On the PAR With Peter and Marla or The Truth about Crinoids

   Late last week we went snorkeling with our friends Peter and Marla.    They drove down from Kapa'au to spend the morning with us and the afternoon with Costco and Home Depot.   We met at 10 AM at the pier,

That's Peter 3rd to the left of the Superstar.

where Peter told us that he couldn't find a place to park.  Parking in Kailua has become quite difficult of late, so this wasn't a total shock.  He dropped off Marla and their equipment and took off in the truck for another try at parking.  He showed up about half an hour later, having been forced to pay to park in the lot by the market.

   Once recently I gave up on an optional meeting downtown when I couldn't find a place to park, but this was unprecedented.  And a bummer.

   The time wasn't wasted, however.  Peter and Marla are real honest to God scientists who get paid to go to American Samoa twice a year and do work for the EPA.  So Sandra and Marla compared notes about the

And that's why we don't go snorkeling at Lake Merritt!

Samoans that go to our church and the ones they encounter in, well, Samoa.  And Marla told us about their upcoming post-job excursion to Western Samoa, where it seems the outer islands are reached more dependably.   

    Eventually Peter made it back and we headed over to the Inner Harbour.  Both he and I had new equipment.  I had a new snorkel, in my ongoing effort to replace the set I lost in the surf at the Mauna Kea.  Peter, on the other hand,  had a new swimming hat.  And what a hat it was: a large silky bandana the color of old gold with olive and violet polka dots.  P&M have connections to UC Berkeley and own a small house in a neighboring community, so I assume he ordered his do-rag special from a head shop on Telegraph Avenue.   I couldn't help but tell him that he looked like the oldest member of the chorus from Jesus Christ Superstar.  In my do rag I look like the wimpiest biker in the pack, but none of us want a burned scalp, so we do, as it were, what we can.

Christmas Wrasse on the PAR, April 2017

    Changed and ready we headed out to Paul Allen's Reef.  We dove down to look at the recovering Pocillopora corals, hoping to find a coral croucher to add to Peter's list.  The only croucher I have recorded came as the result of analyzing a digital photograph of an unknown something in the coral, so heaven only knows what I expected to accomplish.  On my last investigation, I noticed that a large whitemouth moray

Pearl Wrasse in the King Kam Lagoon

was giving me the eye from a mere foot away.  Luckily for the purposes of this blog, he decided that my gloved hand addressing the coral at his front door was not a small octopus or a fuzzy orange shrimp. 


A bit further out, the PAR relinquished the booty.  Patrolling the area about ten yards off the wall, with a bottom of dead coral fifteen to twenty feet below that somehow retains enough structure to create a maze of hiding spots, we saw a large yellowtail file fish and at least three Potter's angelfish. 

   With this success in hand, I went over to the wall, hoping for a five stripe wrasse.  This was the last place that I saw this unusual fish that seems, in Hawaii at least, to prefer shallow surging water.  Of course, there were no five stripes, but I did see a pair of large ornate hermit crabs, or rather ornate hermit crabs in large

Crinoid, Black with red stalks, Tulamben, Bali 2014

encrusted shells, scuttling through a depression in the coral about two feet down.

   While I was preparing to take a photo of the hermits, altering the camera setting to macro telephoto, a plump Christmas wrasse swam into the scene.  It took our friend Anita to convince me that this lens designated for microscopic close ups can be used for bigger animals if the water is clear.  Obviously we had
the clarity and the Christmas wrasse was sufficiently cooperative for me to get these pictures.  I'll have to save the best of them for the eponymous hunt eight months hence.  

    By this time, Sandra and her pal Marla had had enough of this fun, so we all headed in.  Just inside the small jetty, I nabbed this acceptable picture of a pearl wrasse. 

    Ten minutes later, as I was showering off, Peter arrived, saying that he was pretty sure he had just seen a new fish.  This produced a moment of anxiety bordering on dread.  When you beat the other guy out of the

Criniod   C. biareus   Lipah Bay, Bali 2017

water, who knows what he is going to turn up.  As it turns out, he had seen a female Whitley's Trunkfish. 

   Whew.  I told him that this was not an unusual fish for the Inner Harbour and the PAR.  In fact, when Charles and James were eight and five, they momentarily went up a fish on me by spotting a Whitley's in the Inner Harbour while I was snorkeling on the Ironman side.  I believe we see one of those females with the white sidewalls about once every three or four times snorkeling on that side if the pier. 

   But this wasn't a life fish for him.  Under the tutelage of a guide, he had managed to see two male Whitley's trunkfish in very deep water on a dive trip, but had never seen a female.

    Peter has promised to post his picture of the Whitley's trunkfish this week in his blog,  onebreathkohala.  I'm throwing up my best effort over many sightings just to see how I do against someone who is a really talented fish photographer.

    Well, almost a life fish is enough to warrant a beer, so the four of us repaired to the Harbor House at Honokohau for lunch.  Lunch was good, but our waitress was better.  She was a classic Hawaiian beauty, half Hawaiian, half Japanese a third Phillipina and one quarter Portuguese.  She had a face like a moon of Venus and lips, that in the words of that famous private eye, Guy Noir, you'd like to curl up in for a week. 

