Batting For a High Average at Mahukona

    Yesterday we were lured yet again to the northern Kohala coast by our friend Peter, this time with the promise of a family of Rock Damselfish, which my lovely wife refers to as the Rock Island Damsel.  What follows is an account of the outing.  As you will see, the fish watching was superb, but due to conditions, the subject fish and my human frailty, only one of several species was captured by the camera (as wielded by yours truly) in a fashion suitable for this glossy

Pyramid Butterflyfish in Their Rocky Lair

magazine.  Well, all right, its only a blog and it isn't going to make it to your coffee table, but even by those low standards the pictures are inadequate.  To make up for this, I am going to throw in a couple photos submitted by our loyal readers.

    Sandra and I got an early start and met Peter at 9 AM.  (Marla was home cleaning the estate in anticipation of their imminent departure to go watch the eclipse on the mainland.)   The wave predictor had promised completely flat conditions, but there was a modest surge.  A particularly vigorous splash attempted to wash my sweetie's fins prematurely into the soup, but she snagged them and we were soon, all three of us, swimming out of the bay.

   As we hit the deep water, Peter stopped us to admonish that the threadfin jacks were still around, so we should be alert for them, as if we weren't already.  On we swam into a mild but definite current.  After about ten minutes of this, Sandra was the first to spot the pyramid butterflyfish.  We had been hearing about this school from our friends for a while, and it did not disappoint.  A 15 minute swim from the ladder around to the south should bring you to a school of 40 pyramids, some of them over deep water, but many swimming in and out

The Home of the Rock Damsel

of rocky hideaways.  As you can see, it was a gorgeous display.  Gotta love those papal colors.   

   I suppose that this is as good a time as any to note that the swim south of the little bay at Mahukona is not carpeted with fascinating coral formations.  Much of what we swam over, and the spot we were headed for, was bare rock, possibly due to coral death over the last two decades.

   Soon enough we were swimming onward again into that pesky current.  Another ten minutes of hard work and we reached the spot where Peter had found the familia rock damsel.  A few words of explanation are merited here.  First, this is an extremely uncommon fish.  It only lives in the shallow surge zone.  You may recall that in past years, when we saw the five stripe wrasse for example, we have boasted

Rock Damsel, possibly out of the water

that we own the shallows.  Well, despite all my hubris, not to mention hours puttering around in the shallows, I had not seen a rock damsel.  Even John Hoover, no slouch to be sure, says, "They inhabit the shallow surge zone...and because of their habitat are seldom noticed." ...especially by divers, who could not possibly go into this particular habitat.   I was a bit surprised to discover these fish living in a habitat that we do not commonly search;  a collection of large boulders right at the shoreline.   Mostly when I am in the surge zone, I am on the edge of a steep lava drop off  which descends from a very shallow sloping lava flat.  Here we had large boulders forming a small inlet.  Perhaps these boulders were the rocks mentioned in the name.

   Peter guided us into the tiny cove formed by boulders against which the modest swell, even on this relatively mild day, made an exciting surge.  As you can see, there was virtually no coral in this area.  Sandra and I saw at least three individuals and at least one had a definite stripe.  Unlike the few pictures you see in field guides, the rock damsels were black, which contrasted with the significantly larger and  gray Pacific

My best effort at the rock damsel.  Can you see the stripe?

Gregories which were also present.  Although one rarely sees a picture of these fish without two stripes, we only saw one stripe.  And on at least one fish, no stripes.  And the stripe we saw was visible only when the light hit it just right.  But the shape of the fish was distinctive, which may be helpful in the future. Suffice it to say, floating rapidly back and forth with the surge, while negotiating the rocks is not ideal conditions for picture taking.  photography was further complicated by the fish, who, as noted above, were small, almost black and active.  Hence, along with my efforts I'm including  a picture taken by some other photographer so you can appreciate this highly uncommon fish.

   What, you may ask, led Peter to this particular spot.  My answer is, simply, "Hell if I know."  It was not anywhere near the place where he puts in and involves a swim through current to get there.  I couldn't see anything special about this collection of boulders and the conditions made swimming into this enclosure a little

Shortnose Wrasse 2013  Orange in front, Blue behind

dangerous.  And this was a mild surf day.  Lastly, when he poked his nose into this far flung bunch of rocks, Peter did a heck of a job noticing these small active fish with the fine white stripe.  

   We played dodge that rock for about five minutes until we all agreed that we had clearly seen the fish and that we had taken our best shot at a photograph.  As we headed out, Peter tantalized us with another pearl.  He had recently seen an Ewa blenny in about fifteen feet of Kohala crystal (yes Virginia, the water out there was really clear.) and 40 feet seaward of the rocky coast.

