A Different Look at an Octopus

  A few days ago Bob and I went swimming at Kahalu'u.  As it was raining cats and dogs, Sandra and Kim went into the village for coffee.

   The rain had no effect on the water, it was cool and clear, a fine pattering was audible as we swam along.    For most of the swim we saw

Poor Little Puffer

nothing more interesting than three stripe belly puffers.  The first we encountered was all hunkered down and didn't seem to be in the pink of health, the second and third were small fishies just puffing along, as puffers are wont to do on a rainy day.

    As we swam near the Menehune Breakwater, the current increased and the surface became extremely choppy.  Suddenly, this was a lot of work.  As I struggled along, I saw a most interesting association.  A small blue  goatfish was hunting with a male bird wrasse.  The goatfish was young, so instead of a yellow blotch on the caudal peduncle he bore a discreet harvest moon.  From a physical standpoint there was nothing remarkable

Baby Blue Goatfish and I'wi Hunting Together in K Bay

about the I'iwi, but I  had never witnessed one hunting with  another fish before.  They stayed together for as long as I could follow them and I did my best to get a picture for your pleasure.

    Blue goatfish commonly hunt with adolescent ulua.  The usual ratio is three goatfish per trevally.   One has to wonder if the bird wrasse was getting anything out of this, but I didn't hear him complain.

   On the way in I encountered a brown dragon wrasse.  Much has been made of late in the Beach Blog of the green dragon wrasse, so I thought that I would show you this brown one.  In the event that you presumed that all dragon wrasses supported the nefarious criminals of the University of Oregon football team, you now have evidence to the contrary.  Rather obviously, this fellow supports Brown.  I suppose when he grows up he wants to live in Manhattan and be an investment banker.  The snob.

    I was just about to go in when I made eye contact with Bob, who was about five yards away.  "Octopus"

The chocolate ones go great with a glass of milk!

he said quietly.  I swam over expecting that the shy mollusc would have disappeared into the reef.  Such was the case.  Neither Bob nor I could see a trace of him when we peered under the rock, only three feet deep, where the octopus had disappeared.

  I backed off about five feet or so and Bob went down for one more attempt.  To stabilize himself as he looked under the large rock, he grabbed both edges.  As he floated up, the rock came off the bottom a tiny amount, less than an inch.  As this happened, the sheltering octopus slowly oozed from under rock.  It took him about twenty seconds to reconstitute himself upright in the water.  Just for a moment, as he hung there, he reminded me of the ghost that lives in the vat down in the laboratory in the Wizard of Id.  It was an uncanny resemblance.

    The octopus shot me a look of utter disdain and swam a few yards to a different rock under which he disappeared without a trace.  The whole delightful episode took less than half a minute.

I swear, the Octopus looked just like this.

    I was left wondering how an animal who can compress his nervous system so completely could be so intelligent.  Rumor has it that an octopus at the Hatfield Marine Science complex in Newport, Oregon would  emerge from his tank, on occasion, to pick the pockets of unsuspecting muggles.   What would happen if I was forced to compress my brain so it fit under a rock?  I wouldn't be writing blogs, that's for sure.  And perhaps the world would be a better place.  Hopefully not.

jeff

And Away We Go.

This week in Kona

     This was the week when I finally pulled my head from the sand and noticed that the dengue fever epidemic in South Kona was not going away.  In fact, its getting worse, with cases now numbering in the

Small Bluefin Trevally Hunting With Flying Gurnard

 70s.  In true island fashion, all mosquito related products have disappeared from the shelves of the markets that might have carried them.  This is not so dissimilar to the canned foods running out the door in the face of an impending hurricane.  Perhaps if I eat enough Spam and canned soup, I won't get dengue fever.

    The only other interesting thing that happened this week was Sandra spotting Andrew Jackson looking at her while snorkeling along the pier.  Luckily Old Hickory was on the side of a twenty.  This puts a new twist on finding sea money.  Suffice it to say, the twenty did not go into the bottle with previously submerged pennies and nickels.

    I did see one interesting fish interaction.  In the Inner Harbour I spotted a small flying gurnard.  This is not so uncommon and, as the water was cloudy, I would not have bothered with him.  However, he was being

 accompanied by a small ulua.  Blue fin trevally are possibly the fish most likely to seek help from another species in their ongoing search for their daily bread.  Eels and goatfish are their usual symbiotic help mates.  I had never before seen anything hunting with a gurnard, but the little guy was disturbing the sand as much as any goatfish, so from the standpoint of the ulua, it makes sense.

   On the same outing in the water off Paul Allen's Reef, I got this nice picture of a pair of Reticulated Butterflyfish.  Heaven knows why this species has increased in numbers.  It is so handsome and approachable that I can't resist taking its picture.  

    Also out there was a fine little Whitley's Trunkfish.  I don't see these very often and this one was especially cooperative.  He was nosing around that piece of sunken rudder, which made an perfect hand hold in about

seven feet of water for this picture. 

