Potter's Gets Cleaned at City of Refuge Or The Snorkelkids Meet the Dragon Flower

   Today we went to City of Refuge for the first time in, like, forever.  Although city is one of our favorite snorkeling spots, rough ocean conditions earlier in the year kept us away.  More recently, we have been

Seven Eleven Crab, C maculatus  City of Refuge  June 2017

dealing with busy schedules.  But really, there is no excuse.  City is a great place to go snorkeling and we are appropriately ashamed.

   We arrived early, about 8:30 AM, and we were in the water by 9.  As one would expect, it being almost the 4th of July, the water was a very pleasant temperature and for the most part fairly clear.  We swam along looking at the usual suspects until about ten yards ahead a thirty something young man yelled, "Hey dad!  Come here!  Its a great big crab!"

   Well,  I wasn't his father,as far as we know, but I got there in advance of the pater familias.  What they had was a seven eleven crab hunkered down under a rock in about ten feet.  As Sandra noted, this was pretty good spotting,  Although this is indeed a pretty big crab, he isn't all that brightly colored and he was pretty deep.  She thinks the youth in question made a random dive and got lucky.  We dove the crab several times

Potter's Angelfish and City of Refuge, June 2017

for pictures and thanked the young man for his fine spot.

   Moving along, we enjoyed a large number of menpachi, as epaulette soldier fish are known in these Very Sandwich Islands.  Its interesting that when a fish is highly edible, it is known commonly by a Hawaiian or Japanese name.  The epaulette soldierfish is a delicacy, like opihi, which is served by locals at weddings, graduations, etc. If they weren't edible we would know them simply as soldierfish and limpets.

    Looking at all the soldierfish and squirrelfish, we were lucky enough to spot a bigeye out in the open and a brick soldierfish, which I have not seen in a while.  Both these fish were skittish enough that when I dove for a picture, they retreated to cover.  Before we turned around, I spotted a Potter's angelfish that was being cleaned in about ten feet of clear water.  Cleaner wrasses, as we have noted in the

Spiteful Cone 

past, can be quite an asset to the fish photographer. In this case, the shy Potters just hung there in the clear water twelve feet down, while I dove for a few pictures.  You will note that this fish does not have a very red head and I speculate that it is either young or a female.  Never the less, this was a fantastic opportunity and I have to give the cleaner wrasse a lot of credit.

   Before we made the club house turn, we enjoyed a handsome spiteful cone sitting peacefully on a ledge about eight feet down.  Diving the poisonous snail, we were able to see the venomous mollusc lurking inside the shell.


   On the way back in, we were treated to a pair of Hawaiian dascyllus spawning.  Wearing very black faces and tails, which contrasted nicely with their virtually white flanks, this elegant pair circled each other and wiggled frenetically over a patch of stones for about a minute.  Following the courtship, one took off
(probably the female) and one remained, inspecting the spot where the deed was done and making modest efforts to keep other fish and humans at bay.

Spawning pattern, Hawaiian Dascyllus

   Back on shore we reclined in our chairs and had tea, or possibly lunch.  It certainly wasn't brunch, because who in their gastronomic mind would call a salami and cheese sandwich brunch?  As we were finishing, the dolphin pod came in a d gave everyone a great show quite close to shore.

   Before heading home we decided to take the one lane road across the desert to Napo'opo'o.  About halfway across we encountered a miracle of nature. The scraggly cactus that we see here in Kona was in bloom.  There were lots of large white flowers poking out at us from the side of the road.  I found a pull out and sweetie disembarked to take the picture you see here.

   Our destination was the coffee company about two miles up the hill from Napo'opo'o.  There we met Angel, who was wearing a Guadalupe hat.  I guess if you are wearing a hat emblazoned with the Virgin 
(pronounced beer-hen) it is odds on that you are Mexican.  That was indeed the case, Angel hailing from Michoacan, was full of good cheer.    We had a great time telling tales of the land of Montezuma.

A Kona Still Life    Pomegranate, Egg Fruit and Aguacate

 Before saying adios, we purchased a pomegranate and an egg fruit, for although they would like to sell you coffee and chocolate covered Mac nuts at great expense, this tienda frequently has unusual local fruits and vegetables at a reasonable price..

   We got the pomegranate because Sandra said it would make excellent coleslaw and we got the egg fruit because I'd never seen one before.  Angel said they had an acre or so of egg fruit trees  (Pouteria campechiana)  up the hill.  The tree is an evergreen tree native to Mexico.  The fruit is the size of a small apple.  One is required to wait until the fruit starts to get soft before cutting into it and enjoying its dry, sweet flesh.  It is not clear if there is an historical basis for the Mexican folk tale in which Guillermo Tell saves the pueblo from the local bully (who may or may not appear in Donald Trump's genealogy) by shooting an egg fruit off his son's head with a  pistol similar to the one that Martin Short used to defeat El Guapo in The

Dragon Fruit Blossom  photo by Sandra Gray

Three Amigos. 

   Just as we were ready to depart, I asked Angel if he would like to see the pictures that Sandra had taken of the amazing blooming cacti. He graciously looked at our pics and said that they looked a lot like dragon fruit flowers.  Of course, he was exactly right and too polite to mock us.  The creeping cactus that grows commonly near the beach is indeed dragon fruit cactus.  Hylocerus undatus, that green scruffy looking cactus, is seen everywhere along our roads and rock walls.  In my consummate ignorance, I had no idea that it was the source of  that oddly shaped red fruit we know as dragon fruit or pitaya.   We see the fruit in the markets occasionally, so I would guess that it is cultivated.  In the wild, it flowers following a large amount of rain.  Well, the recent Kona weather has certainly punched that ticket. The flowers, one of the largest produced by any cactus, turn to fruit over four weeks.  Suffice it to say, it is our intent to get back to those cactus in a few weeks and catch a swim at City in the process.  I hope you enjoy Sandra's wonderful pictures and the next time you see dragon fruit in the market you can put it together with the large yellow and white flower and the scraggly roadside cactus.

    Back at Casa Ono we are incubating our egg fruit with baited breath.  Stay tuned for the exciting tasting notes.

Harry Potter and the Curse of the Cleaner Wrasse