Hurricane Hector at Kawaihae

The Legend Lives on in Bloomington, Indiana

    Many of you may know that Hector was the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, the greatest warrior of Troy. He slayed 31,000 Greeks and died in single combat with Achilles in front of the gates of Troy.  He was not married to Helen of Troy.  That honor fell to his brother, Paris; Helen had
deserted her home in Sparta to elope with Paris, hence launching a thousand ships.  In one of the earliest known episodes of vendetta, Paris kills Achilles with a well placed arrow to the heel.  Such an archer must have been one heck of good dart player, but neither Shakespeare nor Homer mentions that part.  For that matter, there is no mention of a pub in Troy. Bloody hell!

The Hairy Hermit Crab in full battle array, bear skins and all.  Hoot man!

   Priam's clan was descended from Dardanus, who was one of two survivors of the Greek flood myth.  Dardanus gives his name to the genus that includes Dardanus lagopodes, that worthy hermit crab who lives in the shallows of  Pemuteran Bay in northwest Bali.  Descended as he is from such noble heroes, it is no wonder that the Hairy Hermit crab has gone to war.  
Sung to the tune of the Minstrel Boy, you are invited to hum the tune as you read on.

   This week Hector gained new prominence, as his name was applied to the first hurricane to threaten our tropical shores in 2018.  The media got all excited, predicting waves as tall as the walls of Troy.  We who live in the blessed lee of Mauna Loa, do not actually believe these dire predictions, although there exists a tradition that when such an alarm is sounded all must repair to the KTA and strip the

Possible  juvenile leatherjacket, Scomberoides lysan hangin' out

grocery store of canned goods.  However, the idea that we might be facing large waves served as an excellent excuse to head up to Kawaihae harbor and test my theory that this is an excellent place to snorkel when high waves persist on the Kona coast.  Or maybe we was just jonesin' for another dip in that biological paradise.

   As we headed north past the Mauna Kea Beach resort, we were looking at fleecy with clouds floating in a blue sky above Kohala mountain.  It is such a treat for us to see a such a sky that I had my lovely bride nab a picture through the windshield.  We parked the faithful Accord in the park at the southwest corner of the harbor under in the shade of a jubjub tree.  Luckily three were no bandersnatches to contend with , so we were soon at the water's edge, which is to say on the massive boat launch from which we take our plunge into the harbor.

As it was  low tide, the military docking platforms just off shore were rising an extra foot above the

The Baby Scribbled Filefish.  A Toddler on his column.

peaceful waters.  If there had been much in the way of surf here at Kawaihae, I could have declared my experiment to be a success, but there was just the faintest of breezes and the ocean on the far side of the breakwater bore at most a nine inch chop.

    The water in the harbor was as flat as the surface of the pool table in the Horse and Helmet back in Troy.  Not stopping for a pint of their fine rich broth of plankton that included a myriad of minuscule jellyfish.

  The usual suspects in Kawaihae include milletseed and saddleback butterflies, disappearing wrasse and juvenile Hawaiian dascyllus, all of which were present as we made our way to the first and then the second platform.  I was hoping to see our baby scribbled filefish near the rope on the second platform.  He was not there, but there were two or three small fish at the surface, the likes of which were unfamiliar to me.   They were tiny fusiform fish  about an inch long, green on top, white below.  They hung almost motionless in the water at a steep angle, the tip of their tail appearing to touch the surface.  When disturbed they would swim down, soon to return to their peculiar position at the surface.  We have an email out to the Great Oz in hopes that he may be able to put a name on this curious beast

    As I was examining the little green fish, Sandra called me announcing that she had located the juvenile filefish.  He had abandoned the ropes, grown out of them, actually, and was hovering by one of the columns about six feet down.  In the intervening fortnight he had almost doubled in length,

Blackfin Chromis, Kawaihae Harbour  August 2018

going from three to five inches, mas o menos.  Sadly, he had lost that charming baby coloration.  No more dots and dashes, he was now bedecked in standard issue scribbled filefish camo gear.  Like a good parent, I did my best to take his picture.  A Kodak moment to be sure.  Turn around and you're one, turn around and you're three.  Turn around and you're a filefish swimming out to the sea.

   Okay you maudlin bastards.  Dry your eyes, put the Kleenex away, and we'll get on with the story.

    We scoured the columns for a nudibranch, but found none.  However, near some coral on one of
the outer columns I found what must be a blackfin chromis.  He was much larger than a usual member of this species and not in a school hovering over the reef.  It was an opportunity to photograph this species, usually so small, flighty and distant.  I hope you appreciate the portrait.

Cup Coral with tentacles extended

    Leaving the platforms, we then swam across the lagoon to the outer breakwater, where as before we located orange cup corals growing in the recesses of the rip rap.  During our first excursion to Kawaihae, Peter had managed a fine picture of a cup coral with its tentacles extended.  Prior to looking at his picture,  I assumed one would need to go there at night to witness that phenomenon.  This time, by searching carefully, I was able to find a specimen with his fine chartreuse tentacles waving in the soup. The better to procure a hearty lunch.

     Our friend Hai had mentioned that this was an area, out along the breakwater, where he had seen reef sharks.  Without telling Sandra why we were doing so, we swam an additional twenty meters seaward.  No sharks appeared and we swam back  over a field of dying coral to the third platform.

