Kahalalala and Kalamazoo

    Here we are in the middle of the summer.  This is the time of year when it is reasonable to expect to see something really interesting when you go out snorkeling.  The reef fish have had time to make keikis and these babies should be showing up on our reefs.

Speckled Scorpiofish hunkered down in the coral.  Kailua Kona Pier 2013

    With that in mind, we headed to the City of Refuge earlier in the week.  There was some debate
about this choice back at the Mother Ship.  The various weather services said it was going to rain
everywhere, but especially in Captain Cook. Naturally, when we got there the weather was perfect with blue skies and, as predicted, a calm sea.  Plunging in off the Two Step rock entry, we were greeted by pleasantly cool and clear water, about 84 degrees, which for my taste is perfect.

    We swam for about an hour, covering a large portion of the bay and seeing a nice variety of fish but nothing unusual.  The dolphins did not make an appearance and the shark was not at home.  We enjoyed the swim, but from the standpoint of wildlife observation, it was close to a bust.

   The following day, Sandra dropped me off at the pier, while she went shopping.  The first thing I noticed was a contingent of local fisherman concentrated at the corner of the swim area where it meets the Homeland Security cruise boat embarkation structure. Its not uncommon to see a fisherman

A Promar floating bait net.

or two in that spot, but this was a large group.  And they were going at it fairly seriously, casting small live baits about thirty feet out into the swim area.

    I took my usual swim out to the palace and back, finding a speckled scorpionfish in a nice chunk of cauliflower coral about ten feet down.   On my first dive I nabbed a picture.  Back on the surface, I fiddled with the camera to get the proper settings.  And then, try as I might, I could not find that lone piece of living coral again. This fish lives well inside the leaves of the coral and one must be lucky to penetrate with the flash to get the a picture of the reclusive fish.  Suffice it to say, the picture I took is of the outer part of the coral.  I'm including a picture of the Speckeld scorpion peering out from his refuge taken in about the same spot five years ago. 

   Back by the pier I dodged under the swim line and snorkeled in front of the cruise boat landing, where the fishermen were unable to go.  Regrettably, I had not out flanked them and I saw nothing unusual.  When I got back on the pier, I walked over to where the fisherman were still going at it.  In the water, moored to the pier with line, were two colorful floating rings with suspended nets.    Slightly larger than your standard bucket, they had a

Deck the Halls With Boston Charlie.

round inflatable float on top.  I have scoured the web to no avail looking for exactly what I saw.  I can now say that these were floating collapsible bait buckets.  Extra fancy.  One was lime green and the other a handsome nautical orange.  I'm including a picture from the Cabela's catalogue so you can get a general idea.  The buckets in question had rings to keep them from collapsing inward.


    The fisherman nearest me, at the edge of the pack, as it were, was a large Hawaiian lady of about fifty.  Seated contentedly on a folding chair, she held a long rood, perhaps ten feet in length.  The line was in the water and she was not casting.  I asked what they were fishing for.  She fixed me with a
look, aficionado adressing a tyro.  "They fishing for some kind of mackerel." she said, "Name like
like fa la la la la."  Or at least that is what I heard.

    So as I showered and dressed, I sang that old Christmas favorite just under my breath.  This was

 Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash and Kalamazoo.
Mollie's freezing on the trolley.  Eisenhower, Cauliflower alligaroo.

Jeff Leicher, Ace raconteur and owner of Jack's Dive Locker

   This is an old, very old ditty composed by Walt Kelley.  He inflicted it on the minds of the unsuspecting youth in his immortal comic strip, Pogo.  Regardless of Kelley's lyrics, I could hear the Hawaiian lady throwing fa la la la la at me all the while.

   On the way from the dressing room to the cubbies, I ran into someone from the distant past.  Jeff Leicher, the owner of jack's Dive Locker, was locking the gate to the pier.  Presumably he had just delivered the company van to the area behind the dressing rooms  in order to retrieve a class of student divers from the Inner Harbour.  I introduced myself and told him that he had guided my son and I on a snorkel trip about thirty five years ago. He replied with a jocular remark to the effect that we really couldn't be that old.

