So that's how you get her in the water!

      Of late, you have undoubtedly noticed that Sandra hasn't been doing a lot of snorkeling.  This is not due to disability or sloth, but rather an ennui spawned, as it were,  by a paucity of interesting fish.   This week we have experienced a decrease in the swell, enabling us to get out to places where

the water is clear and the fish are fine.

Peter and Marla watch the jet /fishing boat hauled out at the Mahukona pier.

     Two days ago we arranged to meet our friends Peter and Marla at Mahukona.  As we drove north past the airport and through Kawaihae, we were treated to a startling clear day.  The sky was as blue as could be and starting around Hualalai, we were treated to a clear a view of the home of the Demi-god Maui about seventy miles away.  The lack of volcanic haze made the day worth while before we even parked the car.

    Our friends were waiting for us on the pier at Mahukona.  Before we had a chance to get in the water, we watched two gentleman haul a twelve foot jet boat, from which they had been fishing, from the water.  To accomplish this they ran two straps attached to the ancient and rusty crane under their small boat and cranked away.  The crane rotated, they slipped a trailer under the small craft and, voila!  Peter noted that this was by far not the biggest vessel they had seen hauled out with the crane and at the same time he speculated

A Spectacled Parrot similar to the one at Mahukona, courtesy of Diveadvisor

that some day the rusty old beast would fail, creating a spectacular crash on the pier.  Free fiberglass fragments for everyone.  First come, first serve.

   There was just a a bit of slosh splashing by the ladder, with the depth varying a bit less than a foot, and we were all soon snorkeling through clear, sunlit water.  Not only was the water clear, but it had lots of interesting fish.  Over the next hour we saw some real beauties.  High on the list was the male spectacled parrotfish, a big blue, green, purple spectacle.  And we saw all four other possible parrots.  On the way back in, we saw some Hawaiian dascyllus in breeding plumage over an old engine, now encrusted with coral.

Juvenile Big Eye Emperor, courtesy of Fishes of Australia.net

   In this blog, we are still between a workable photo processor and an adequate camera, so the fish pictures you see are duly ascribed to their source in Google images.  If you look for spectacled parrot on Google images, you will see that it comes in a variety of flavors, from a sea green to a dark
blue/purple.  The latter is the one we have seen at Mahukona for the last two years.  He is a really handsome fish and the picture I have borrowed is a fair approximation of his coloring.  

    After the dascyllus we all went our own way.  I made a swim out onto the deep south reef looking for milletseed butterflies.  When I realized that I was all alone on this quest, I headed back in.  Left to my own devices, I decided to patrol the seaward edge of the pier, where large rocks have been placed to break up the surf.  This is the area where last year Peter showed us two leaf scorpionfish.

Adolescent Mu similar to the one at Mahukona  c/o Hawaiimarinelife

    As I approached the pier, I ran across a fish I had never seen before, an adolescent big eye emperor.  The adult is not terribly uncommon, a big gray fish with two darker saddles.  It is often seen near the surface, usually near deep water.  My impression is that it is good eating, because invariably the emperor, or mu as it is known in Hawaiian, is skittish.  I have only seen the juvenile twice, once at City and once at Ho'okena, the last being three or four years ago.  It is much smaller than the adult, a dramatically different shape and stays on the bottom in deeper water.  the fish we saw a few days ago was much more colorful than your average mu and, as you can see from the picture from the net, it was a different, intermediate shape.

    I then swam right in front of the pier in the shallows of the big rocks.  There I saw a pair of bluestripe butterfly.  I just made a paper mache bluestripe for one of the dive guides at Kona Honu divers...it is her favorite fish in part because it is sort of rare.  The only place I see it regularly is at Mahukona.   My swim was capped off by two nice Christmas wrasses, which are among my favorite fish in large part because they are so festive.  Festivus for the rest of us.  And when it comes to the feats of strength, don't spare the Christmas wrasses.

    Apres le swim, we retired to the Daylight Mind Coffee Shop for cappuccino, savory scones, and some incredible egg thing topped with mashed avocado and dumped on a piece of toast.  It is one of my rules that I never make fun of somebodies food while they are eating it, but Peter, Dude!, that thing looked disgusting!  While Peter chowed down on avocado surprise, we discussed other places to go

This is NOT Peter's breakfast!

snorkeling.  Like the Philipines.  And the breakwater at Kawaihae harbor.  Although I have heard of this before, it still seems odd that one would find excellent snorkeling at the entrance to a deep water port.  

   Recently, Peter and Marla ran into a gentleman that could not say enough about this unusual site.  One apparently gets checked through the gate by the boys from Homeland Security and makes his way to a short, sandy beach beside the concrete jetty.  Watching out for container ships, he swims around scouting for nudibranchs.  Here at the blog we are including a borrowed picture of the Imperial Nudibranch,  Rsbecia imperialis, found on the encrusted pediments of the Kawaihae breakwater.

