On the PAR With Peter and Marla or The Truth about Crinoids

   Late last week we went snorkeling with our friends Peter and Marla.    They drove down from Kapa'au to spend the morning with us and the afternoon with Costco and Home Depot.   We met at 10 AM at the pier,

That's Peter 3rd to the left of the Superstar.

where Peter told us that he couldn't find a place to park.  Parking in Kailua has become quite difficult of late, so this wasn't a total shock.  He dropped off Marla and their equipment and took off in the truck for another try at parking.  He showed up about half an hour later, having been forced to pay to park in the lot by the market.

   Once recently I gave up on an optional meeting downtown when I couldn't find a place to park, but this was unprecedented.  And a bummer.

   The time wasn't wasted, however.  Peter and Marla are real honest to God scientists who get paid to go to American Samoa twice a year and do work for the EPA.  So Sandra and Marla compared notes about the

And that's why we don't go snorkeling at Lake Merritt!

Samoans that go to our church and the ones they encounter in, well, Samoa.  And Marla told us about their upcoming post-job excursion to Western Samoa, where it seems the outer islands are reached more dependably.   

    Eventually Peter made it back and we headed over to the Inner Harbour.  Both he and I had new equipment.  I had a new snorkel, in my ongoing effort to replace the set I lost in the surf at the Mauna Kea.  Peter, on the other hand,  had a new swimming hat.  And what a hat it was: a large silky bandana the color of old gold with olive and violet polka dots.  P&M have connections to UC Berkeley and own a small house in a neighboring community, so I assume he ordered his do-rag special from a head shop on Telegraph Avenue.   I couldn't help but tell him that he looked like the oldest member of the chorus from Jesus Christ Superstar.  In my do rag I look like the wimpiest biker in the pack, but none of us want a burned scalp, so we do, as it were, what we can.

Christmas Wrasse on the PAR, April 2017

    Changed and ready we headed out to Paul Allen's Reef.  We dove down to look at the recovering Pocillopora corals, hoping to find a coral croucher to add to Peter's list.  The only croucher I have recorded came as the result of analyzing a digital photograph of an unknown something in the coral, so heaven only knows what I expected to accomplish.  On my last investigation, I noticed that a large whitemouth moray

Pearl Wrasse in the King Kam Lagoon

was giving me the eye from a mere foot away.  Luckily for the purposes of this blog, he decided that my gloved hand addressing the coral at his front door was not a small octopus or a fuzzy orange shrimp. 


A bit further out, the PAR relinquished the booty.  Patrolling the area about ten yards off the wall, with a bottom of dead coral fifteen to twenty feet below that somehow retains enough structure to create a maze of hiding spots, we saw a large yellowtail file fish and at least three Potter's angelfish. 

   With this success in hand, I went over to the wall, hoping for a five stripe wrasse.  This was the last place that I saw this unusual fish that seems, in Hawaii at least, to prefer shallow surging water.  Of course, there were no five stripes, but I did see a pair of large ornate hermit crabs, or rather ornate hermit crabs in large

Crinoid, Black with red stalks, Tulamben, Bali 2014

encrusted shells, scuttling through a depression in the coral about two feet down.

   While I was preparing to take a photo of the hermits, altering the camera setting to macro telephoto, a plump Christmas wrasse swam into the scene.  It took our friend Anita to convince me that this lens designated for microscopic close ups can be used for bigger animals if the water is clear.  Obviously we had
the clarity and the Christmas wrasse was sufficiently cooperative for me to get these pictures.  I'll have to save the best of them for the eponymous hunt eight months hence.  

    By this time, Sandra and her pal Marla had had enough of this fun, so we all headed in.  Just inside the small jetty, I nabbed this acceptable picture of a pearl wrasse. 

