Menangen Island

    Having spent the first week in Amed, under the shadow of Mt Agung, we have moved our expedition to the very northwest corner of the island of Bali.  Here in Permuteran we are fifteen miles

Nickolai and Peter.  The Novice and the Wizard

away from the most important island in Indoniesia.  Java is home to several large cities,one of which, Jakarta, you have actually heard of.   Once upon a time, Jakarta was known as Batavia and was the first major European outpost in this part of the world.

   Yesterday, we went on a guided dive trip with Sea Rovers, one of the innumerable dive companies in Pemuteran.  There  were two guides, Davy and Aleef.  And Batu, an Indonesian of few words, who piloted the boat.  Aleef, a young sleepy sort of Muslim, was to guide the three snorkelers and Davy a lithe brown man with a quick smile and charming sense of humor, was guiding our friend Peter on his dives.

   Our third snorkeler, after the redoubtable SKG and your humble correspondent, was Nikolai.  Nickolai is from Denmark and had only donned a snorkel mask once before.  That was, in all of the unlikely places, Zanzibar.  What do I know about the island of Zanzibar?  Long ago the Big Z made its wealth as a holding facility for the black African slave trade.  More recently, as I recall, my boys and I enjoyed  a children's story, Hugo the Hippo, about an eponymous hippopotamus who made his way to the mainland after fighting off sharks and an evil Zanzibar sultan, who was probably involved in the slave trade when not plaguing hippos.

   Five years ago Nickolai had been stationed in Uganda as part of the Danish consulate.  He was involved in something like our Peace corps, coordinating a program aimed teaching the Ugandans how to make Havarti cheese.   While there, he took a tourist trip to the Big Z where he went snorkeling exactly once.  He must have enjoyed it, because here he was, once again at the ends of the earth, on his second snorkeling expedition.  On the other hand, he must not have enjoyed it too much because there was that five year hiatus between his fist snorkeling experience and the next.

the Inscrutable Razorfish, Bali 2017

   Nikolai is now married and the loving couple has a baby who is also on the trip to Bali.  We know this, as he allowed that Sea Rovers would not permit an infant under three on the boat trip to Menangen
Island.  To which we might add, "Thank expletive deleted God!"

    After grouping up at the office, we were transported in the back of a pick up truck to the small pier and soon found ourselves bouncing over the waves in a covered twenty footer powered  by a pair of 100 horse Evinrudes. It was good that we had all that power because Menangen Island is about eight miles away from the Sea Rovers dock.

   Soon enough we were secured to a mooring buoy and the divers, then the snorkelers, were disembarked into the warm Java Sea.  You will note that not only is Pemuteran on the west end of the island, but also on the north side, hence in a different body of water than Amed, accruing in the process a slightly different cohort of fishes.

The handsome Red Breasted Razorfish, Menangen Island 2017

    The spot we snorkeled first is known as Eel Garden.  It was raised coral flat a half mile from shore.  We had been prepared for coral death by the nice lady who booked the trip and here it was almost complete.  As in Amed, there were some soft corals, but the hard corals were all white and deteriorating.  Aleef had explained that there had been two really hot years for ocean temperatures in a row, 2015 and 2016.  As many of you know, it took only one year, 2015, in Hawaii to wipe out much of our coral.

   Unlike on shore near our resort, however, the water was crystal clear.  For the most part it was the usual suspects, keeping in mind that the usual suspects in Bali are pretty good.  The clear water enabled me to take much better pictures than those I had nabbed back by our resort. For the third time on this trip, but  the first in truly clear water, we encountered a family of shrimpfish, which I am now informed are known here as

The Skunk anemonefish pokes out his nose to say hello.

razorfish.  These strange elongated and compressed fish travel in packs, all the time swimming face down.   The school proved eminently approachable.  Sandra and I enjoyed them immensely.

    On this bleached reef,  Aleef found us a blenny sticking his head from a worm hole.  In this instance the bleaching actually makes the object of the picture more visible.    

    In a depression of powdery coral rubble, I found a leaf scorpionfish about three feet down.  Last time we were in Bali, in 2014, Sandra and I saw our first leaf scorpionfish.  Since then, we have seen several in Hawaii, but never in such an exposed position and at such a reasonable depth.  The fact that my picture is not perfect can only be chalked up to operator error.

Blenny in  a Tube

   Just before we were to board the boat Sandra found an anemone serving as home to a family of skunk anemonefish, the third of this group for the trip.  So important was this find, that Peter plunged back into the sea and swam up current so I could point out this relatively unusual anemonefish.