    Two days ago, Sandra and I made a dash up to Beach 69.  It was a gorgeous day, perfect for reading in a beach chair, enjoying a picnic lunch and making friends with fellow northwesterners who were escaping the winter weather.  It was also a great day for seahorse watching.  Yours truly found his first hippocamp cruising along by a stick, right where he ought to be.  I spent ten minutes watching him as he poked here and there on the sandy bottom.  His compatriot, the box crab, was also present for comic relief.
   And that was the week that was here in Kailua.

jeff

Kailuan Hippocamp  November 2015

  

Back In Kailua Again

   Sandra and I returned from Portland this week.  In the Rose City, we had observed the newest member of our snorkeling clan.  CJ is a fine little trout of about 8 lbs with red hair, a lusty appetite and spine tingling

Houndfish at City of Refuge    Photo Martin DeLuke

 screech.  With all the attention lavished upon him by the family pooch, Riley, he may grow up to be a houndfish.

   Speaking of which, in our absence Casa Ono and the adjacent waters were looked after by our dear friends Martin and Gail DeLukes.  They had many good days of snorkeling, seeing their first Day Octopus among many others.  One day at City of Refuge, they nabbed this Cracker Jack picture of the previously mentioned houndfish.  They were hoping for a barracuda, but all they got was a sweater.  Sorry, that's a different joke.  Who can blame them for thinking that  this muscular menace, this Master of Disaster,  might be a barracuda?  I mean, just look at those choppers!  Kudos to the DeLukes for taking such a marvelous picture.

    Also while we were gone, our bosom buddy Bob (nice alliteration, no?) Hillis, while sailing on the bright blue sea, plucked an errant buoy from the waves, only to find living in the eye, where once there was a line attached to a crab trap or such, this marvelous

Spotted Oceanic Triggerefish   photo Bob Hillis

little trigger fish.  The Spotted Oceanic Triggerfish, Canthidermis maculatus, as related by John Hoover in his web site, Fish Not In My Book, is usually found associated with drifting objects and rarely seen close to shore.  Bob removed this small beauty from his watery nest and took the picture you see with the helpless trigger lying in the bottom of a bucket.  One assumes that later in the day this tiny morsel  (he was only 3 cms)  was consumed by an unsuspecting patron down at Da Poke Shack.  All kidding aside, what a cool find.

    Hoping for something almost as good as the oceanic triggerfish, Bob and I went snorkeling at Kahalu'u the day after we returned.  As I entered the bay, I encountered a lovely lady in her mid thirties wearing a handsome black eye patch.  More importantly, she was wearing her fins and edging backwards down the sand channel.  Always the chevalier, I instructed her to sit down in the water and swim out from there, thus saving about thirty feet of backwards edging and a possible twisted ankle.  "Like this!" I said, plopping

Novaculichthys taeniourus stpatrickii.

 on my skinny old bottom and donning my fins and mask.  She in turn layed down in the entry, floating on her back, so I will never know how she tucked the strings supporting her eye patch inside her snorkel mask.  This information might prove useful  in a set of unforseen circumstances.  One can only assume that she has more experience manipulating that patch than she does with swim fins and sand channels.

     Anyway, the alliterative Bob was waiting and we were soon swimming  in the extremely pleasant, if somewhat cloudy water.  (I want the water to be 82 degrees every day of the year.)  On my way out to Surfer's Rock I spotted one of the maturing shortnose wrasses, which has truly gone from fish of the year to Dirt Fish, at least at K Bay.

     Near the rock, I observed and photographed this wonderful green Dragon Wrasse.  It took a bit of work, but we finally got this verdant beauty into focus.  You may recall that earlier this year I was bemoaning the fact that I did not have a really good picture

Tops or Hermits?

 of the green dragon wrasse.  Clearly, I can no longer complain about that.  Just gazin' on his lovely green visage crates a longin' for March 17th, a dram of Jameson's and the skirl of the pipes.  B'gosh and begorrah, laddie, let's raise a glass to the green dragon wrasse,   Novaculichthys taeniourus stpatrickii. 

     Nearby I saw this small colony of tops hiding in a crevice of the coral.  As hermit crabs of a species seem to select a certain variety of shell,  I picked at one.  Unable to extricate it, I left them alone.  My research does not clearly speak to this trio being molluscs or arthropods, but they made a nice picture regardless.

Hebrew Cone.

   I missed a picture of a cute four spot butterfly immature, but nearby got this Hebrew Cone.  Only a small portion of the shell remained in Hebrew, the rest had been debased by coraline algae. I feel like I have subjected you to enough ethnic references for one blog, so I won't torture you with   verses from hava nagila and recipes for matzo balls.  Although even if you are stung by the Hebrew Cone, the effect wears off within twenty four hours. 

Shabbat Shalom from your favorite token gentile,
jeff

The Master of Disaster, Apollo Creed   "Ain't gonna be no rematch."
Rocky,  "I don't want one."