Crinoid  C. shlegeli, Lipah Bay, Bali 2017

Sadly, Harbor House has this Hooter's wannabe mentality and so this Hawaiian beauty was forced to wear a tight, tucked in shirt which wasn't her best look, Hawaiian girls being such as they are in the avoirdupois department. 

   Anyhow,  pretty Hawaiianas bearing large glasses of beer aside, we soon got into the trip our friends were going to take to Samoa.  Peter's favorite Samoan fish is the titan trigger, which is one of our least favorite fish.  Both Sandra and I are understandably concerned that Mr. Titan might take a bite out of us, like that famous Goya painting of Saturn devouring his young.  (Did you know that Saturn was a titan?)  Well Pietro couldn't care less.  Under that jaunty chapeau, Peter spells his name danger.

   I asked if they had seen...and then I blocked on the name.  So I described these invertebrates, possibly related to starfish that look like a clump of colorful ostrich feathers swaying in the breeze, except of course its under water.  When the pretty girl has given you enough beer you don't sweat such details. 

   Anyway, this wasn't ringing any bells, so, like Sarah Palin,  I had to get back to them.  The animals in

Whitley's Trunkfish November 2015 Kailua Kona

question are crinoids and in Bali we have seen several species, possibly more than five.  They are, indeed, echinoderms and my description may not do them justice.  In general, echinoderms are strange animals.  the ones we are most familiar with are starfish and sea urchins. most species ave an obvious five point radial organization.  Echinoderms lack brains and have a water vascular system that permits motion of tube feet and spines.  Sometimes the five point radial plan isn't so obvious, like in the multi armed crown of thorns starfish.  Well, these crinoids commonly have more than 100 feathery arms, yet we are told that underneath it all they have a five point radial plan, five plates and a central mouth.  And they look like they are rooted to a spot, but these crinoids that we see near the surface in Bali are part of the group called feather stars, which are free swimming.  The other group of crinoids are known as sea lilies, are often found deeper and are truly rooted to the bottom by a central stalk.   Apparently there are crinoids in Hawaii and Samoa, but they are not very pretty and they may be deep.  Sandra and I did not see any in Fiji that we can recall, but most of our snorkeling was done in the shallows.  The internet has pictures from Fiji showing animals similar to those we see in Bali.

   We are waiting for a report from Peter and Marla on our mutual return to Kona.  They are going west and we are going east, so they have a much better chance of seeing crinoids on their journey than we do. Best of all, when we reconvene late in the summer they have promised to show us threadfin jacks at Mahukona.  And we're holding them to it.

jeff
  

     

A Few Shots from the Pier and Other Delights

     I have been lucky enough to go snorkeling at the pier the last two days.  I haven't seen anything earth shattering, but I'm presenting this blog so you can see a few fairly nice pictures and get a feel for what Sandra and I have been up to.

"What're  you lookin' at?" Hawaiian dascyllus  Kona Pier 2017

   Adult Hawaiian Dascylus may seem plain on first blush, especially in comparison to their keikis, who are so distinctive that that they have been given their own name, "Domino Damsel."  We seem to have a small resident school just seaward of the third swim buoy on the Ironman side of the Kona pier.  Yesterday the water was clear, so I made a few dives and nabbed these photos of this interesting species.

   As an aside, the smaller species of cauliflower coral,  Pocillopora damicornis, seems to be making a comeback in the swim area.  Wouldn't it be a gift from God if, in a few months we had a cloud of baby dascyllus hovering over a coral head in our bay?

 

With his black tail and white sides this guy is totally elegant.

  Don't think that all is a bowl of cherries on the Pocillopora front.  The larger species,  Pocillopora meandrina, is still in a world of hurt here in Kona, at least down to 25 feet.  It is actually this species that is most likely to be the home to that aforementioned cloud of domino keikis.  So I'm not holding my breath.
  








    Two days ago as I was finishing my swim, I made one final loop into the shallows of the swim area.  There, resting in a niche of a semi dead coral head, 18 inches above the lagoon floor, I spied a large miter shell, possibly in excess of three inches long. Well, as you may know, miters like this live in the sand, probably at depths greater than 10 feet.  Naturally I assumed that this shell was housing an ambitious hermit crab.  I dove down, hung on to the dead coral and tried to extricate the shell with my bare fingers, while at

Calcinus elegans, the Elegant Hermit Crab, in a well worn Pontifical Miter

the same time avoiding the sharp needles of the resident sea urchins.   

    Suffice it say, regardless of several attempts and what should have been a sufficient amount of cursing, I could not fiddle the fellow into my aging fingers.  I did, however, manage to push the shell further into the crevice.  So far, as it turned out, that the business end of the miter shell was protruding from the far end of the tube-like crevice. 

    After regaining my professional composure, I am, after all, now hailed in this beachside community as a naturalist and wildlife artist.  (Thanks to Jennifer Losalio, the children's librarian here in Kailua, I have the  brochure to prove it.)   Recomposed, I swam around until I found the miter in the coral.  If you have ever had the experience of seeing some stationary object underwater, turning away and then attempting to relocate it, you will appreciate that finding a three inch miter in one of the many coral niches was not a sure thing.  Finally I found

Our little boy is growing up, Threadfin Butterfly at the Pier

the shell and lo and behold, a large elegant hermit crab was clawing his prize estate into a new position.

