The Ironman cometh and He's Bringing a Kawa Kawa

    I suppose I need to apologize for the hiatus in blogs.  We were in Portland visiting children and grandchildren, one more slippery than the next.  For the first week we suffered with the smoke blown in from

Playing at the Kailua Kona Library through October.

nearby forest fires, then a few days of rain cleared things out and it was gorgeous.  Blue skies and 75 dry degrees.  We've been back in Kailua for five days, getting the paper mache fish exhibit up on Saturday at the local library.  To quote America's greatest impresario, Ed Sullivan, "Its a really big shooo."  If you have a chance, drop by the library and take a gander.

    As the title suggests, Ironman season is upon us.  One might have thought that our first inkling would have come at the beach, freshly littered with hard bodied Ironman competitors.  But no!  Yesterday at church, of all the god forsaken places, we saw our first ironman of the season in the person of Michelle Vesterby.   With a name like Michelle you might have assumed she was French, like a plate of petit fours, or possibly an eclair.  But no, she's a Danish.

    That Michelle should have showed up two years running, as it were, to the Lutheran church is not entirely

Don't give me that freshman philosophy crap.

a surprise.  The second most famous Lutheran (after M.L. himself) is Soren Kierkegard, who is, or was, Danish.   Kierkegaard invented existentialism, the philosophy that states you should live life in such a way that it provides the most meaning.

    Along these lines, I am reminded of Professor Clifford Skridlow, as portrayed by Dan Akroyd,  in Dr. Detroit.  When Smooth Walker has rendered him non compis mentis, Clifford says, "Don't give me any of that freshman philosophy crap.  I'm talking existential being."  to which Karen Blittstein replies, "Of course you are, gorgeous."  Fran Drescher never looked

Michelle Vesterby looking good as she wins Copenhagen

better than when she played Karen.  Too bad for Soren Kierkegard that he never got to hook up with Fran...that would have given his life meaning!

    During the church service, Michelle was introduced as a guest and afterwards my lovely wife cornered her while I went off to browse on good old American pastries, brownies and snicker doodles.  Enough to make ya say, "Hallelujah."  Having brought my blood sugar up above 150, I joined the group where Sandra told me, "Not only is Michelle an Ironman, but she's a pro."   Out of the thousands that compete, only the elite few, less than 200, are professionals.  If you're  not from Europe, it may be hard to imagine  professional triathletes.  Its a much bigger sport outside the USA.

Neither petit fours or an eclair, Michelle is a Danish

    Trying to join the conversation, I asked if she was hoping to finish around five o'clock.  No, she replied, she hoped to finish before three.  We have made it to the finish line to watch the winners come in the last three years.  This happens around 2:30.   Michelle told us that she is hoping for the podium...one of the top three women finishers.  Hoo ahh.   She finished sixth two years ago and won the Copenhagen Ironman a couple months ago.  Note in the picture that, holding the winning banner, she doesn't look especially bushed. And the Copenhagen Ironman includes a swim in the Baltic Sea!  Of all the things that amaze me about the race, the fact that most of the finishers are not exhausted is the top.  The other thing that amazes me has to do with the condition of the bicycle seats following the ride.  As this is a family forum, I will refrain from being more specific.

    At this point we will bid Michelle goodbye and head on down to the pier this morning where a variety of super fit young, and not so young, men ad women are prepping for the race.  Sandra and I reminisced a bit.  Ironman season will do that to you.  I remembered that a few years ago, just before the Ironman, we saw the pelagic jelly harboring the juvenile unicorn filefish.  She recalled that last year my knee

Big Bad Rainbow Runner

was messed up and we scored a disabled pass for parking.  Ahh, the memories.

   Today the water was cool and clear, perfect for a quick two mile swim or a leisurely three hundred yard snorkel.  We swam out on the far side of the swim line, the better to avoid the hard charging Ironman swimmers.  Once past the last swim buoy, now a large yellow pyramid, the better for the Ironmen to find their way back to the beach, we encountered the bait ball.  And almost immediately we were joined by a huge rainbow runner.

   You may recall that for many years I thought opelu were rainbow runners, they are both blue jacks with yellow tails, after all.  Bob Hillis gently corrected this misapprehension a few years ago, kindly pointing out that many people make that mistake.  Which may or may not be true.  Most people, to say the least, probably couldn't care less.  Fisherman, who have a certain pecuniary, as well as culinary, interest, probably know the difference.  My guess is that they probably

Let's Eat!

don't catch many rainbow runners, which are not all that common (now that I know what I am looking at) inshore.

   Prior to today I don't think I have seen a rainbow runner bigger than 16 inches.  Sandra thought this guy was pushing three feet.  I'd settle for 30 inches.  (the  book says they achieve four feet!)  At any rate, he was a truly big, powerful predator of a fish.  He didn't flee when I chased him for a picture and we were able to watch him make a couple dives at the huge congregation of scad.

   At this point, we were super pleased with ourselves.  But only a few minutes later I saw three large jacks, or so I thought, scream by the baitball heading out to sea.  They were silvery, two to three feet in length and had a curious pattern of with and black wavy lines over the back third of the saddle.  I knew this was something I had never seen before. I looked up, ready to ask Sandra if she had seen them, but she was ten feet away.

   We circled the large bait ball, scoring a Christmas wrasse and a nice cooperative swimming turtle, ending up twenty yards out from the yellow plastic pyramid.  We decided to swim back on the inside of the bait ball, which was lucky because those fish returned, striking at the scads as they screamed by.  This time Sandra

Wavy-back Skipjack aka the Kawa Kawa

got a look.

   At home we looked at Randall and Hoover with no luck, except to find out that there are over 20 species of jacks in Hawaii.  Only six or so are pictured.  In a moment of inspiration I pulled out my ancient copy of Dr. Tinker's book, Fishes of Hawaii.  Published in 1978, it has only a few color pictures, but its got lots more fish, some black and white photos and some drawings.   We struck pay dirt on page 325, with a primitive black and white photo of our fish.  Tinker called it the wavy-back skipjack or the kawa kawa.  It is still known as the kawa kawa, now also known as the mackerel tuna.  We thought these three fish were about two feet in length, although Dr. Tinker says that these fish are never too far from shore, but occur primarily in open water.  Most caught kawa kawa, he goes on, are around twenty inches.   I thank the Nervous Fly Fishing site for the picture.  You can see the ornamental black stripes.  Also note that the lucky angler is holding a fish more like two feet in length.  The ones we saw were big and fast.  Woosh!

   Ashore we met some Ironmen who were finishing up their water training for today.  We look forward to seeing more of them in the following two weeks.  And hopefully we'll see Michelle in church.

Gramps teaches Colsen itsy-bitsy spider.