Maka Hiki Ho'okena

    Two weeks ago, during the fellowship period following services at the Methodist Church, I had an interesting conversation with Jon Lindborg.  Jon works for the State Department, seemingly part time, as when we see him here in Kona he is just hanging out.  When he is not in Kona, he works at the embassy in

Pele catches the leaf on his nose

Jakarta, a city which he describes in such bleak terms as to discourage anyone from planning a vacation there to visit him.  He is a recreational swimmer: his group swam to the Ironman buoy out by Alii Villas last week.  Just a little 2.4 mile swim.  La de da.

    In addition to being a pretty good athlete, Jon is a pretty good observer of wildlife and he has been known to read this blog...so I have to be careful what I say.  Two weeks ago we got to discussing dolphins and he mentioned a lady he knows who goes to Ho'okena and takes leaves which she drops in the water for the dolphins to play with.  I have seen the dolphins play with leaves a couple times.  One hears of birds like swallows and eagles playing with objects in the air and this is sort of the same thing only, relatively, in slow motion.

Starts working the leaf down his side.

   Last night Sandra and I made the decision to skip church.  If God couldn't make Jake Browning into a better passer, the reasoning went, why should we go to church?  Just kidding, God.  You're the best.

   Anyway, we were moping around the house this morning and Sandra said, "Why don't we do something special today?  Why don't we go to Ho'okena!"

   Soon enough we were heading south, along with a surprising number of early morning tourist buses.  As we made our way, I was thinking about Jon and the leaf lady and the dolphins.  I was also thinking that on this day, the penultimate day in 2017, might I see one last fish for the 2017 list.  I couldn't imagine what it might be, but Ho'okena is a good spot to look for a surprise.

Rolling over and preparing for a tail flip into the goal.

   We arrived around 9 AM and immediately saw a number of swimmers in the south end of the bay,
inside the hook of the southern cusp.  That lava reef creates a protected pool and this is the place where we see spinner dolphins.  Sure enough, a careful look revealed dorsal fins among the swimmers.

   Wiki wiki we donned our winter swimwear, layers of nylon and neoprene, and trooped down the beach.  The water was calm and the winter sun beamed down; it was a great day for a swim.  On the way out, we saw several coral heads about 25 feet down with aggregations of Hawaiian dascyllus.  We were heading for dolphins so I didn't stop to look for juveniles, but it seemed possible.  As we neared the spot where swimmers  were interacting with the dolphins, we saw two big crocodile needlefish.  Needlefish sound so harmless, but when one of these guys is pushing up around four feet, I tend to give it all due respect. 

Eye to eye with a spinner dolphin.

 
    Then we were with the dolphins and there was a bunch of them, along with a score of swimmers.  As it turned out, the lady who we had been trailing on the swim out was Jon's leaf lady.  Over the next five minutes she dropped at least a half dozen large leaves in the water.  The dolphins were very

happy to be swimming with us, making lots of close approaches (Thank you, God.)  And they loved the leaves, picking up a leaf on a pectoral fin, carrying it for a while and then dropping it off.
 

Spinner dolphin hosting a common remora, R. remora  Ho'okena 12/31

    One dolphin must have thought he was Pele, the soccer virtuoso not the fire goddess.  He picked up a leaf with his snout then maneuvered his body in such a way that the leaf slithered down the length of his body.  This took a minute or so, at the end of which he sort of flicked it off with his tail.  Goooal.

   A bit later, a group came as close as I have ever been to these magnificent animals.  As I watched, four dolphins about ten feet away were heading straight towards me.  Instead of veering off, they came right on, with dolphins passing less than
two feet from me on both sides.  At this close approach, I got a close up photograph.  I always have to give the camera credit, but I bet you enjoy this dolphin portrait.

   After fifteen or twenty minutes, we were about ready to look for something else.  At that moment a man a short distance away exclaimed, "One of those dolphins has a remora attached to it."  And he was right.  The pod turned and both Sandra and I got a very good look at the dolphin serving as host to a remora.

   There are two species of remoras that occur close to shore in Hawaii.  Both these fish occur worldwide and were named in Linnaeus's original list.  The more common, according to John Hoover, is the slender remora, E. naucrates.  It is indeed slender and has a black stripe bordered by white leading from its nose to its tail.  This is the fish that Peter Kroppje photographed to great effect while diving in Bali.  See Peter's blog, one breath kohala, for a great photo of the slender remora attached to a sea turtle.

Not so Sucky now, are you Mr. Remora?

   The one we saw today is called the common remora,  Remora remora, although (wouldn't you know it?)  it is less common in inshore Hawaiian waters.  Hoover says it usually attaches to large sharks.  I don't know about you, but I will take a peace loving dolphin over a large shark any day.  You will note in my picture that this is a fatter fish than the slender remora, with a large fan of a ventral fin.  I almost said dorsal fin , but one has to remember that these guys are attached by the top of his head so what you are seeing is his ventral side.  Having adapted to this strange life choice, much of the anatomy is reversed, hence the ventral side appears as a dorsum might in a normal fish. It makes me wonder if a neurobiologist like Amy Farrah-Fowler has been able to chart the optical nerve pathway in remoras.  They must have things rewired,  otherwise they would see the world upside down.

    This dolphin was not only hosting a remora.   On his off side, he was carrying a leaf on his pectoral

A heavenly host of Potter's Angelfish on New Year's Eve.

fin...another show off athlete dribbling towards the net.

    The best news is that this was my very first remora.  Not only a new fish for the 2017 list, but a life fish on the last day of the year.  

   On the way out, Sandra saw a pair of rainbow runners and on the way in I saw an octopus in 30 feet.  As we got opposite our landing spot we found ourselves over the angelfish coral head and I nabbed a couple pretty good pictures of Potter's Angelfish.  There were at least six Potter's and one flame in this colony.  This was a heavenly host of angels, if ever there was one.

   It was a great morning of snorkeling with the girl I love.  If this wonderful dolphin encounter means anything, I believe God forgave us for skipping church.

jeff 2017

Maka Hiki Hou means Happy New Year in Hawaiian