    Diving down and hanging on to a bit of dead coral, I nabbed a few pictures of the fine fellow as he attempted to situate his Winnebago in its new, thanks to yours truly, resting place.

    Right beside the pier, about five yards on the wrong side of the swim area, I found this adolescent threadfin.  If I am correct, he has been growing in this location for eight months.  Look back in the blog and I'll bet you can find his baby pictures.

   
    And what about that picture at the top of the page?   Look carefully and you might find a twelve year old paddleboarder on the wrong side of the line that delineates the swim area.  The feckless youth finds himself going mano a chico with the tender to the submarine.  Whoops.

    Last but not least, here is a picture of the quilt in progress that has absorbed much of Sandra's time...time that might have been spent freezing in the ocean looking for fish.

   Last but not least, Sandra and I took the opportunity this morning to catch up with Peter's blog, OnebreathKohala,  https://onebreathkohala.wordpress.com/ 

    I know a lot about blogs.  In fact, I know more about blogs than anyone I know.  Peter writes an amazing blog.  If you have the time, give it a look.   I guarantee it that this will be the most amazing blog experience of your life.

   (If you weren't able to recognize my Trump parody, I apologize.)


Quilt till you wilt,
jeff



   

Kahalu'u Reopens and a New Restaurant on the Malecon

    With kudos to the Kona Department of Public works, I am pleased to announce that Kahalu'u beach Park is once again open for snorkeling and baby luaus.  A few days ago Sandra noted that the park was

Shortnose Wrasse juvenile Kahalu'u March 2017

reopened  (ahead of schedule) and we bopped on down for a swim and general look around.  Everything was as we remembered, including the several old vans and autos that appear to be homes to entire families.

   Like certain other familiar denizens of our beach community, these clans with their vans are well known to us; they seem to enter the park as it opens in the morning and hang out in the shaded parking spots until closing.  I certainly do not envy them their lifestyle, but life could be worse than a camp next to Kahalu'u. 

As we parked, Sandra noted that one of the elderly clansmen was sitting in a folding chair in the shade beside his van, possibly kicking back with a doobie.  As I changed into my snorkeling apparel I penned, at least on that notepad that I carry around in the back of my befuddled  and somewhat irreligious brain, the following lyrics, which are sung to a similarly irreligious, latter day Christmas tune.

We don't have any crocodiles ...

Grampa got run over by stingray,
Sitting in his lawn chair at K Bay.
Some folks says Hawaii ain't got stingrays.
But that don't sit with me and Chevrolet.

   Although the bay was perilously shallow, we had a nice swim in clear water that seemed to be getting just a little warmer.  Of note, at least from the standpoint of the 2017 list, was a pair of barred jacks and a juvenile shortnose wrasse.  This guy was quite young, being smaller and less colorful than most we have seen.

A table under the banyan tree.

    Yesterday morning I made it down to the pier and on my way I passed the latest addition to the Kailua beach scene, Kalikala Cuisine.  Kalikala is small restaurant occupying thecement pad between Splashers and the steps coming down from the shops and the public parking area.  This location will force the relocation of a few itinerant musicians and the fellow who sits on the rock wall weaving hats from palm fronds.  Such is the price of progress.

    The restaurant has been open for about a week and serves breakfast and lunch until 3 PM.  The cooking is done in the small restaurant that was once Sibus, and most recently a bakery.  The proprietor, Richard, will regale you with tales of the lot reaching back forty years or more, including a fire in a  restaurant formerly on the site.  As is the case with many new beaneries, Richard is waiting on his liquor license.  Until that arrives he is generously allowing you to bring wine to sip with you lunch, no corkage fee added.  Given their fine offerings of coffee, one can anticipate that they will soon be serving fanciful drinks in the shade by the bay.

Kalikala lunch: Nicoise Tartine

    We came back with our current guests, our longtime friends Linda and Larry Monk, from Portland, and had a late lunch, which was delicious and surprisingly affordable.  Our table under the shade of the signature banyan tree, just off the sidewalk, with a view of the foot traffic and the bay, bordered on the tradition of sidewalk cafes of Europe.  It was cruise ship day, so people watching was at a premium..

   The food, prepared by Richard's wife, who trained under James Beard, was a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.  The perfect way to top off an afternoon.


    My swim was equally delightful, although there were no snake eels this time around.  I did see a stripe belly puffer near shore and way out past the canoe club, I found a black morph of the long nose butterflyfish, my first on the Ironman side of the pier.

   Well, I give you the joy of the freshly sewered Kahaluu Beach Park and a new beach side restaurant along the Kailua malecon, not to mention the promise of new and better fishes.

jeff

March Madness   Orangespine Unicorn Tang    Kahalu'u  2017

  

Pardon My Wake, I'm Lookin' For Snake (Eels)

   Yesterday before breakfast I checked my email.  Lo and behold there was something in my in box from Jack Randall (the dean of reef fish biology at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.)  Here is what Jack had to say:

I think the snidely guy in the sport coat may be Mark

   Mark:

Helen and I expected you and grad students March 4.  What happened?