    While we were on this part of the snorkeling trip, our guide took up a chore that was to occupy about a quarter of his time...helping Nikolai with his mask fit.  There was a spare mask on board and Aleef retrieved that one, seemingly a marginal improvement.  At one point he even traded masks with the hapless Dane.  This is not really meant as a criticism.  It was truly Nick's second time ever donning a snorkel mask in anger and the best of us have had trouble accommodating to a new, ill fitting mask.

yellowspotted Pipefish, Menangen Island,  Bali 2017

    In a way, I am reminded of Sandra's beginning as a birdwatcher.  Before she had much of a chance to learn the sport, she was hauled to the hot spots in southern Arizona.  On a bench in the backyard of some enthusiasts, somewhere near Patagonia, Az., she had to pretend that she could identify a pygmy nuthatch and  a Mexican chickadee, not to mention a fistful of hummingbirds with names like Outrageous Velvet Throat.

   At some juncture, as we slide down the razor blade of life, we all have to be the neophyte and this was Nick's turn.  Too bad being a Tyro snorkeler includes the risk of drowning.  What was really too bad was that the baby Dane wasn't bawling his brains out to the amusement of the taciturn Batu.  Not!

   Back on the boat, we went about a mile to an outpost of the national park, replete with shelters for shade and restrooms.  After a sumptuous lunch, fried noodles with spicy chicken, an egg and some

The Sasquatch Hermit,  Dardanus pesmagnum,  Menangen Island 2017

fruit, we were permitted to snorkel the adjacent reef flat.   Here I caught this wonderful picture of the black tailed humbug dascyllus.  Off the pier, there was a family of golden spadefish.  In general, one sees the large adults swimming out in the sea and the adolescents, who look like something out of Star Wars, hovering around the pier.

    Our second dive site, Mangroves, was just down the coast.  Here the shore was lined with (no surprise) mangroves.  I remarked that I had never snorkeled among mangroves and that I was looking forward to seeing the unique group of fishes that are reputed to live within their roots.  Archer fish, as an example.  Peter initiated a discussion of the exceedingly poisonous snakes that live in the mangroves

Sandra's Hermit Crab, Ca. sandra , Menangen Island 2017

of Indonesia and I somehow turned the topic to saltwater crocodiles, a menace to snorkelers in northern Australia and Palau.  Davy told us the previous year someone had released such a crocodile nearby.  The beast had been exterminated, so we were in no danger on that front, at least.


     Here there was a steep wall with a flat on top, not unlike Paul Allen's Reef, only more so.  As there was virtually no wave action, this reef flat was very accessible. The tool of the year for dive guides is a colorful aluminum stick about a foot in length.  Aleef used his handsome purple wand to prod the reef gently and to point out the delights he thus discovered.  Early on he pointed out a yellowspotted pipefish.  At one juncture, he alerted us to a magnificent hermit crab.  This guy was bigger than the largest blood crab I have encountered back in the vicinity of KOA.  And was, as you can plainly see, covered with

Black Trumpet-shaped Sponges Grow from the Wall.

a lush carpet of hairs.  He was a veritable Sasquatch among hermit crabs.

    At another spot on the reef flat, Sandra found a shell out of place that (after some careful turning and patient watching) emerged the probable out of which  (after some Calcinus hermit crab you see here.

    There were some magnificent sea fans and sponges attached to the wall, which dropped a precipitous thirty feet. There was also some very good fish swimming off the edge.  Perhaps the best fish we saw, relative to the trip was a large, colorful blenny reminiscent of the Ewa blenny seen

The Ewa Blenny Equivalent,  the Blue Stripe Blenny  Bali 2017

mostly by divers in Hawaii.  Just this year Peter turned us on to an Ewa blenny near Mahukona, erasing a long standing identification error of mine.  So this equivalent had special meaning for yours truly.

    I will leave you with a picture of a small fish that occurred near the end of our snorkel.  As you can see, he has a red head that transitions to a blue body and tail.  My best guess is that he is a wrasse, but Gerald Allenet al. in Reef Fish ...Tropical Pacific
 attempts to cover all the reef fish from Thailand to Tahiti.  Suffice it to say, this is a monumental task...there are gazillions of fish and sometimes they change colors from location to location. Certainly we are so lucky to have the opportunity to enjoy them here in Bali.

Black Tailed Humbug Dascyllus

What is for sure is that this red and blue beauty is not in the book.  This is not unique...there are several beautiful fish we have seen that do not make what we had hoped would be a comprehensive field guide.

   (I am unable to upload the picture of the pretty red fish at this time.  Stay tuned.  We need your help with identification!)

