Back in the Saddle With General Haig

   This week the redoubtable SKG and your humble correspondent returned to the leeward coast of the Big Island from the Pacific Northwest.   Our trip was largely dedicated to meeting, greeting and making silly

Northern Goshawk courtesy of Markum Varesuva

noises with our grandson Colsen.  The last time we saw him, he was only a few weeks old and mostly doing the vital things that babies do.  He is now an animated lad of ten months.  His father was identifying fish almost from the moment he could enunciate 'chille's tang, so we have high hopes for Colsen in the fish watching department. 

    We also visited our friends north of Seattle.  while with my brother on Camano Island,  I was lucky enough to see a goshawk.  This uncommon bird flew right over me as I was standing in my brother's driveway, awaiting his imminent arrival.  The goshawk was only thirty feet above and I got an excellent look at the banding pattern on the tail and the fine, slate gray barring on the breast.  A couple hours later Chuck and I perused Birds of North America over a glass of  cab franc.  There is no doubt that this was my best look ever at a goshawk.  And the wine was pretty good, too!

    I hit the water on our second day back.  After a morning of gardening and unpacking,  I headed down to Kahalu'u for an afternoon swim.  The water was cloudy and Indonesia caliber warm.  At times I found myself sweating into my mask.  Never the less, it was great to be back and I was lucky to find a few notables for

your perusal.   Early on I saw a young zebra moray and shortly after that a small undulated, which I see only rarely at K Bay.  Out by Surfer's rock, I spotted a minuscule cleaner wrasse working on a yellow tang.  If you look carefully you can see the tiny blue and black cleaner doing a job around the eye of the larger fish.

    On the shore side of the rock I found a head of living cauliflower coral that was home to a bevy of hermits residing in tops shells.  While diving down for a possible picture of the crabs, I noticed  a pair of small shrimp who seemed interested in my activity.  They actually ascended to the edge of the coral to get a better look at me!  Of course, their curiosity provided the opportunity for this nice portrait of a shrimp as a young crustacean.  Perhaps you can use the accompanying diagram that apparently suffices for all shrimp and deduce what some of these elegantly displayed structures might be.  Thinking that, like me, you might enjoy eating decapods,  I am not forcing

 upon you some of the more graphic representations from the internet that attempt to display just what is inside a shrimp.  Let us leave it that,
when sauteed in olive oil and garlic, they can be quite delicious!  Serve with a chilled, crisp white wine.

   On the way in, I passed by this handsome golden jack with the black beret.  "Ooh la la!" I greeted him through my snorkel.  Naturally I was hoping for that ocean going species the Golden Trevally.  Sadly that gilded species has alternating thick and thin bars, so this is probably a barred jack with upwardly mobile pretensions.

    On shore as I was preparing to leave, I happened to strike up a conversation with a boy who had been conversing with his family in an inscrutable Asian tongue.  After exchanging shy smiles, I asked him if he was from Japan. This was based largely on his chic mother and her exotic choice in couture.  As it turned out, he was from China, from Beijing, and he understood English pretty well.  In spite of this, he did not understand smog or bad air...I was going to make a comparison with the volcano, but we never got there.
  
    We were soon joined by his dad who was in his late thirties and probably the tallest Chinese gentleman I have had the pleasure to have met.  Let's put him at 6' 3".  We shook hands and I introduced myself.  He laughed, saying that his son's name (the lad with whom I was speaking) was also Jeff.  As near as I can tell, : jié fū is a Chinese name which may sound much like " Jeff".  I am rendering this in the pinyin pronunciation system which is used to romanize Standard Chinese.   In Chinese characters the name would look like this:   杰夫.  Or at least so we are told.  I smiled at the boy

Barred Jack Avec Beret

and said, "Us Jeffs have to stick together." while sort of shaking hands with myself and smiling.  Talk about the friendly laowai (old foreigner.) 
 