Aloha, Jack

   Obviously the Great Oz wasn't writing to me out of the blue.  It was a case of mistaken identity, he'd sent it to the wrong email address.  Possibly Mark's last name is Hills.  I replied to the email anyway, telling him that when he caught up with Mike he should rip him a new one.  And by the way, what did he think of my picture of the Trumpetfish with a mouthful of Hawaiian red lionfish?

    By mid-morning it was time for Sandra to go for her weekly stint at the church and, on her way, I had her drop me off at the pier.   I've always liked the pier, but its importance as a snorkeling venue has gone way

In the words of the Munchkins, "Follow the yellowtail coris."

up.

     In their infinite wisdom, the  authorities have closed Kahalu'u for the month of  March to repair a sewer leak.  We don't know if this leak is contaminating the bay, but there is no doubt that the park is closed.  And how it can take a month to fix a sewer leak is also an interesting question.  We drove by the park a couple days ago and the answer is, if you don't start the work you may never get the sewer fixed.  The gates were locked,  emergency tape was strewn all around,  but there was no evidence of anyone repairing a sewer.  With any luck the coral and the fish are getting a rest.  Also, with any luck, the park will be re-opened sometime this year.

   Down at the pier, as I was slipping into my neoprene vest, I recognized a fellow from church.  John is interested in the fish and is following the blog.  More importantly, he is a diplomat and spends some time

Bluefin Trevally wreak havoc among the scad

each year in Indonesia.  He has promised to give us the inside scoop on snorkeling on Lombok, easily reached by ferry from Bali.  John had just completed a mile swim and was strapping on his helmet , preparing to  head home on his bike.  He said that he hadn't seen anything special on his swim but the conditions were great.

   What John didn't tell me was that while the water was flat and clear it was absolutely frigid.  It had rained two nights in a row and the cold fresh water had percolated into the bay.  But it was clear and we're tough fish watchers, right?

    On my way out I saw a really big yellow tail coris which I followed for a few minutes, hoping that he would turn.  Eventually he headed seaward and I headed out to the fourth swim buoy.  Just past the buoy I ran into the bait ball, the large congregation of big eye scad.  The previous night Sandra and I had watched a documentary, Mexico Pelagico, on Netflix.  This pelicula was in large part a  documentary about shark fishing in the Sea of Cortez and around the Yucatan.  There was lots of footage of eco-minded Mexican

Magnificent Snake Eel,  Myrichthys magnificus, Kailua Kona 2017

divers approaching small sharks as they attacked just such bait balls.  One has to wonder why there are no large predators associated with this bait ball.  Have we killed all the sharks?  Did those small sharks never live in Hawaii?  The documentary had a happy ending, stating that the Mexicans will decrease their shark fishing in hopes that tourists will go with guides in Cabo and Cancun to look at the remaining sharks.

   I got a couple pictures of a trio of blue fin trevallies as they raced through the bait ball, scattering the multitude of silver fishies, ass over tea kettle, and then it was time to move on.  As I swam away I contemplated again just how damn cold the water was.  But suddenly I didn't care a fig for the water temperature.  Below me, slithering across the sand, not twenty feet off the fourth swim buoy,  was a snake eel, snow white with big black spots.  You may guess (correctly) that I have pathetically little experience with snake eels.  After all, in the words of the expert, "As they are nocturnal, they are rarely seen by snorkelers."   This aside, about ten years ago Sandra saw one just like this in the sand nearer the malecon.

    There is one here in Hawaii, the freckled snake eel, that I have seen a few times, but not in any way like

Fire in the hole!  The tail of the magnificent snake eel.

this fine fellow.  The freckled snake eel, when you see him, is entirely buried in the sand with just his head sticking out.  He attracts your attention by continuous jaw action,  sand puffing as water is expelled through the gill openings.  Until you get a close look, he could be a bizarre benthic invertebrate, or possibly a pulsatile underwater spring.

    This snake eel, in the words of Egon Spangler, was a full figure apparition. he had a long skinny body and a head clearly larger, so he looked much more like a viper than any moray eel would presume to do.  Unlike a moray eel, he didn't swim.  He moved very much like a snake in your garden. You know, serpentine.   Having been trained in the school of the Deep Diving Bob Hillis, I gave this guy my best shots.  He was twenty feet down and I descended about sixteen of those, getting close enough for a good look and some photographs.

   After the first dive, I thought I'd lost him. But no!  He was almost where I had left him, wriggling along the sandy bottom.  As I watched, he slithered up to a hole in the sand and entered it head first.  I'm going to guess that the snake eel was two feet long and that all but his terminal six inches of tail entered that hole.  So there was a foot and a half of eel down the hole and just a small reminder of a tail wiggling on the sand for

Screw Venice, I'm staying in bed.

me to photograph.   I had no reason to think that he wasn't  going to disappear down that hole, but  a minute later he backed out and resumed his leisurely cruise across the bottom.  I suppose that he was looking for a shrimp or some other tasty denizen of the sand, as opposed to checking out home sites.  Hence, it was a boy snake eel, not a girl snake eel.

