Bigeyes on the Big Island

    Yesterday I got dropped off for snorkeling at the Kailua Pier.  In an attempt to improve my list, I wandered around the closed restroom and shower area to the beach in front of the King Kamehameha Hotel.  This shuttering of the facilities has made a huge difference in the number of people at these beaches and at 9 AM I had the strand of soft white sand almost to myself.  

Hawaiian Bigeye, Kailua Kona 11/24

    The water was extremely calm and there wasn't even a breeze.  As I stepped in, I was reminded of the downside of this entry...the water was frigid!  As I swam out it got a little warmer but by then I was already shivering.  

   I had seen nothing of note in the Inner Harbour but just outside the rip rap I saw a tomato red bigeye only six feet down.  I turned to discover that there were two of them.  They receded a little, but basically stayed where I could see them.  In spite of their cooperation, I took a handful of poor pictures, Mea culpa.  You see the best of the lot here as I hang my head in shame.

   Regardless, the pictures are good enough to make an identification of Hawaiian Bigeye.  As there were two fish, that makes a total of four big eyes.  Surprisingly, these fish are not as nocturnal as those big eyes suggest.  However, they are far from common in my experience.  Without consulting my records I'll bet that this is around my tenth sighting of a bigeye in oh so many years.  And it makes for a remarkable sighting on three successive outings around the pier.  

Hawaiian Bigeye in the Rip Rap, 11/24

    The incentive for swimming on the Paul Allen side was to add new species to the list and I was pleased in the middle of the small bay to see a Goldrim Surgeon.  This fish is related to the Achilles Tang.  Not so long ago we saw many Achilles Tang and occasionally a Goldrim Surgeon.  Now one sees notices in place like Honokohau Harbor stating that it is illegal to take Achilles Tang as they have become severely endangered.  Bummer, dude!

    In this instance, though, as I was trying without success to take a picture of the goldrim I saw an Achilles Tang among the coral rubble on the bottom, about twenty-five feet down.  Despite it being far away, the water was clear, and I got a very good look at this iconic fish that is struggling to survive.  

    Goldrims and Achilles hybridize.  In fact, ever so long ago when we swam regularly at Kona Makai (and saw lots of Achilles Tang) I got a picture of one of those hybrids.  In this case I looked carefully, and this was the purebred Achiles Tang.   Not some chihaucapoo of a fish. 

Achilles Tang, Kailua Kona, 2020

     A bit further out in the bay I encountered a gazillion Pearl Soldierfish.  This species is most commonly known around Kona as menpachi .  If you are a fish with the goal of staying away from the dinner plate, it is best if you are not known by a Japanese name.   Hence, Mypristes kuntee is relatively uncommon in unprotected areas.  It is putatively delicious and therefore likely to end up on the business end of a spear.  C'est domage! 

    I've seen a few from time to time on the Paul Allen side, but this was in excess of two dozen.   Let's keep these guys a secret from the spear fishermen,

    All in all, we added nine species to the list on this outing.

          🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑   🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑   🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑    🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑🦑

     Today I went swimming at Kahalu'u.  I was able to share my pictures with Yasuko and Kathleen Clark. Kathleen is the manager of the Reef Teachers and keeps track of the bay; she does regular surveys of the fish and keeps records of the pH, etc. in the bay.

     As before, the fish watching was mediocre.  I added one fish, the Bluespine Unicorn, to the list.  As I swim, I'm continually on the lookout for invertebrates.  On the way out I saw an octopus slither into a lava crevice.  I waited for him to emerge to no avail, so I dove down and took a flash picture of the octopus hiding in his den.  It's a ridiculous picture of flash reflected off suspended particles.  An unacceptable amount of imagination is required to find the cephalopod in the picture.

Hidden Hermit Crab, Ca. latens, Kahalu'u 11/24

    Later in my swim I found a small hermit crab hanging on to a piece of dead coral.  I got three quick pictures from about ten inches away from the crab, allowing the TG 5 to do the heavy lifting, focusing and adjusting the flash for distance.  (These smart cameras have changed underwater macro-photography dramatically!)   