    What we know for sure is that we are so very lucky to be here in Bali with the charming people and our good friends enjoying the fishes.

jeff

On the road to Bali

     There have been relatively few blogs lately because we have been very busy getting ready to go to Bali.  there has been an inordinate amount of house cleaning and gardening.  And a lot of my free time has been taken up studying the fish and invertebrates of Indonesia. 

Yellowtail Coris Male, Kahalu'u October 2017

    Earlier this week we did get in one snorkel.  It was a rough day at Kahaluu and we were joined by Kim Davison from the Methodist Church.  Kim has proved rough and ready and did quite well in the current and slosh at Kahalu'u.  Unlike my previous outing there, and in spite of the rougher conditions, there were more fish.  Specifically there were rockmovers and yellowtail coris in significant numbers.  This was the first time Kim had seen these larger wrasses turning over stones to look for lunch.  She was lucky enough to see a big male yellowtail coris busting up a sea urchin against the rocks and devouring the goodies inside.

   As you can see,  I was lucky enough to get a picture of the big brute, perhaps the best picture I have of a male yellowtail coris.

White Belly Damsel  A. leucogaster  Lipah Bay, Bali  2014

   Sandra is still recovering from her eye surgery, so she didn't go swimming.  We will be in Bali in just a couple days and she is planning on getting in the water then.  On this day, she stayed ashore watching the tourists and, in the process, nabbed a couple pictures of me and the lovely Ms. Davison struggling out of the water looking like a couple of Syrian refugees.  Not the sort of pictures one wants to advertise.

   One of the tools I have used to study for the upcoming trip has been to review the pictures taken on my last trip to Bali.  We have been there three times already and one might have thought that I would have been looking at the photos from 2008 and 2009 as well as the ones from 2014.  Certainly I have been working with the lists from those years.  Somewhere in between, rugged (hence

Diana's Hogfish  B. diana   Tulamben 2014

waterproof) point and shoot cameras became available and my pictures went from crude efforts to photographs of sufficient quality that I could really study the underwater subjects.

   I was surprised that I had not worked those 2014 pictures over with more vigour, for in the process I unearthed at least four life fish and a couple more for our Bali list.  I'm including a few pictures of those new life fish here.

     In some cases these fish were difficult to identify due to misleading pictures in the field guide,  Reef Fish Identification/ Tropical Pacific by Gerald Allen, et al.  The Diana's hogfish for example, looks little like their picture, but the three white dots are unmistakable.

    In other cases, like the Indian doublebar  goatfish (which I'm told tastes very good in a tikki masala) the fish just doesn't seem to have interested me enough to pursue.  But, my goodness, the

Blackstreak Surgeonfish,  A. nigricaudus  Tulamben

picture was right there, dormant for three years.   In any event, we pledge to try even harder this time around. 

   Of course, you will be treated over the next three weeks to pictures of the marine life of Bali.  Who knows what adventures will make it into the blog.  Mt Agung, the looming volcano, has shown signs of life over the last month.  With luck, the blogging will not include any life threatening situations.

   You may notice that a couple of those fish were seen at Tulamben.  This is a very hot spot to see reef fish and includes the wreck of the Liberty.  the Liberty was a US cargo ship. Torpedoed by the Japanese, the ship was run aground at Tulamben.  During an eruption of Mt Agung in 1963, the wreck slid into the sea.  Thus, the sightly wreck became a world class dive site.  No surprise, the resort area is right in the path of a lahar, a pyroclastic landslide.  Our original plan was to stay three nights at the Liberty Dive Resort, but we cancelled those reservations as Mt Agung became more active.  this was really a no brainer as the

Four Line Wrasse  St. trilineata   Jemeluk  2014

entire area was evacuated and Tulamben became a ghost town.  I can almost here Gordon Lightfoot singing.   The volcanic activity has subsided over the last week or so and we are now told that the
resort has re-opened.  We'll let you know if we make it to LDR.

    As a personal aside, in October of 1944 my father was on an LST (landing ship- tank)  which was hit by a Kamaikaze in the battle of Leyte Gulf.  The skipper of his LST ran the ship aground, on or near Luzon in the Philippines.  If one thinks about it, this seems to be a reasonable thing to do if the boat is sinking and you are near a suitable beach. The LST sat there for a week until the battle ended and help arrived.  As far as I know, the boat was re-floated and did not become a home for tropical reef fish, sponges and the like. In spite of the loss of the LST, the Battle of Leyte gulf was a major victory for the combined forces of the American and

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

Australian navies;  the Imperial Japanese Navy never sailed in force after this battle.  Perhaps this is why we see so many Aussie youths living it up on the beaches near Tulamben.  Not to mention that the governor of these Very Sandwich Islands is Japanese.