   At this point, I noticed a snorkeler right by the swim buoy and I signaled him over.  I told him about the snake eel on the bottom and dove twice to point it out.  In response, he said, "I guess your eyes are better than mine."

   Suffice it to say, I was nonplussed.  If someone told me that twenty feet down was a snake eel, I would do all I could to get a look and here this guy was la dee da, what the f*ck, I guess I'll swim in and have a cappuccino.  Reminds me of a friend back at the Salem Hospital for the Bewildered.  Jack (we'll change the name as, unlike Donald Trump, I don't like to insult people directly...I prefer the oblique insult that doesn't

Coral Blenny, breeding male Kailua Kona 2017

lead to hard feelings and slander law suits).  Anyway, Jack was a parent chaperone when the high school band went to Vienna.  On the train from the home of the Hapsburgs down to Venice, the band got into some bad clams and many of them, including my friend Jack, were plagued with a querulous tummy.  The band was housed just across the bridge, a one euro bus ride from what I have long regarded as one of the premier tourist attractions in the world.  Were talkin' Venezia, here.  And Jack chose not to get his derriere out of the bed to catch a look at the Piazza San Marco.  I would have had to be dead not to take that bus ride.  Some of you may wish I was dead regardless of the bus ride.

    Talk about the Bridge of Sighs.  When I hear a story like that all I can do is sigh.  And that goes for this

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me..

story, too.  If I ever swim off a snake eel, or fail to take the bus into Venice, would somebody please shoot me.  So I muttered something to myself like, "Have it your way, dude." and we swam our separate ways.    

   On the way in I took advantage of the wonderful clear, cold water, controlling my shivering just long enough to get a picture of a male coral blenny as it swam across the bottom and a family of four handsome blue goatfish.  Just before I swam ashore, I discovered this handsome peppered moray chlling in the shallows.  Check out the white iris with the four black dots.  Woof.

   At home, I immediately repaired to John Hoover's Ultimate Guide, verifying that what I had seen was a magnificent snake eel.  And how else can you describe that slithery fellow, magnificent hits the nail on the head.  And then I checked my email.  Jack Randall had written back and this is what he said:

Or possibly this is Mark!

Jeffrey:

Great photo.  No, I would say the last fish a trumpetfish would consider eating is the Hawaiian Turkeyfish.  My guess is a shrimp, such as Saron marmoratus.

I will forward your e-mail to colleagues who know invertebrates better than I.

Aloha, Jack

    So I guess that puts my quixotic quest for the red lionfish to rest.  And it's probably a good point to end this tail of the snake eel, as well.

Jeff
  
  

Fish Watching and Fish Painting with the Kids and a Mystery Fish

     Perhaps I'm perverse in nature, only to a mild extent, well within the realms of the law,  but I am going to reverse the order suggested in the title and show you the mystery fish first. 

Satchmo Latches on to Simba

    A day or two before Andy and Shawn headed back across the sea to the relative safety of San Rafael, Ca. the three of us went snorkeling out on the PAR.  Conditions were clement and we mostly saw what you would expect.  Shawn nabbed a white mouth moray by the heiau on the way out and we saw the spotted surgeons frolicking in the swell as it crashed against the outer reef.

   But on the way in we were treated to a most unusual sight.  There was a large golden trumpetfish hanging just outside the rip rap at the tip of the small jetty that protects that sacred thatched heaiu and he had something in his mouth.  This is not the first time that I have seen a trumpetfish with a partially swallowed prey.

   As so often is the case, when I reviewed the picture I was astounded.  I thought for sure that the trumpetfish had swallowed a lionfish.  I have never recorded the  Hawaiian red lionfish and I'm quite sure that the rules of birdwatching would permit me to claim this fish as it sat, partially digested,  in the trumpetfish gullet.

Tell that to the Trumpetfish!

    I showed the accompanying picture to John Hoover who was reluctant to say that it was a lionfish.  He thought it might be a shrimp.  The spoil sport.  My other question to the Great Oz was whether or not the spines of a lionfish, notoriously toxic to Homo sapiens would be sufficiently toxic to a trumpetfish to cause severe injury or, at the minimum, give Louis Armstrong pause as he considered the pros and cons of ingesting that tasty leonine morsel.  John left that question unanswered.  In his defense, it is possible that he doesn't know everything.

   To compensate for this lack of input, I reviewed the available literature and while its clear that Homer Simpson would not partake of fugu sushi a second time, its not so clear where he stands on lionfish.

    Like forever it has been my opinion that the Hawaiian red lionfish occurs only below snorkeling depth.  As in so many cases, this is because the guys who write the book are divers.  Sandra and I have a moderate

Lionfish Mort.  Spotfin Lionfish on the beach, Jemeluk, Bali

amount of experience with the cousins of the HRL in Bali.  In the Land of the Barong, these fish occur regularly within a foot or so of the surface.  And that rip rap that shelters the Inner Harbour from the Wide Wavy Windswept Pacific virtually screams, "Lionfish Habitat!"  So if any one of you Jack Tars thinks that this is a lionfish protruding from Satchmo's mouf, I will bless you and tick it off on the 2017 list.

    Take that, John Hoover!






