The Wearin' O' the Green

    There has been a brief interruption in the  blogosphere as your humble correspondent has been channeling his creative energies into the paper mache fish, preparing for the show at the Kona library which will open

See the Dragon Wrasse and His Buddies At the Library

next Friday.  The finishing touches are going on the last fish to be displayed, my best (and only) attempt at a dragon wrasse.  I am sure you would all agree that this is a difficult fish to render in any medium. 

   I am reminded of my trip to Sicily ten years ago, when the redoubtable SKG and I visited Caltagirone.  Not only does this small city in the mountainous center of the island boast a couple killer churches. More importantly from Sandra's perspective, Caltagirone is the home of a famous ceramics industry, which has been booming for over a thousand years. 

    Suffice it to say,  the reason we stopped in Caltagirone had little to do with the delectable cathedral and more to do with looking at colorful clay pots, plates and what have you.  The reason I bring this up ,and you would be more than justified in wondering if there was a point to any of this, is that we visited a ceramics gallery in which the artist featured a collection of tropical fish created from fired clay.  Through the miracle of digital photography, I am able to show you a

Ceramic Lionfish  Caltagirone, Sicily 2006

picture of his lionfish hanging on the gallery wall.  I doubt that Lloyd's of London would write a policy covering shipping for something like that!  My dragon wrasse is not quite that ornate.  Created from paper mache, it is certainly less fragile.  Nevertheless, I'm sure you will recognize the connection (And congratulate me on bringing this tale full circle...in hopes that I will move on.)

    But before I do,  I am sharing one more picture from the medieval district of Caltagirone.  Its a great shot and comes with a moral.

     Despite a fall off in our literary output, we didn't lose sight of the primary mission: To search and seek out Hawaiian fishes, to boldly go...  Well, I'm not

Don't mess with Miss Piggy.  Or Sandra!

James Kirk or Link Hogthrob.  And I would never, ever, compare Sandra to Miss Piggy, even in Piggy's reprise of the Lt. Uhura role.  Just to show you that the mission lives, here are a few of the tidbits we have discovered in the past week.

     One week ago, sweetie and I went down to Kahalu'u.  We made the circuit without seeing much until we were just about ready to head for the barn.  In a patch of pretty good coral just this side of Surfer's Rock, I spotted a little green fish.   This was the  keiki of the Blacktail or Old Lady Wrasse, T. balieui.  I hadn't seen this juvenile in several years.  I last saw the female back in 2014.  This is a pretty tough fish here in Kona.  Supposedly it is easier in the northwest chain, so I guess if I want to see the adult male, I need to go to Midway.  This individual made my life difficult by hiding in a fenestrated piece of coral.  While I was trying to get a picture, Sandra spotted one of her favorite associations, the Ember (Red lip) Parrot and the Christmas Wrasse  The little green fish had disappeared, so I worked on the big guys.  Luckily they were more cooperative and you see the result here.  Its hard to know what these two unlikely partners accomplish by working together, but there is no doubt that this is a genuine association.  I will leave it up to the fish ecologists to tell us what a large parrotfish gets from hanging around with the ordinarily fast moving and much smaller

Ember Parrotfish and Christmas Wrasse

Christmas wrasse.  Both are elusive, either individually or when working together, so I'm just glad that they cooperated for this picture.

    A few days later,  I went back to K Bay for an afternoon swim.  This outing started with a pretty good look at a male pearl wrasse.  He was lurking in the extreme shallows just inside the breakwater.  I snuck in and got an acceptable picture along with a few coral bumps.  I wasn't bleeding, so nobody had to go to the penalty box.  On the way in, I saw a shrimp in piece of cauliflower coral.  Never one to pass up an opportunity, I hung on the bottom and snapped away until this tiny guy finally retreated into his refuge.  And look at this!  I'm pretty sure that this is my best shot of a one spot shrimp, maybe my best picture of any shrimp.  It just goes to show that in this age of digital photography with voluminous memory cards, you have very little ot lose by taking your time and taking lots of pictures

Eye Spot Shrimp  Saron neglectus.  Kahalu'u 2016

  















   

   Which brings us to yesterday.  I felt like I had been avoiding my good friends down at the pier, so that's where I went for my afternoon swim.  On my way out, what should I see but another little green fish.  This was my first juvenile blacktail wrasse for the pier.  Curiously, of the few adult blacktails I have seen, all but one 

Blacktail Wrasse and Belted Wrasse Juv.  Kailua Kona 2016

has been in this area.  The other was at Black Sand Beach 49 at the Mauna Lani.  It is a testimony to how uncommon the Old Lady Wrasse is, at least here on the big Island, that that sighting wins the award for  the best fish we have seen at Black Sand Beach.