 Dad and I chatted for a few minutes.  He had been diving in Bali, but he thought Kahalu'u was just the place for his kids to snorkel...so many good fishes.  Curiously, he said he had been to Hanuma Bay recently and he thought the fish here were as good as at that famous snorkeling location, where, similar to Kahalu'u, there are too many tourists.  I'm going to have to ask around about this, for I have always thought that Hanuma Bay was way better than Kahalu'u.  On the other hand, Kahalu'u was dramatically better thirty years ago.  A school of scribbled filefish was in residence along with large schools of the larger surgeonfish.  Et cetera, et cetera.  Perhaps they have degraded in parallel.  Soon their taxi came and it was time for the tall guy and his elegant wife (who gave me a nice smile) and their two Chinese offspring to head back to the cruise ship.  Zài jiàn, my new freinds

A Rapscallion of Raccoons

    The following day I coaxed my sweetie into the water, specifically those azure ripples at the Kailua pier.  Luckily the water was pretty clear and about five degrees cooler than Kahalu'u.

    On the way out we spent a fair amount of time diving around the fourth swim buoy in hopes of seeing the immature hogfish.  Alas, he was not there.  Out in front of the palace, though, we encountered a large aggregation of raccoon butterflyfish.  Also in that area was a larger ulua.  What he lacked in enormous size, he made up for with beautiful coloration.

    As we made the turn we happened upon this pair of Sea cucumbers, one black and the other a handsome shade of orange.   According to the wizard of  Volcano Villages (aka John Hoover)  there are two orange colored sea urchins, the plump and the paradoxical.  According to the wiz, both occur below snorkeling depth.  We have a page in to the emerald City to get a reading on this potentially earth shattering encounter.  While you are waiting breathlessly for the exciting answer, ignore the man behind the screen.

Beautiful Bluefin Trevally,  Kailua Kona Pier  2016

     At this point, Sandra had had enough and headed for the beach.  On her way in, Sandra saw the immature hogfish, hell bent for election.  She didn't have a chance to call out Jeff or  jié fū before the fish was long gone.  Her field notes have the fish essentially unchanged in color, golden on top and liver colored flank, but twice as big as he was four weeks ago.  She states that he is now perhaps 5 inches in length as opposed to less than three inches.  Additionally, he is now more normal trout shaped as opposed to the distinctive angular shape of the extreme juvenile.  

   While Sandra was admiring, briefly, the hogfish, I swam obliviously down the line of swim buoys, still hoping for a look.   Not finding the hogfish, I snuck under the swim buoys and swam along the pier.  I was hoping for another cushion star, but on this day they was a single small Linkia starfish.  This is not to minimize the linkia.  For my money any starfish sighting in Hawaii is interesting.

Plump, Paradoxical, or Pernicious? 

    On the adjacent coral a bit of movement brought me to a single rather large Haig's hermit crab.  This handsome purple fellow was wearing an interesting shell, possibly a small well worn triton.  He was about three feet down and permitted me to dive for three pictures before scuttling over the edge.  I've got to ask, "How do you like this picture?" 

    Not only is it one of the best hermit crab pictures I have taken, by virtue of being purple, Haig's is one of my favorite hermits.  I'm naming this intrepid fellow Jake, after the young man from the shadow of Folsom prison who in the coming season will lead we few, we happy few, we faithful band of brothers.   On St. Crispin's Day.  Which this year seems to fall on October 8th.  

    I was going to do a little piece on Alexander Haig, who as Secretary of State under Reagan made a run at chief executiveship following the assassination attempt back in 1981, famously declaring, "I'm in control here."  However, we are way too close to the beginning of the college football season to waste this omen on a megalomaniac general.

Haig's Hermit Crab, Ca.haigae     "This time I know our side is going to win."

   Is this the year Chris Petersen puts it all together and beats the Ducks?  With Jake as their mascot, how can the Huskies lose?  

jeff

OK, Grampa.  Let's Go fishwatching!  and while we're at it, can we kill a few ducks?