   Once again, and I do apologize, I must interrupt my narrative.  The Ewa (pronunced ev-uh, although until rather recently I pronounced it eee wah) blenny is curiously named for Ewa  Beach, a no account beach community just west of the channel leading in to Pearl Harbor.  Thus, Ewa Beach is west of the village that has served as the capital of Hawaii since about 1830, when it was a town of a couple thousand souls, four or five recognizable boulevards and Queen Ka'ahumanu was calling the shots.  In

Peter on the bottom looking for the shortnose wrasse. 

Honolulu, and sometimes elsewhere in the land of the hula, ewa means "to the west"  just like mauka means "toward the mountain".  No one seems to have any idea why this species of blenny is named for Ewa Beach.

   Two species of fanged blenny make it into a Hawaiian fish field guide, Gosline's and Ewa.  But  they haven't been there for ever.  Gar Goodson, the author of  The Many Splendored Fishes of Hawaii did not include them.   That small paperback was all I could find to teach myself the names of the fish way back in 1979.  Dr.Tinker's book, the true bible for ichthyologists of that era,  might have been available to me in a university library, but not in an average bookstore.  And it had no colorful pictures.  While his drawings were a landmark for amateur fish identification in Hawaii, Goodson's book led me down the path of some spectacular mis-identifications.  As Gar didn't deal with these tiny blennies, the blame must fall on the great Jack Randall, who put his name to the dead fish guide just as I was starting to make fish lists in Kona. I looked at his pictures and, perhaps because the fish were small

2012...Green and Brown Bird Wrasse Juveniles Masquerade as Fanged Blennies

and I was willing to fudge, I decided these small green and brown fish at Kahaluu and elsewhere must be Gosline's and Ewa blennies. Amazingly, I kept on fudging for the next 25 years.  Unlike bird watching, a sport in which one is usually mentored, and one that is frequently carried out by supportive groups, fish watching for me was totally self taught; no one was there to to tell me I was making a dramatic error in identification.

   Gosline's fang blenny is green and the Ewa blenny is brown.  Says so in the dead fish book.  The pictures are right next to one another and suggest that the fish are the same size.  It wasn't until 2008 that John Hoover authored the Ultimate Guide...  If I had looked closely, I would have noticed that he included a juvenile bird wrasse, which is what those green and brown fish at K Bay actually are.  So year or so ago John

An Honest to God Ewa Blenny

Hoover was contemplating making a fish identification app aimed at snorkelers and he asked me to help him delineate which fish an average snorkeler might see, as opposed to a diver.  I gave him my list and he pointed out that he was surprised I was seeing Ewa blenny and curious worm fish, as these species are found only occasionally by divers and deeper than what he would consider snorkeling depth.  Kind soul that I am, I forwarded him a picture of both green and brown "blennies" taken at Kahalu'u.  Imagine the extent of my shame when he appraised me that these were juvenile bird wrasse.   The shame went on, as what I was calling curious wormfish (which is also a rare fish of the depths) was, in fact, Gosline's fang blenny.  So in that fell swoop I lost two life fish and a large portion of my confidence.  Sucks to be me.   Only seeing an Ewa blenny for real this time, could restore a modicum of my self esteem.  And what was the likelihood of that?

   Now let us return to the Kohala shore, 150 yards south of Mahukona, with the salty shame of the Ewa blenny burning in the still un-heeled wounds of my psyche.  I was tagging behind Peter and Sandra and

looking down in about 15 feet when I saw two fish, auburn in front and bright blue behind, the coloration of

Purple Linkia courtesy of Gail DeLuke says, "Go Huskies!"

Potter's angel, which I momentarily thought these two must be.  But they were the wrong shape; they were long and skinny.  A quick dive and I ascertained that it was two shortnose wrasse adults.  Earlier in the year I saw a baby shortnose, but these were the first adults of this gorgeous fish that I had seen in a while.  I called to Sandra and Peter and dove again to take a picture.  By the time I got down to eight feet, I had lost the wrasses, but right in front of me, perhaps ten feet away was an Ewa blenny.  It was big and brown with blue stripes and a relatively tall dorsal fin running the length of its body.  Hoping that the camera might focus on this actually very small fish some distance away I took two quick snaps.  The camera did not get the fish clearly, but it is indelibly etched in my minds eye.

"Miss Scarlet, You stay away from dem dwarf morays!"

   Well, if two life fish in ten minutes time doesn't cheer you up, you need to be on Prozac.  The swim back was fairly uneventful, but our host lingered in the middle of the small bay for a few minutes after Sandra and I had showered off.  When Peter joined us ashore, he said that he had been tracking a dwarf moray.  We used to see this uncommon species way down south at Ho'okena  (from my mammy's lap, think her name was Layna) but the small fragment of coral reef that supported dwarf moray has been degenerating into dead coral and sand.  Hence, I haven't seen him in a couple years. 

   We hit for a really high average at Mahukona yesterday, but we already have something on the wish list for next time.


jeff

Pass the Dog Biscuits and the Rainier Beer!   Courtesy of Chuck Hill