A New Year and a New List

        The new year having arrived, it seemed like the right thing to do was to get started on a new Kona Fishlist for 2017.  The list we leave behind was compiled over two years, 2015 and 2016 and

A New Fishlist Is On the Way

numbered 168 species.  Last year's highlights included the cusk eel, which Bob Hillis found for us at night just outside Paul Allen's Lagoon and the disappearing wrasse, which I found just a month or so ago at Ho'okena.  It must be noted that two fish have been deleted from the list, the ewa blenny and the curious wormfish, which have been relegated to the my bad hall of shame.  Live and learn.  That's the motto here at the Kona Beach Blog.

      But all that is behind us now, the new fishlist being delivered by the FedEx Stork  at the dawn of the  benighted year of Trump.  Politics aside, you can tell that it's a Hawaiian baby, as even in transit he has a nice tan, as it were.   In as much as he's coming to Hawaii, there's a 20% chance he's Filipino, more if you take his congenital tan into consideration..  If so, just imagine how pleased he'll be when he grows up to discover that our curious state has a paid holiday just for him. 

Should We Go Snorkeling or Ice Fishing?

Obviously, if one wants to create a fish list, he or she has to get wet.  Dutifully, Sandra and I went swimming at Kahalu'u on January 2nd in the early morning and on January 4th a bit later in the day.  On both occasions the water was clear and truly cold.  It seemed like whoever was responsible for keeping K Bay warm had neglected to pay the heating bill.  There were times when it felt like we were swimming into a refrigerator.

Go Penguins

    Its not surprising that the water got cold, as the daytime temperatures have been so cool that we have been wearing all our clothes through the afternoon, eschewing the ceiling fans and actually heating the water for showers.  Most un-Hawaiian.   You should appreciate the photo of your humble correspondent and his lovely bride on the deck at K Bay on January 2nd.  That is not a staged photo; we actually wore all those clothes to the beach and we put them all back on when we were done swimming.

    I'm also including a picture of Pablo the Penguin,the mascot for Sandra's fantasy baseball team, the Kona Shave Ice.  Its a doughty little franchise that calls the small stadium out at the old airport home.  And the Penguins totally brought home the bacon in 2015.   There have been times this week when we actually wished we had Pablo's stove up at Casa Ono. 

Oval Butterfly Found Wandering at K Bay, New Years Day 2017

     The list after the first two days was a paltry 38 fish.  Missing were both longnose butterflyfish, lined butterflyfish and trumpetfish.  And about 130 more.  The only really good fish we found on those two outings was a solitary oval butterflyfish.  Not an outstanding fish for the list as a whole, but possibly the first one I have ever seen at Kahalu'u.  Do you think he got turned around at a party on New Years Eve?

     All the time I was swimming through the cold, clear water at Kashalu'u and not seeing a great variety of fish species, I was thinking, "Just wait till I get to the pier.  Then I'll fill in the list."  Well, this afternoon I made it to the pier.  Sandra dropped me off at the King Kam Hotel and then headed up to Macy's.  She got to shop and I got to freeze.

A nice colony of sponges is now thriving opposite the third swim buoy.

    The fish watching at the pier was a bit better.  I nabbed both species of longnose butterfly, but still did not see a lined. In fact, there are five butterflyfish that we should add to the list in the next month.  I did see a single juvenile orangebar surgeon.  Do you ever wonder how an egg seems to hatch about four months later than it should have.  Do we call that roe-tardation?

The Poster Child For Roe-tardation.  Send contributions to the Beach Blog

     Leaving that pun to fend for itself, I'll mention that I saw a Mu, the grandoculus himself, way out on the reef, plenty of black surgeons and palanis.  An undulated moray swimming free in its signature style is the only eel on the list so far.  If you took a snapshot, you might say that this moray is channeling the sidewinder rattlesnake.   Surprisingly, there were no lei or lagoon triggerfish and no trumpetfish.  We all know that these guys will come soon enough, but isn't it curious what you don't have at the end of three days of listing.  At a mere 68 this list has lots of room to grow.  And in the spirit of the employees at the Kailua Kona branch of the Hawaii State Library, lots of state holidays to take advantage of

    We hope to see you out on the reef in these halcyon days of the new year.  But be warned: if you come swimming in Kona in January a bit of neoprene won't go amiss.

jeff