       Today was totally different.  At 9 AM Sandra and I arrived at the Kailua Kona Public Library, our car stuffed with materials for the Hawaii's Fantastic Fish Experience, so named by Jennifer Losalio, the children's librarian at the Kona library.  The plan was for me to given a short lecture on fish identification to a group of children ranging in age from 8 to 12.  The class was limited to eight participants and, as it turned out, six parents.  This limit was reached as it was Jenn's goal that each child would go home with a fish and that only one day would be devoted to the class. 

Josephine Painted a Milletseed Butterflyfish

    Hence, the class size was limited to the number of paper mache fish I was able to make for the children to paint...eight.  As it turned out, I ended up making 16 models, eight of the teardrop butterfly and eight of the  Hawaiian dascyllus keikis.  The idea with the latter was to teach about global warming and the death of our cauliflower coral, where the baby dascyllus find shelter while they grow up big and strong.  While the idea of teaching about global warming was a bit of a reach, the kids will get to keep the teardrops for their Christmas trees and I will capture the dascylli for my propaganda purposes.  Que nefarioso!

     No surprises, this being Hawaii the kids were utterly adorable, albeit between 7 and 9.  They listened patiently as I plunged into my topic.   But  it became clear that they had not the foggiest idea where Portland, Oregon was.  Nor did they  care much about why a warm climate was so important for a coral reef.   I concluded that teaching them how to make fish lists was way above their pay grade and it was best to move along.

    Using my paper mache models and a variety of fish field guides that I borrowed from the library shelves we identified six butterflyfish.  The first fish was a threadfin butterfly.  I had the idea that the kids would take

Lio concentrates under Mom's watchful eye.

turns identifying the fish and read the names from the field guides.  Problem was, as far as I could tell, only one of the group was able to read.  The reader's name was Victor and  boy could he read.  Not stopping at the name, he read the entire piece written by John Hoover on the threadfin butterflyfish.   There were big complicated words in there.  So here we were with one nine year old who could read at a high school level and seven, mostly a year or two younger,  who apparently could not read at all. Obviously, that is unfair; it only seemed like they couldn't read.  Right?  I mean, they had all come to the library voluntarily.  Certainly they must know how to...

    The conundrum was solved by holding up a fish and having them find the picture in the field guide, never mind reading the name.  At least they know that if they ever master reading, they can find a field guide in the library and it will show the picture of the fish and provide a written name.  Jennifer seemed to think that this was a significant accomplishment.

    Immediately after this  invaluable exercise we got to the fish painting.  Truth to tell, this was why 100% of them had come to the Fantastic Fish Experience.  They wanted to paint a darn fish!  I had been encouraged to draw pencil lines on the fish and these were somewhat helpful.  This is to say that in many cases paint was distributed according to those lines.  It was impressive the concentration that the kids applied to this task.  It was also

Alyssa and Gramma painting at the library.

impressive how much paint they could get on a fish.  Luckily, Jennifer's paints washed off easily, as everyone got plenty of black and yellow paint (or a mixture of the two) on their hands.  At the end of the painting, each of them was given a wooden skewer and allowed to animate their fish by putting a twinkle of white on the black eye.  Not only were they ichthyologists but also ophthalmologists.  And all for one low price.

    A few parents allowed their children to stay for the full hour and those four got extra attention.  They learned how to mix paper mache paste (flour to water about 1 to 3 by volume, stir with a fork), how to tear newspaper strips (Yes, Virginia, there is a right way to tear newspaper.) and how to apply the pasty paper to the stiff paper fish.  And each of the four remaining kids got to make a fish eye out of caulk, after I demonstrated the real use of caulk by patching a crack beside the library door.  

   I think everyone had a great time and with a little luck Sandra, Jennifer and I instilled a bit of love for the reef fish in the next generation.

jeff

Haku and Dad.  Photos of the children by Sandra Gray

    

   

The Truth About Whales

    Just lately, say over the past two weeks, the whale action has picked up here on the Kona Coast.  Prior to the middle of February, everyone who loves the humpback whales was a bit down in the mouth.  Of course, almost everyone here loves the humpbacks, with
the possible exception of some Scandinavians and Japanese who still enjoy dining upon them.   There simply had not been very many whale sightings.  Up until the second week of February, Sandra and I had seen a total of four whales.  And all those had been well off shore...a distant spout and a glimpse of a fluke.

   Having had the recent opportunity to read about the humpbacks in John Hoover's book, I would like to reveal what had been my misconception, which is widely shared here in Kona.  A very few humpback whales may live here all year.  The vast majority of the population summers in the waters off Alaska and begins to return to Hawaii in November.  The widely held misconception is that the peak humpback whale presence should coincide with that of the Canadian tourists.  The  latter species descends upon our rocky shores in the first week of January.  Their stay often lasts a mere six weeks.   On the other hand, the number of whales in

I know who I'm gonna boo!

Hawaii peaks in February or March, by which time the Canadians are back in Victoria, Vancouver or Calgary, shoveling snow, watching hockey on TV and saying, "How aboot that f-ckin' Trump, Eh?"  This year, the migration was a bit later than usual, but don't despair, you wily Canucks, the whales did return and I have a couple short stories to relate about my recent experiences.

