Thanksgiving, City of Refuge and the Huskies

    Yesterday one of my dear readers cut me to the quick.  So much time had elapsed since my last post that he wondered if we were out of town. Well, we have been here all the time, blessed with a variety of distractions, but also, in spite of regular ventures into the deep blue sea, or in my case the aqua blue shallows, we haven't run across anything so blog-worthy that I was driven unbidden to the keyboard.

    The most significant thing that has happened in the interim is the return of Anita.  Anita is a dear friend from the inland metropolis of Calgary, Alberta.   Until we met Anita, it must be pushing  up around ten years
now, I had thought of Calgary as a small cow town in the middle of nowhere.  Innumerable sources verify almost two million souls live in metropolitan Calgary.  Who, in the words of my sainted mother, would have thunk it.

   Sandra and I have had several opportunities to go snorkeling with Anita during her six week Hawaiian interlude.  In her first week back, she added a full face mask to her snorkeling outfit.  This change from a goggle-type mask was fueled by a dental problem which was affecting her bite on the snorkel.  In Anita's case, there was an even bigger advantage.

    Anita is perhaps the most enthusiastic person I have ever known.  She enthuses over everyone and everything.  the only one I know who has ever matched her enthusiasm is my son's dog, Riley.  Riley, half Golden and half Irish Setter, loves to greet you, he spins in circles, jumps up and yips.

Until recently he was enthusiasm incarnate.  Just in our last visit we noted that Riley, who is pushing up to his

Anita's Enthusiasm Is Now Unchallenged

sixth birthday, was mellowing.  Anita is well past her sixth birthday and she is still going strong.

    Such is the nature of her enthusiasm, that she is driven to remark on each wonderful event as it occurs.  In the water, this has occasionally caused moderate clinical aspiration. Now ensconced in her full face mask, we can no longer hear what she is saying and at the same time this dome of plastic provides the ultimate prophylactic against aspiration.

    Since the last blog, and I have to agree that this covers the better part of a month, we have had a chance to go snorkeling with Anita a few times.  A couple weeks ago, she and I went to Kahalu'u.   The water was cool and clear.  Near the entrance, we saw the Devil Scorpionfish that has been patrolling that venue for a number of months.  He gave my companion the complete show, flapping his orange and yellow pectorals for her amusement.

    A bit further out, I noticed two cone shells side by side in a coral.  I plucked one and sure enough, a cone shell hermit crab was living inside.  We enjoyed a wonderful display and took some pictures.  Anita had some enthusiastic remarks, but due to the face mask I was unable to hear what she said.  Back on shore, I was showing her my pictures and she said she wasn't sure she had seen our friend Stripey.  Fortunately, I

No one could threaten Hari krabi like Belushi

was able to show her a picture of Stripey on her own camera.  This was a good thing, because I was already feeling badly about interrupting Stripey and Stripe-ette form whatever happy congress they might have been anticipating.  To have done so needlessly would have destroyed my inner harmony for the rest of the morning... at the minimum.  I might have had to commit hari krabi.   One must consider the psychic consequences before messing with amorous hermits.

 I will leave it to the true invertebrate zoologists in the crowd to describe the physiology of crabbies in love.

    Last week Sandra and I hauled Anita and her husband Brian to Beach 69.  Brian is a publisher, specializing in science fiction.  He enjoys the warm Hawaiian climate in the winter, but is of the ilk that tends not to go snorkeling...or to the beach, for that matter.  In fact, this was the first time we had enjoyed Brian's company at the beach.

    Our original intent had been to go to Ho'okena, but there was rain forecast, so we

Cone Shell Hermit Crab  Ciliopagurus strigatus

chose instead to head north.  Much to our chagrin, when we got to Puako the wind was blowing a steady 25 knots, gusting to 40.   The peppering sand in the parking lot rivaled a Santa Anna sandstorm in the Mojave.