    One of the pictures was in pretty good focus.  You can see the constellation of stars on the wrist of the cheliped, the grayish green eye stalks, the orange antennae and, most importantly, the purplish band near the tips of the walking legs.  It's a Hidden Hermit Crab, Ca, Latens.  Our first hermit identified this season.  

   This fellow brings to mind the folks that taught Sandra and I about hermits, taking us under their carapace, if you will:   Patsy McLaughlin (RIP) and Joseph Poupin, who is still working with hermits at the Ecole Navale in Nantes.   

    With luck there will be more hermits in our future, and I hope in yours, as well.

Jeff  

   

Bandtail Goatfish!

     Yesterday was another cool morning at Casa Ono.  At 7 AM, as I usually do, I sallied forth for an hour or so in the garden.  This morning, however, I went out like a crusader to battle with the ancient enemy.  In this instance, I was not going after the minions of Saladin, but the morning glory vine that
grows to the tops of the ornamental fig trees that create our border. 

Saladin, the scourge of the Crusaders,

 The problem is, we can see the vines in the treetops, more than twenty feet above the ground.  Up there, the leaves, flowers and seed pods create a messy distraction.  But at ground level the vines bear no leaves and, despite a substantial growth in the treetops, the vine itself may not be all that large.  Couple this with twenty feet of tangled monstera leaves and trunks that stand between the crusader and the fig trees and you have a problem.

    Unfazed, I entered the monstera, working towards the figs.  Eight feet in I met my match, falling backwards into the monstera.  I landed softly with those large leaves to cushion my ungainly bulk, but my head was down slope and I was stuck.  For a while I flapped around on my back like an overturned turtle.   In a word: pathetic.   Sandra came down as I extricated myself, but that was all the vine hunting we were going to do that morning.   I cut away the damaged monstera and hauled up a dozen or so monstrous leaves.    And then it was time for some hydrotherapy.

Bandtail Goatfish  Kailua Kona 11/ 24

   As we disembarked at the pier I noted that there were a bunch of children playing in the water.   Wading in with my fins and mask, I was passed by a child who approached an attractive young lady in a form fitting yellow rash guard.  He needed an equipment adjustment and as he swam away I asked the lady if she was in charge of all these kids.  "Just the little ones." she replied.  We agreed it was like wrangling cats, but she had it under control.

   As soon as I put my face in the water I was rewarded.  To my left was a small flounder and to my right, over the sand, was a pair of Bandtail Goatfish.  These are not your everyday goatfishes.  I have seen them at least once in Hawaii, in that very spot and once in Fiji about 35 years ago.  Sandra and I were with Peter when he saw them (or so he said) over the sand by the LST landing at Kawaihae Harbor.  So in roughly 40 years of fish watching I have two or three sightings and one near miss.  This is an uncommon species!  

Bandtail Goatfish, U. arge,  weke pueo  11/24

     As you might have gathered, these fish are found over sand, often in the shallows, and they are pan-Pacific in distribution.  As I watched this pair they joined a single Yellowstripe Goatfish to dabble together in the sand, as goatfish are wont to do.

    What proceeded after was delightful but not too remarkable.  Way out in front of the palace, looking down at the coral, I saw a number of Argus Groupers hiding in crevices.   Last spring I had expressed some concern for this introduced species (and got some blowback for worrying about a species that might be deemed an undesirable exotic.)  Anyway, they are handsome and currently plentiful in Kailua Bay.

    I also got a quick look at a Spotfin Squirrelfish as it dodged out from beneath a large living coral that has withstood the ravages of global warming.  This was a good fish for the list, now well started, but at 67 fish, hopefully in its infancy.  

     Over the next four months we will see a few more squirrelfish and hopefully many others with which to amuse you.  And did you notice?  I overcame my technical incompetence and succeeded in wifi-ing the photos from the Olympus TG 5, to my cell phone and emailing them to the computer where Corel Paint shop permits me to tweak them for our mutual delight.  And so, I can finish off this blog with three pictures of the Bigfin Squid taken a week ago.  I hope it was worth the wait.

jeff

    

Bigfin Squid, Kailua Pier 11/24

We don't need no calamari.

Kahalu'u vs the Kailua Kona Pier

    On consecutive days this week I went swimming at Kahalu'u and the pier with dramatically different results.  