    Oh.  He also sees black tip reef sharks.  If you have nothing better to do for the next five minutes you can check out this shark video.  Somebody needs to hop on this and add the Jaws music so we can really enjoy the video as God intended.  Maybe throw in some blood and an appendage or two.

 https://vimeo.com/264922703?from=outro-embed

     Yesterday Stormsurf said the waves would be almost nonexistent,  so we loaded up the car and headed down to Ho'okena.

                                     💜💛 💜💛 💜💛 💜💛 💜💛 💜💛 💜💛💜💛 💜💛 💜

    That row of purple and gold  hearts goes out to the Huskies women's softball team, who got mauled in the final game of the girls world series.  Their supporters showed up with stuffed unicorns, but our girls made it to the finals and played with great heart...like true dogs.  At the end of the sixth inning with the team down 8 to 2, somebody yelled from the stands, "Do it like a Husky! Come from behind!"  Who knew that Harvey Weinstein was a girls softball fan?

    Some Saturday afternoon in September, if you find yourself basking in the sun hard by the Montlake Cut, you may be lucky enough to stand and cheer these young warriors when they are marched out onto the field at half time.  Its great to be a Husky!

Go Huskies?

     A couple of days after the trip to Mahukona, the waves were about as mellow as they ever get, so we packed a bit of breakfast and something for tea and raced down to Ho'okena.  As we unloaded the car onto the picnic table, I discovered to my chagrin that I had left the Canon D 10 on the counter

Coming soon from B&J, Octopus Swirl Ice Cream

back at the ranch.  With the new camera on the way, this was to be the last hurrah for that aged war horse.  Trying to cheer me up, Sandra said, "Maybe we won't see anything good."  (Worthy of a picture.  To which I replied, "I think we're going to see something really good.""

     With psycho cybernetics on our side, we headed down the beach under a blue sky and a warm morning sun.  It was roughly 9 AM when we waded in through a gentle surf into cool, clear water.

   A mere thirty yards out we happened upon a fascinating relationship.  A small octopus was hunting with an eight stripe wrasse about fifteen feet down. The octopus was really handsome, a mottled
black caramel and white,  like some fancy Ben and Jerrys Ice cream.  We watched this for a minute or two, diving down fairly close.  Finally the octopus withdrew under a small coral.

    We swam out another ten yards to the coral complex that has been home to Potter's and Flame Angelfish.  We had some excellent looks at four Potter's angelfish about fifteen feet down.  And then we did something that we don't usually do.  Instead of swimming further out in search of such Ho'okena specialties as Gilded and Bridled Triggerfish and Garden Eels, which are found in deeper water, we headed north, checking out aggregations of coral about fifteen feet down.

Flame angelfish,  Ho'okena, January 2018

   Almost immediately, in the next large group of coral to the north, we saw a pair of flame angelfish.  shortly after that I spotted another eight stripe wrasse.  By this time I had picked out a field mark for this fish.  Most field guide pictures are taken by divers or in aquariums and show this pink fish with dark purple stripes from the side.  Snorkelers will see this fish from above, probably fifteen feet down.  At this vertical angle, a very useful field mark is the white stripe that runs to the tip of the snout.  I have borrowed a picture from Francesco Rinaldi that shows this white stripe. Francesco's fish is more golden than what we see at Ho'kena and it has finer purple stripes.  John Hoover, being a diver, does not mention this white line on the snout.

    This was a great day for flame angels, we saw them on two other coral heads.  And for eight line wrasse.  We saw at least five individuals of that fish.  In this instance, not having the camera made it easier for me to dive down and get better looks.   What a pleasure it was to swim down and get a look at these fine, fat wrasses as they swam from one coral to the next.  Like both the flame and Potter's angelfish, the eight line wrasse prefers to live in the fenestrated coral and pop out for short excursions.  Along with its preference for some depth, this may explain why we don't see it more often. 

   Further out we saw a cushion starfish living on one of the large coral heads.  On the way in we

Eight stripe wrasse courtesy of Franceso Rinaldi.

nabbed a flotilla of very large keeltailed needlefish.  So large were these keeltails that we had to convince ourselves that they weren't Heller's Barracuda or crocodile needlefish.  A picture would have come in handy, but that ship was sitting on the counter at Casa Ono.

    Ashore we enjoyed our tea, ham sandwiches, actually.  We had a nice chat with a young couple of divers that were vacationing from south Florida.  And then, through increasing vog, we headed to Kainaliu.  Sandra is making tiny Hawaiian shirts. At Kimura's she picked up some fabric with a small slipper print.  We had some fun in the other shops, too.  I'm pleased to say that Mr. Oshima did not have any of our friends in his meat case.

   I don't know where we will be snorkeling next, but the formula is pretty obvious:  If you want her to go swimming, take her where the fish are.

jeff

Write to Sandra at MyHawaiianChristmasOrnament.com to order your slipper shirt ornament for the holidays.