   About two weeks ago, I went down to Kahalu'u for a swim.  The water was rough and, wouldn't you know it, I forgot my fins.  Before heading back up the hill with my tail between my legs, I decided to hang out on the deck created by the removal of the signature wooden lifeguard tower.  Immediately I spotted the Bodyglove maintaining position just off shore, less than fifty yards outside the Menehune Breakwater.  I watched it for a few minutes and came to the conclusion that there must be something there.  My curiosity piqued, I asked a couple other deck hands if they had seen any evidence of a whale.  In the spirit of kanichiwa, I chose attractive Asian girls for my jury.  None of these lovelies had seen a whale, but they all seemed to know what a whale was and one of them clicked her chop sticks in anticipation.

   My big worry was that there might be a whale shark under the Bodyglove.  Would that not be so cruel, to

Whale Breaching off Alii Villas  2013  Photo by Verna Slater

be so close to a whale shark and never see it?

   About ten minutes later a small whale, probably a year old, leaped from the water.  And then he did it again and again.  Seven breeches in a few minutes!   Soo goi! (Or so I am told.)  I happened to see one of my jurors taking a picture of two older adults.  figuring that they might be her parents (I so smaht), I asked if I could take a picture of all three.  They agreed and I got a couple shots of the proud parents and the pretty daughter with the Kona shoreline in the background.

    Following the photos, I asked the girls if they were from China.  In fact, they lived in a city in Northern China, 6 hours by car north of Beijing.  "But," she said, "I go to school in Minnesota."

   "Well, " I replied, "Minnesota is sort of like Hawaii." and we both got a good laugh over that.      
                          

Courting Ornate Butterflies

      As you may know, last week I was blessed with another birthday.  And I was triply blessed as my son James came to visit, followed in a few days by my nephew Andrew and his partner, Shawn.  James and I went snorkeling a few times before the others arrived.   You have already seen the reticulated butterflies we saw on our first day.  The second day we went iwih Sandra to Kahalu'u and saw a pair of ornate butterflies circling one another, as if courting.

    Andy and Shawn were delayed a day because of the rain in California, so James and I squeezed in one more day of snorkel on Paul Allen's Reef, where the best thing we saw was a a quartet of Thompson's butterflies.  But more importantly, from the standpoint of this tale, we heard whales singing on both our outings by the pier.  Luckily, when we took Shawn out on the PAR, we heard whales singing that day, too.

   The day before the Dynamic Duo was due to depart, we decided to go down to Alii Villas and call the eels.   Shawn was holding a small plastic container full of chicken skin (well known to be a favorite among the Muraenidae.    As we made the turn down by the ocean, I saw two couples

standing at the railing pointing out to sea.  Suffice it to say, I parked quickly and got us down to the sea wall..

    Sure enough, there was a whale about 100 yards off shore.  We watched for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes.  During this time the whale did multiple fin displays, waving the long pectoral fins that give the humpback its species name, rolling over and slapping the long pectorals against the water and lunging out of the water time and again.  For several minutes he went face down and slapped his flukes against the water, a boom resonating over the sea after each slap.

James, Andrew and Shawn On the Kailua Pier

    This couldn't last forever and sure enough a boat with sight seekers pulled within thirty yards or so of the whale.  He turned and swam away, stopped for about a minute and then swam straight towards us.  His
approach ended perhaps ten yards from where the reef drops off in front of Alii Villas, a stretch of water that I have swum many times.  At this point he may have been only fifty yards from where we stood.  Although he did not repeat the fluke slaps, he did wave his pectoral fins time and again.  He rolled on his side showing a pectoral and his flukes simultaneously.  All this was accompanied by a pod of bottle nose dolphins, large black beasts.  I hope you enjoy the accompanying video of  taken by Shawn on his phone.  I don't know which is more amazing, Shawn's photography or me, in my dotage, getting the video into the blog. 

    So there you have it.  As we say in the whale watching business, better late than never.  The whales are back and we're loving it.

jeff

 A Fitting Birthday Greeting from Cousin Don

A Rough Patch on the Kona Coast

      Right off I'll apologize for not blogging more recently.  As you will see, there have been a variety of events that threw me off my pace.  But at the end of the day, or the blog, for that matter, there is no excuse.

The Great God Ku and the Lovely Hina.  A Shot from the past

May the Great god Ku strike me down.

    A few weeks ago Sandra and I decided that we would go up to the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel.  The rough surf conditions were already in full swing.  This rough winter surf, which as truly now lasted uninterrupted for a month, are fueled by storms somewhere out in the Pacific.  In that month, we have had a couple days of strong wind and two or three evenings when it rained, but by and large the weather this winter has been superb...relatively cool, dry days with a fleecy cloud or two.  One has to assume that elsewhere in the Pacific there have been persistent strong winds blowing over the ocean, accounting for the high surf upon the shores of these very Sandwich Islands.

    On the day in question I checked the wave predictor and it suggested that though there was high surf everywhere else, that small bight that includes the Mauana Kea, Kawaihae and Mahukona, had clement

Oh Perfidious Crystal Ball!

water conditions.  A sample chart is included here, showing what the conditions will be in 24 hours.  You will see the dark royal blue in the northwest of the Big Island, indicating very small waves, and it was on just such a chart that we staked our expedition. 