   Tuesday morning we made it down to Kahalu'u.   It was a pleasant morning and the tide was high.  Getting in was better than it has been for several years, as sand has filled in a path on the shelter side of the so-called sand channel.  Despite a modest chop, there was fairly little current.  And the water was warm; Yasuko, my sole Japanese friend in the whole world reported it at 82 degrees.  I thought it might have been warmer than that. Kenichi wa!

A keiki Rectangular Triggerfish assures the species survival!

   The good news stopped there.  The water was persistently cloudy throughout the bay.  And the variety of fish was depressing.  The sole good news was cleaner wrasse.  I saw two pairs, and over by the rescue shelter an intermediate, who was morphing from the plain blue lined juvenile to a colorful adult.  She escaped before I could get a picture.  

   And we saw a legion of Rectangular Triggerfish.  Triggerfish seem to be taking the dying coral situation better than some other species.  Wouldn't it be a drag if the state fish became extinct?  No humu humu for youmu youmu!

    The news ashore was better.  Our friend Yasuko was there, telling us about a recent trip to Osaka.  In the Land of the Rising Sun she was shocked by warm weather...80 degrees, in October... just like the water in K Bay.  And there's a new girl, friendly, well spoken, and willing to listen to geriatric snorkelers talk about the good old days.  I showed her my picture of squids and she told me that a few weeks back they had a pair of breeding octopi.  Her name is Haley (like the comet) and perhaps we will see more of her in these pages as the season progresses.

                           🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

     The next day we went down to the pier.   Wednesday is cruise ship day and the cruisers were there.  But the showers and changing rooms remain behind danger tape, so there were still very few swimmers and space was plentiful on the cubbies.  

A Teardrop Pair, Kailua Pier 2016

   The water was cool and super clear.  And there were fish!   We added the Oval Butterfly, such a prosaic name for a fish that seems to possess an inner lantern that creates that central golden glow, and Teardrop Butterfly.  

    Additionally I saw a Sandwich Island Filefish.  This species, identified by the white spot on the dorsal portion of the caudal peduncle, used to be common, but has become less so.  And amazingly, unless I am mistaken, I have yet to see the more prosaic Barred Filefish, which should be super common.  

   Finally we added Lagoon Triggerfish.  As beautiful as ever!

    Best of all, out by the penultimate swim buoy, I saw a Leatherback.  This is a very streamlined member of the Jack family that we see only occasionally.  Not as rare as squid, but something one might see only a couple times a year.  As I'm only going to be here for five months, and I don't snorkel as often as I did, this is probably the only one for 2024.  This was a fine specimen, almost two feet long. and he was a fine bronzy silver torpedo.  The hallmark of this sleek fish its cute little dorsal fin the size of your pinkie.  It has a white base and a black tip.  So as this wonderful fish swam by me, not in any great hurry (they never seem to stop when they are on patrol) that little, flag-like dorsal made him unmistakable.

Lagoon Triggerfish, Kailua Pier 2024

   I doubt I will ever get a picture of this fish, as in every instance it is here and gone.  So I'm going to burden you with this picture from the internet.  The fish I saw was bigger and better, less silver and more bronze, but at least this will give you an idea.

   I couldn't swim on the far side of the swim buoys with the tenders shuttling in and out with their shore going cruisers.  I got right up to the line and did not see any squid lurking out there in no man's land.

    Ashore, I was approached by some of the cruisers.  One was a lady from Upstate New York who wondered if it was safe to walk down to the sand.  Being a gentleman, I watched her shoes while she exposed her tootsies to the ocean.  She allowed that, by virtue of signing up for a daily excursion, this might be the only time she got her feet wet on her trip to Hawaii.  

The Leatherjacket

    While I was rinsing off with the bottle of water I had brought with me from home, an older couple stopped me and asked if there was a better beach nearby than the tiny strip where we enter on the Ironman side.  I showed them how they could walk around the visitor center / closed dressing rooms and showers and achieve the lovely beach in front of the King Kam.  And as I finished dressing, I spied them through the web of danger tape, pointing at that lovely strand that apparently the cruise company wants to keep a secret, the better to get people on a bus and away from the water.  