    Ten minutes later, as I was showering off, Peter arrived, saying that he was pretty sure he had just seen a new fish.  This produced a moment of anxiety bordering on dread.  When you beat the other guy out of the

Criniod   C. biareus   Lipah Bay, Bali 2017

water, who knows what he is going to turn up.  As it turns out, he had seen a female Whitley's Trunkfish. 

   Whew.  I told him that this was not an unusual fish for the Inner Harbour and the PAR.  In fact, when Charles and James were eight and five, they momentarily went up a fish on me by spotting a Whitley's in the Inner Harbour while I was snorkeling on the Ironman side.  I believe we see one of those females with the white sidewalls about once every three or four times snorkeling on that side if the pier. 

   But this wasn't a life fish for him.  Under the tutelage of a guide, he had managed to see two male Whitley's trunkfish in very deep water on a dive trip, but had never seen a female.

    Peter has promised to post his picture of the Whitley's trunkfish this week in his blog,  onebreathkohala.  I'm throwing up my best effort over many sightings just to see how I do against someone who is a really talented fish photographer.

    Well, almost a life fish is enough to warrant a beer, so the four of us repaired to the Harbor House at Honokohau for lunch.  Lunch was good, but our waitress was better.  She was a classic Hawaiian beauty, half Hawaiian, half Japanese a third Phillipina and one quarter Portuguese.  She had a face like a moon of Venus and lips, that in the words of that famous private eye, Guy Noir, you'd like to curl up in for a week. 

Crinoid  C. shlegeli, Lipah Bay, Bali 2017

Sadly, Harbor House has this Hooter's wannabe mentality and so this Hawaiian beauty was forced to wear a tight, tucked in shirt which wasn't her best look, Hawaiian girls being such as they are in the avoirdupois department. 

   Anyhow,  pretty Hawaiianas bearing large glasses of beer aside, we soon got into the trip our friends were going to take to Samoa.  Peter's favorite Samoan fish is the titan trigger, which is one of our least favorite fish.  Both Sandra and I are understandably concerned that Mr. Titan might take a bite out of us, like that famous Goya painting of Saturn devouring his young.  (Did you know that Saturn was a titan?)  Well Pietro couldn't care less.  Under that jaunty chapeau, Peter spells his name danger.

   I asked if they had seen...and then I blocked on the name.  So I described these invertebrates, possibly related to starfish that look like a clump of colorful ostrich feathers swaying in the breeze, except of course its under water.  When the pretty girl has given you enough beer you don't sweat such details. 

   Anyway, this wasn't ringing any bells, so, like Sarah Palin,  I had to get back to them.  The animals in

Whitley's Trunkfish November 2015 Kailua Kona

question are crinoids and in Bali we have seen several species, possibly more than five.  They are, indeed, echinoderms and my description may not do them justice.  In general, echinoderms are strange animals.  the ones we are most familiar with are starfish and sea urchins. most species ave an obvious five point radial organization.  Echinoderms lack brains and have a water vascular system that permits motion of tube feet and spines.  Sometimes the five point radial plan isn't so obvious, like in the multi armed crown of thorns starfish.  Well, these crinoids commonly have more than 100 feathery arms, yet we are told that underneath it all they have a five point radial plan, five plates and a central mouth.  And they look like they are rooted to a spot, but these crinoids that we see near the surface in Bali are part of the group called feather stars, which are free swimming.  The other group of crinoids are known as sea lilies, are often found deeper and are truly rooted to the bottom by a central stalk.   Apparently there are crinoids in Hawaii and Samoa, but they are not very pretty and they may be deep.  Sandra and I did not see any in Fiji that we can recall, but most of our snorkeling was done in the shallows.  The internet has pictures from Fiji showing animals similar to those we see in Bali.

   We are waiting for a report from Peter and Marla on our mutual return to Kona.  They are going west and we are going east, so they have a much better chance of seeing crinoids on their journey than we do. Best of all, when we reconvene late in the summer they have promised to show us threadfin jacks at Mahukona.  And we're holding them to it.

jeff