    This fish was far more cooperative than his brother at Kahalu'u.  I had left the camera on close up mode, that amazing feature in which the camera  measures the distance and adjusts the flash.  I don't think I did this on purpose, but it resulted in the extremely  lucky picture you see.  The little green fish allowed us several more pictures, but none were as good as the first shot.

    Way out in front of the palace, I had several quick looks at a bigeye.  He was deep and every time I would dive in hopes of a picture, he would disappear.

     On the way in, just as I reached the third swim buoy, I saw a juvenile Hawaiian hogfish.  This handsome

Hawaiian Hogfish  Bodianus albotaeniatus  juv.   Kailua Kona 2016

fish with the golden dorsum is one of our favorites.  Although we somehow manage to see a female most years, we hadn't seen one of these handsome juveniles since 2013.  That fish was also on the Ironman side of the pier, but closer in.  He was by the second swim buoy in five feet of water.  This small beauty was twice as deep.  I dove him several times, finally getting a chance as I held onto a coral about six feet down.  He crept out over the edge of the coral and I took several pictures with him only a few feet away.  

   When I was finished taking pictures I looked around and saw two ladies snorkeling near by.  I called them over and explained what I had, a very small fish, fairly deep with a golden head.  Luckily I was  able to find the fish again, dove down and pointed. On closer look, this appeared to be a mother and daughter.  They both got a good look at this pretty little fish.  They were interested enough to ask me to repeat the name, so maybe they went home and added this jewel to their list.  And maybe Link Hogthrob will fly down my chimney.  As if I have one.  After all, this is Hawaii.

    Things were going so well that  I took a  chance and crossed the floating swim line for a look by the 

Leaf Scorpionfish    Kahalu'u   June 2016  The nose is at the lower right.

pier.  The water was clear.  I saw a tiny linkia starfish and  yet again the cushion star.  I was working my way
further out, noticing that there was a really large number of collector urchins.  I was thinking what a desirable turn of events more urchins represented, when I suddenly heard a roar.  Surfacing, I saw the Kona Agressor just thirty yards further down the pier.  He had ghosted in and was now revving his engines in reverse to stop his way, which, by the by, was straight towards me!  This isn't a huge vessel, but its probably the biggest thing that ties up to the pier on a given day.  From my perspective, it looked pretty big!

 
    It was my intention that this would be the end of the blog.  But I went early down to Kahalu'u this morning.   

  Having had some pretty good luck in the mornings, I hit the water about 9 AM.  I found the coral head where I found the leaf scorpiofish six weeks ago and he was there again.  The combination of a morning high tide and an approach before lots of swimmers are in the area may be what it takes.  Certainly I have looked at that patch of coral every time in, probably eight to ten times over the six weeks, with no results.  Like before he was positioned on the bottom in the middle of the coral.   As this fish was black and white, odds are it is the same fish we saw previously.  I was by myself so I took my time, enjoying the fish and trying different techniques to get a good picture.  As you can see, on a single attempt I got a picture that makes sense.  

The impossible shot!  Fourline Wrasse, Pseudocheilinus tetrtaenia   Kahalu'u June 2016

   Everything else is a difficult puzzle in black and white.  If one is very patient, you can just make out the fish, but no messing with light and contrast (the underwater photographer's two best friends) animate this fish.  The one exception is the first picture I took.  On that shot, I held on to a bit of dead coral, thrust the camera into the coral and shot with the close up lens and flash.  The result is a pretty good picture of the dorsal fin.  Or is it the tail?  Whatever it is, its in good focus.

   After I had done all the damage I could, I looked around and saw another mother / daughter combo about five yards away.  They came over and had a look.  Suffice it to say, getting down and looking into the coral

The Leaf Scorpionfish waves goodbye.  Or is he wagging his tail?

was a tricky proposition and I'm pretty sure that the daughter did not manage.  Mom was up to speed though, and seemed to get a good  look.    Hopefully she has gone home and checked it off her list. 

      Incidentally, it was only after I got home that I discovered that it was Bring Your Daughter to the reef Week.

   As the conditions seemed identical to six weeks before, I meandered over to the breakwater and found the coral that had been the home to the fourline wrasse.  In the blog, I believe I fermented some sour grapes, saying that getting a picture of that little brown fish in the middle of the cauliflower coral was  impossible.  Well, today the fish was just a bit more cooperative and you are looking at a picture that I took.  Not too shabby for an impossible fish.

jeff

Star Eye Fins