     Its wet, you know...you might melt!

jeff

   

Squid! Or a return to the Sandwich Islands

     About a week ago, perhaps longer, we returned to Kona.  In this time we have been doing a bunch of gardening and home repairs; we have a toilet disassembled in the Ohana waiting for a gasket from Amazon. 

Asian Swallowtail, Kona November 2024

     It's hard to hang out in Hawaii and not see butterflies.  Although we have yet to go for a walk with a net, we have seen the three bigger butterflies, Asian Swallowtail, Gulf Frit and Monarch close up many times.  Initially this was quite a treat as we came from a place where there are no butterflies in November.  One day in our garden a nice Asian Swallowtail and my phone camera came together to create the nice picture you see here.

    Driving around, we have seen lots of small, pale-yellow butterflies, which I presume are sleepies.  And some really small butterflies wihich must be skippers.  Gotta take that walk with the net and some vegetable bags.

    There was lots to do and it wasn't until today that I got off my duff and went snorkeling.   We have been getting high wind weather alerts, but the morning was clear and still.  Sandra dropped me off at the pier, which was uncommonly deserted.  I chose the pier because it is clearly the most forgiving place to swim here in Kona and I hadn't donned a mask and fins in over seven months. 

Finescale Triggerfish, Paul Allen's Reef, 2014

     The water was cool and clear, just like a refreshing beverage, and I was excited to see what was around.  Immediately I saw a small linckia starfish in the sand.  There were a few butterflies and the usual surgeons on the way out.  Finally in the coral past the last swim buoy I spotted a Finescale Triggerfish.  This ghost of a trigger is not exactly rare, but uncommon enough inshore to merit a mention.  

   So as I made the turn for home, I allowed that I had seen some stuff and I was wondering if that little starfish was going to turn into the best invertebrate for the swim.  The Body Glove with a deck full of tourists pulled out and I decided to swim back on the outside of the swim buoys.  

   Near the third swim buoy I got a delightful surprise...three Bigfin Squid hanging out doing whatever they do.    Which is to say, they seem curious enough but you never see them feeding or anything else of a purposeful nature.  Unless you count them keeping an eye on you with those saucer-like peepers and swimming backwards out of spearing range, the better not to make the transition to calamari.  Mostly though, like the Dude, the squid abide.  

Bigfin Squid courtesy of the Monterey Aquarium

  So I imagine you are wondering why I'm showing you a picture of the squid lifted from the internet as opposed to some fantastic pictures taken this morning.  Well, over the last week we have been taking note of the things we didn't bring to Hawaii.  Forgotten in a box back in Vancouver are both sets of our binoculars.  In another box is the disc reader that would permit me to transfer pictures from the water camera to the computer.  Shazbatt!

    Needless to say, I spent ten minutes with these friendly little cephalopods, photographing them from every angle and even taking a small movie that I'm sure you will enjoy in a week or so, when Jeff Bezos sends me a new disc reader.  

Give a squid a beverage and call him Jeffrey Lebowski.

   Two of the trio hung together.  One was slightly larger than the other.  The larger was possibly 14 inches in length, They were opalescent with brown blotches.  The third guy was smaller and more of a rich brown.  And while the duo mostly swam with their tentacle stretched out as in the picture, this guy liked to hold his tentacles down in front of his face.  It made it look like he had a silly brown beard.  

    Supposedly this camera will transmit pictures to a cell phone, but this involves steps like downloading the correct program to deal with the pictures and then a QR code to link it all up somehow.  I spent a couple hours trying to make it work , even enduring a condescending lecture on QR codes from our daughter.  Her parting advice was to find a helpful teenager. 

     It's possible that I deserve this, after all, against my will I have turned into an old fart.  But I can still go swimming and it's just possible that I can replace a toilet gasket.   Stay tuned and I'll let you know on that one in a couple weeks.

jeff

PS.  At the end of my swim I discovered that the showers and changing rooms at the foot of the pier are closed.  There was a rumor of a sewage leak.  This explains why there were so few recreational swimmers!   If you are going for the squid, you might pretend you are headed for  Ho'okena and bring a bottle of water to wash off and a sarong for changing.