   Jeff had skippered the dive boat that day in the early eighties and had produced my two wish list fishes: the pyramid butterflyfish and the pennant butterflyfish.   The latter is the only member of the Heniochus butterflies that occurs in Hawaii.  The ones we saw that day turned out to be the only pennanat butterflies that I would ever see in Hawaii.  Pyramids, as you know if you follow the blog, are found here and there sporadically and at Mahukona dependably.

   Fish watching aside, it was a fateful trip.  A young couple who worked aboard the boat had brought along their blue crowned conure, a small stout parrot,  which patrolled the dashboard of the cabin.  Charles was so taken with the bird that soon a similar aratinga parakeet was part of our family.  The adventures of Mikey could fill a whole chapter.  He was a hand raised bird and the seller told us if he bit, we should hold him upside down and yell "No biting!" at him.  This worked to the extent that on a given day, as we entered our home, he might yell "No biting!" in the way of a greeting.  As you might guess, he never stopped biting. 


   Jeff recalled the parrot and said that his owner had become bored with being a dive guide and 
joined Sea Shepherd, where he did battle on the high seas in defense of whales and other marine

Socrates, Sigmund Freud and Billy the Kid go to the San Dimas Mall

animals.  What a guy!

   On the way home, I told Sandra about my encounter with Jeff, the on going legend of Mikey including the Sea Shepherd piece, and about the fishermen.  Then I asked her if she could identify the lyrics "Deck the halls with Boston charlie.".  She absolutely hates that game.  But it was the way I was raised. So what can you do?  My father called it the Socratic Method, as if he ever met Socrates.  (You may score yourself ten points if you pronounced that name so, as in so what and crates, as in the wooden box containing oranges.)

    At home I repaired to the fish books and discovered that Fa la la la la might very well translate to

Kahala, which is the name Hawaiians apply to the greater amberjack.  this is a large game fish that,

Amberjack  photo courtesy of Reel Revenge, SW Florida fishing charters

according to John Hoover, hunts the baitball in packs.  I can not tell you why, on the countless occasions when I have encountered the bait ball (composed of hundreds large eye scad) I have not seen this pack hunting amberjack phenomenon.  For what it is worth, the Hawaiian fishing regulations note that the amberjack occurs mostly off shore and in deeper water. 

    We have seen ulua hunt the baitball in groups of up to six on numerous occasions.  Here I am speaking only of the blue fin trevally, which is far and way the most common in shore jack.  At least six other jacks are called ulua, but they are uncommon on the reef.   The ulua is a pretty blue fish that hunts singly or in groups.  Its

Three ulua charge the baitball near the fourth swim buoy.  Kailua Kona April 2017

not uncommon to see up to three  ulua hunting with one or more blue goatfish.  We've also
seen them hunt with eels and octopus.  Most ulua we encounter are under 16 inches.  occasionally, though, we encounter a larger one and it can be pretty intimidating. 

    Yesterday, following my reunion with Jeff Leicher and the subsequent reminiscence about pyramid butterflyfish, we trekked north to Mahukona.   As predicted, it was a nice day and we made the swim out to the school of pyramid butterflies.  Using Google maps I calculate that it is about a quarter mile swim out to where the pyramids hang out.  Needless to say, Sandra and I feel pretty lucky that we are still able to make that swim.

    Along the way we saw a pair of Heller's barracuda.  This fish is not terribly common in most places, although it is known to occur at Mahukona regularly.  The swim was into a modest current,

A pair of Heller's Barracuda at Mahukona  july 2018

which meant it was easier swimming back.  Always a good thing.  We got a school of milletseed butterflies  and a solitary saddle back butterfly offshore.  Before we got out, we saw two bluestripe butterflies in the little bay.

     At the ladder we were mobbed by five Hawaiian kids.  Between six and eight, they swam like a troop of friendly otters, taking great delight in jumping off the pier.  They were accompanied by an auntie who grew up in Kohala but now lives in San Francisco.  She told us how lucky we were to live in Hawaii.  And she was right!

jeff

Pyramid Butterflyfish, City of Refuge 2014