     Wind is no stranger to Beach 69, but when you get down to the actual beach, the land and trees tend to block much of it.  Brian reclined in his chair with a fresh 10 knots blowing around to keep him cool while Sandra, Anita and I swam in the bay.  Out near the southern cusp the wind was picking up and so we headed back .

   At this point Sandra decided to go in, but Anita and I persevered and swam the additional fifty yards to the north.  Just as we were heading for the beach, an extraordinarily handsome leatherback whipped by us, swimming in the opposite direction.  Where most of these slender jacks with the cute black and white dorsal fin bear a steely gray flank, this fellow sported a handsome rainbow and bronze, resplendent in the morning

Brian at Beach 69.  Holding Down the Fort.

light. Of course he was long gone before I could think to get the camera out.

    Before we made it to the beach, we were treated to a pair, male and female, of pearl wrasse.  Not only had I not seen this uncommon species previously at Beach 69, I'm pretty sure that I have not seen both sexes together before.  Sadly, these fast moving fish did not make it onto the SD card, either.  But our swim ended with two really good fish species.

   Thanksgiving was a beautiful day here in Kona, dawning cool and clear.  I made my way down to Kahalu'u.  Traditionally, this morning has been dedicated to a hunt for a turkeyfish, also known as the Hawaiian Green Lionfish.  In my 38 years of snorkeling in Hawaii, I have seen exactly two turkeyfish.  Thus, unlike my yearly quest for the Christmas wrasse, there isn't a strong likelihood of success.

    As we have noted in prior years, the combined chapters of AA take over the Kahalu'u shelter on Thanksgiving morning, relegating the rest of us to the tables in the sandy park.  Luckily I found one in the shade and I was soon in the cool clear water.  Even though it was early, this being Thanksgiving, there were 

Ambon Toby Canthigaster amboinensis  K Bay, Thanksgiving Day

surprising number of people in the water.   There was nothing unusual, but in the process of being thankful, I took pictures of two fish that I usually take for granted.  Perhaps you will give thanks for these pictures of the Ambon toby and the female elegant coris, both of which posed cooperatively in the clear water and morning light.

   By the time I got back to my table, someone had thoughtfully sloshed a heaping helping of cherry shaved ice onto my stuff.  Or was it cranberry sauce?   I didn't taste it to ascertain the truth, but I probably needed an extra incentive to do laundry.  How's that for treasuring my fellow human beings, now matter how disgusting?

   We celebrated Thanksgiving with our sometimes neighbors at Alii Villas.  You're probably thinking, "Oh no!  Now he's going to bore us with Thanksgiving dinner from soup to nuts."  But two interesting things happened while we were there at the Alii Villas barbecue lanai.

    First, midway through my turkey ham mashed and scalloped potatoes string beans with mushroom soup

Elegant coris female, Thanksgiving Day

and dressing, my friend for fifteen years appraised em that the Huskies would play the Cougars on Black Friday, not on Saturday as I had assumed.  We agreed that this was going to be a close game.   Had it not been for Gary (who being from Spokane supports the Cougs) I would have missed the game.  As things transpired, Gary probably wishes that he'd missed the game.

    Before we were permitted to eat dessert the chairwoman of the condo board said a few words and then asked us to each take the microphone and say why we were thankful.  I'm sure that more than a few of us wanted to channel Lieutenant Frank Drebbin,  take the microphone and retire to the facilities for a leak.  But no, we each had to say a few words or forfeit our pecan pie.  Midway through this tedious litany a girl unknown to me got unsteadily to her feet.  She was probably 35, but in my dotage anyone under 55 is a girl.  At any rate she said, "I don't live here.  I live , like, four condos down.  But everyone is so nice to me here.  And there's this one lady,  I don't know who the fuck she is, but every time I see her she runs up and hugs me and kisses me and pinches my cheeks and says shayna puna. I mean, how nice is that?"

   And how lucky are Sandra and I to have a friend like that?

Happy Thanksgiving,
jeff

See you at the Pac 12 Championship Next Saturday!