular whale watching from the picnic area adjacent to the petroglyph trail.

      Yesterday, hopeful that we would get one more day of swimable water, Sandra and I bopped down to Kahalu'u.  On the way we noted the spot where the lady torched herself and her estranged husband.   This is somewhat less amusing, as he passed last Thursday.  She remains in critical condition at the Straub Burn Center, now charged with second degree murder.  KHNL, in an attempt to keep the story humming, reported this evening that the deceased bore the name Ghenghis Khan Kaaihue.  The Golden Horde integrated several religions as it expanded across Asia

Don't you wish that you could look over your shoulder?

 and the exact location of the first Ghenghis Khan are unknown.  Thus, its difficult to predict to what better place this latter day khan aspired.  But I hope he made it there, whatever or where ever it may be.

    Down at the now infamous beach park, we noted substantially more wave action than we had hoped.  We entered the water on the mauka side, as our usual entrance has been scoured to a washboard of lava.  As I negotiated the rocky channel, I was passed by the most handsome chub I have ever seen.  He was a just entering his teens, about the size and shape of a brook trout, and he bore a handsome coat of evenly spaced bright white spots over a burnished silver field.  These were not large spots like you see on some adults, but a panoply of spots less than half a centimeter across.  This adolescent chub was so handsome that I hope to receive a tie in his image next Christmas.

    I turned to take his picture, but the water was only eight inches deep and swishing in and out over the rocks.  Mui pelogrosso!.  Sandra, trailing right behind me, spotted the fish.  So distinctive was this little fellow, that she knew what I was looking for.  And she saw a second, which she reported as having less

Banded Moray Eel  Kahalu'u February 2015

 brilliant spots.  Despite her encouragement I could not get to where the fishes were and my description will have to suffice.  C'est domage.

     Out in the bay, we encountered a hermit crab harboring in a coral depression.  If you look at the picture, you will perhaps identify him as a Hidden Hermit Crab, Ca. latens.  As I was taking his picture, he was looking back at me over his shoulder.  Note how those muscular eye stalks are able to bend back like a pair of fiberoptic endoscopes. Had I, at that moment, required an ERCP, I would have been in luck.  He might have even given me a professional discount.  Much like that offered by tiger sharks to the lawyers.

  Out by Surfer's Rock, we encountered a pair of hunters in full hooded wet suits and brandishing spear guns.  Like a pair of sea going banshees they was. Arrr. Not satisfied with depleting the fish with their weapons, they were stomping mercilessly on the coral.  How I wished that the bastard who admonished my

The distinctive tail pattern of G. ruepellii

beloved a few weeks ago for the merest grazing of the coral was there to read these villains his vituperative brand of the riot act.  Now that would have made for some good theater.

    "You Can't Step On The Coral!"   Thunk.  "You Can't Shoot Me In the Guts!"  Sometimes our imagination has to suffice.

    Making the turn into the cloudy water over by the Rescue Kiosk, I was hoping for a Milletseed, an octopus, or at least a Pearl Wrasse.  Instead, my eyes were drawn to a blaze of gold, which was the head of a Banded Moray (G. ruepellii)  This was a pretty big guy, more than three feet in length.   He was coiled in the rocks, threatening with open jaws.  We got down within a foot for a  photograph.  What a handsome golden head!  He turned in the coral to reveal the gray and buff bands on his flank and the dorsal line, a fine ribbon of distinctive black and white corresponding to the alternating bands on the body. 

    After a bit, he broke cover and swam about ten feet, disappearing  into another coral.  During his exposed swim we nabbed a full body photo and an inferior moving picture.

    It was a delightful sighting of this handsome eel which is far more common at night than during the day.  For those of you new to fish identification, remember that the Undulated Moray (G. undulatus) may sport a dusting of gold on his noggin. And his body may or may not have the chevron banding pattern.  Hopefully when you see a banded moray he will have the distinctive flank pattern you see here.  Not to mention the blazing golden head!

jeff

Ghenghis Khan Kaaihue

Ghenghis Khan Kaaihue

Ghenghis Khan Kaai

 

The Eel With the Midas Touch.