    We left early and got to the Mauna Kea before 8:30.  It was a beautiful, cool morning and as we drove through the golf course on the way to the beach, we admired the surf pounding against the rocks.  After parking, we walked through the hotel, which is beautiful, virtually unchanged over these many years. And from the balcony outside reception, we admired the beach and the lines of breakers marching across the bay. Suffice it to say, the wave predictor had led us astray.

   Never the less, we schlepped our stuff down the access road, admiring the red warning flag at the entrance to  the beach.  We spread a mat on the grass in the shade, enjoyed breakfast al fresco and discussed the wisdom of swimming.  Sandra wisely decided to stay on the grass mat in the shade while I took my kit to the

The Mauna Kea Beach on that Fateful Morning

north end of the beach.  At that end, protected by the lava cusp, there was less wave action.  It was no problem to get in the water and snorkel out.

    When I was about forty yards out I, I made a couple dives down to the reef, actually seeing a few fish despite the extremely cloudy water.  But I noticed that there was a current taking me out into the breakers, so I started heading in.  Sadly, the current was also taking me south.  By the time I got to where I could stand, about twenty yards from shore, I was looking at the middle of the beach, nowhere near where I had entered,  For whatever reason, I was holding my fins, perhaps preparing to walk ashore, when a large wave caught me from behind.  The wave ripped away my mask, snorkel and swim cap, plunging them into the sandy soup.  Waves being such as they are, two more followed in close order.

Losin' yer snorkel is worse than bustin' up the truck.

    By the time the set had played itself out, my equipment was long gone.  There was nothing left to do but use my fins for an ersatz boogie board and surf into the beach.  And so I found Sandra, who had made
friends with a young business woman, originally form Calgary, now living in Frankfurt with her German businessman husband, and their Canadian / Allemand kinder.  I distracted myself by kicking the young fellow a few balls, while Sandra said her goodbyes and we could politely slink home.  

   And there you have my first excuse for the interruption in  blogs.  Shame of the caliber found usually only in a country western song.

    Three days after losing my equipment, I purchased a new mask.  The one I lost was possibly fifteen years old and was growing algae in the space around the lenses, so I suppose getting a new mask wasn't out of the question.  A few days later the conditions were calm enough for me to give it a try down at the pier, and then the surf came up again, shutting us out of the ocean.

James and Your Humble Correspondent at the Pier

    Ten days ago, Sandra became sick, really sick.  And being the loving husband, I became sick three days later.  We languished in bed, sleeping the days away, for a week.   During this time of illness, the surf
hammered in day after day.  Luckily, we recovered in time to pick our son , James, up from the airport two days ago.

    I had noticed, the day before James arrived, that although the waves were huge up and down the beach,  they were not breaking on Paul Allen's Reef, so on the way in from the airport, we stopped at the pier.  I was really happy to see that the water was fairly clear and flat.  Right by the pier was  a school of Polynesian halfbeaks, a new fish for the 2017 list. We walked over the pier and James took a couple selfies of the two of us, with the heiau and the King Kam Hotel for a Hawaiian backdrop. .  You can see it was a beautiful afternoon.

Reticulated Butterflyfish Pair

   The next day was my birthday.  How lucky to have my son visiting, to be recovering finally from our illness and to be able to go snorkeling.  A birthday gift from the gods, to be sure. 

   Sandra dropped us off at the pier and then motored up the hill to procure the birthday dinner.  James and I had a wonderful swim, the highlight of which was a pair of reticulated butterflyfish way out in front of the palace.  Diving down, we both got a look at them raising their dorsal fin to
display the spiny fringe.  Considering that the water was cloudy, the picture came out nicely.  And they seem to have found the last piece of cauliflower coral in the bay.

     Yesterday morning, Sandra noticed that the waves were diminished, and so the three of us made our way to Kahalu'u.   At K Bay, it was Snorkel Day, the day when those who care about the disabled roll a mat out into the water and attempt to take them snorkeling.  The volunteer care givers, many of whom are young women who, consistent with their ilk, are most interested in talking and preening.  There were a few of the disabled, occasionally giving a young thing a high five or a hug,  And very rarely they would come together and get in the water.

The Ornate Mating Dance

    If one had been permitted, he might have altered the conditions for snorkel day.  The waves were crashing on the far side of the breakwater, and small wavelets marched across K Bay.  And sure enough, when the
three of us got going, there was a substantial current.  Almost immediately, we saw a snowflake moray and a bit further along, where the current was really ripping, James saw a pair of saddle back butterflyfish.  When he pointed them out to me, they were about fifteen feet away and, though I swam as hard as I could, I could get no closer.

     The rest of the swim was punctuated by strong currents, multiple flailing encounters with our fellow enthusiasts, and a couple good looks at the usual suspects.  Toward the end of this ordeal, we enjoyed a pair of ormate butterflyfish swimming around and around each other, perhaps in some ornate mating ritual.  It was quite enchanting and I hope you enjoy this one last picture.

jeff

A Big Mahalo to Donna and Ross for the perfect birthday card.