    As I approached the platform,  Sandra, who had swum ahead, alerted me to a the presence of a  turtle.  This fellow might have been the most domesticated turtle of all time.   He swam right up to Sandra, looking her right in the goggles.  It is rare when a wild animal, especially one as different from humans as a turtle, behaves this way.  With a feral dog or cat, you might stretch for an explanation.  We have a history with these animals dating

Eye to eye with our Chelonian Chum

back thousands of years.  If there were such a thing as a feral sheep, she might do the same thing.  We have a long, some would say biblical, association with sheep, too.  Especially Scotsmen, New Zealanders and folks from Montana.  That, of course, is a different story and the source of a fine joke that can no longer be told in the work place.  Baa.

    The only history we have with turtles, as far as I know, is associated with soup.  Before he dove down to snack on the algae growing on the rocks, he paddled over and said hello to me, too.  This isn't the prettiest picture of a turtle that you will ever see, but it does give you the chance to go eye to eye with a friendly aquatic reptile.  Not an everyday occurrence, to be sure.

   At this point, Sandra, in a state of chelonian bliss, said, "Wow.  We've seen everything except an octopus!"  Well, that wasn't exactly true.  In fact, having not found a nudibranch, we were a little light in the mollusc department.  Happy as the clam that she didn't see, Sandra swam to shore.  I spent a while more looking for nudibranchs.  And not finding any.

The Husky Cushion Star

    On the way in, I spotted a pair of cushion stars separated by less than a meter.  One was Husky
purple and the other red and orange, the colors of the Trojans.  Not Priam, Hector et al, but the rich kids from South Central, the University of Spoiled Children, USC, home of Tommy the Trojan.  Yuck.

   I think the purple cushion star was preparing to eat the orange one.  And then have sex with his girlfriend.

    Probably can't talk about that in the workplace, either.  Do you think Mr. Moonves would like to join me for an IPA?

    As I reached the landing strip, aka the giant boat launch, I discovered that Sandra was holding court with our friend Hai.  Hai strolled over to where I was gauging the wisdom of crawling out onto slippery pavement and asked if I had seen the wire coral gobies.  Seen them?  I wasn't even sure if I had heard of them.  He told me to swim out to the second platform, look at the wire on the sea side

The Wire Coral Goby, Kawaihae, 2018

dangling in the water and that is where they would be.  Indeed, he was right.  These are peculiar looking little fish, looking more like a tropical catfish, sans barbels, than a goby.  A picture being worth a thousand words, I won't bore you with a description.  I'm a little embarrassed by my photographic effort; this picture may be worth 850 words.  Hai says that they have been reliable on that wire for about two weeks, so God willing, I will have another chance.  Sandra, who did not accompany me back to the goby wire, is anticipating her chance at this life fish.

   When I finally made my landing, Sandra and Hai were full of stories. First, they had to show me an incredibly small fish that was hanging by the boat launch.  Hai swears it was a baby great barracuda.  He was an inch long and an inch below the surface,  with a series of horizontal stripes.The wave pattern overlapping the 'cuda was made by water dripping from the camera.

    There is more than one species of barracuda in Hawaii and three make it into John Hoover's book.  The blackfin barracuda is still a life fish for yours truly.  And it has a pattern of horizontal stripes.  Our new best friend Hai swears when that he has researched this fish and this mini-cuda is a great, but as Nathan Lane said in the Birdcage, "When the schmecken beckons..." or in this instance,  you have to make sure that what you are looking at is not a life fish.  Information like this is hard to find, but we will try.

An extreme juvenile barracuda. 

   While I was taking the picture of the barracuda, Sandra and Hai were discussing the dripping camera, specifically that it had just replaced a TG 3 that had stopped working for the most trivial of reasons, a drop of a mere two and a half feet.  Hai said he might be able to fix it. In fact, he had recently fixed a TG 1 of Peter's.

    My ears perked up at this, although I was immediately reminded of a situation about thirty five years ago.  I  had a chess computer (this was back in the days when I could play chess without getting angina) which had ceased to work.  In a moment of hubris, I had taken off the back and was looking at the guts: a couple of solid state boards, a resistor, a transistor  and who knows what else.  Our dog, Freckles, a Springer Spaniel of infamous repute watched on.  At this moment my wife walked in and said, "So now you are a computer repairman."

   Check and mate.

   To protect the innocent, I will let you catch up with Hai and have him tell you about the TG 1.  He seems to be ever at Kawaihae harbor and perhaps he will show you a reef shark.  That is our current goal, to see a shark with Hai.  Wish us luck.

jeff

Last night Hurricane Hector spun away, a hundred miles to the south of the Big Island.  In celebration I'm inviting you all down to the Trojan Horse.  The Ilium pale ale is on me.

A quick follow up:  The question of the little green and white fish was put to John Hoover who passed it along to Bruce Mundy of NOAA in Honolulu.  Those two experts hazard this guess: a juvenile leatherjacket,  Scomberoides lysan.  Keoki  Stender has a picture of such a juvenile at Hanuma Bay, Oahu which is indeed green over white.  The behavior of these tiny fish was really bizarrre.  If they are extreme juveniles they will probably outgrow this strange behavior and be gone.  In the meantime, we can all keep our eyes open and be grateful that when we find something truly unusual there are experts like John Hoover to call upon.

   By the way, as John answered my query,  he was in the airport in Seoul on his way to see some super cool fish in the Indian Ocean.  What a lucky duck!













   












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