     Clearly geopolitics is not the strong suit of this blog.





    Well, in the words of my dear, departed compañero, Mike Van Ronzelen,  "You can't stay home all the time."  Mike managed to stay one step ahead of trouble as he toured the world and we will do our best to emulate those salubrious efforts.  And you guys try to stay out of trouble, as well.

Sandra posing in front of a smoking Mt. Agung, Tulamben 2014

  

The Sand is back at Kahalu'u!

Patrick Lange on Alii Drive  8:01.40  Ausgezeichnet!

    There has once again been an unforgivable hiatus between blogs, but not without good reason.  Sandra and I both took part in the Ironman, as volunteers and spectators not as actual competitors.  On the other hand, procuring a parking spot at Lanihau center in the shade by Infamous Footwear constituted a competitive victory of sorts and enabled us to get down to the finish line on that hot afternoon to watch the first  man break the tape in course record time.  Just a shade over 8 hours, if you can imagine.  While we  were standing there in a patch of blessed shade, I made friends with a a pleasant lady in a little black dress.  my new friend lives part time in Miami and, when not dodging tropical depressions,  in the Big Apple.  She was waiting for her husband, who had just finished the bicycle leg of the race and was now out on the course.  She had a few more hours to wait, but I suppose she was glad that she was standing there in the shade as opposed to running out on the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway.

    To further occupy our time, this week I presented a course at the library.  I believe it was titled,  "How to make paper mache fish in your copious free time."  Obviously I didn't have any free time or I would have got my lazy you know what down to the beach and whipped up a blog.  In truth, many hours of preparation went into that lecture and the community response was remarkably

Professor Hill demonstrates the technique.

underwhelming.  By my calculations, if you take the number of hours I put in to preparing models representing the various stages of paper mache fish manufacture (the better to teach my eager students) and divided it by the total number of students themselves, you will come up with a number greater than 2.  In the text I have left over from Statistics 101, this is known as the Apathy Coefficient.

   We will try again in Waimea in February with a whole new set of models.  With any luck, one or two will be wearing little black dresses.

    In case you haven't noticed, that sort of porcine remark is in vogue under the current regime.  Me and the Donald, were like two pigs in a pen.

   Last, but not least, just a couple days ago Sandra and I went to big, bad Honolulu where she had a cataract removed and an intraocular lens placed in its stead.   This afforded us a night in the luxurious Kaiser Permanente Suite on the 27th floor of the Ala Moana Hotel.  As the picture I took out the

Glittering Honolulu as seen from the Kaiser Permanente Suite

window at night is playing to rave reviews on Sandra's facebook page, I thought I would let you enjoy it as well.  By the way, my beaming bride is seeing much better, thank you.  This should come in handy in the future for watching fish.  Among other things.

     However, the recent eye surgery makes her a non-swimmer for a couple of weeks.  So today, when we finally got back to the beach, Sandra was left in the shade of the shelter, perched daintily atop a picnic table, while I braved the tranquil waters of K Bay.

     The first thing I noticed, and this may be the only important thing related into today's blog, is that the sand channel now extends all the way from the beach into the bay.  I cannot recall the last time

Miniature Flounder Awaits the Tartar Sauce and Chips

 that this was the case, but my guess is that its been greater than two years.  Until the first big winter storm (God willing this will be at least two months hence ...rhymes with Mike Pence) the would be bather, his or her feet in particular, can enjoy this replenished carpet of happiness.

    As I strode bravely down the aforementioned sandy walkway, I encountered a lady of a certain age, probably not too different from my age, who was walking toward the shore and holding an Olympus camera just like mine.  As I watched, she bent over and stuck her camera in the water.  I asked he what the hell she thought she was doing (not really)

Freckle Face Hawkfish juv.  Kahalu'u October 2017

and she told me that there was a miniature flounder at her feet.  She had spotted the little dear when it moved.  She took her picture and stepped away and I attempted to duplicate her effort.  Suffice it to say, it was  a bit odd holding the camera under the water, operating it from above.  Anyway, the focus isn't perfect but you can tell by comparing the fish to the grains of salt and pepper sand that this was indeed a very small flounder.  Were you to catch it, you would probably need a laser to cut the potatoes and then you could have fish and chips for General Tom Thumb. 

    Out in the bay there were plenty of people but not a huge number of fish.  I did find a juvenile freckle faced hawkfish, he of the chartreuse beanie. 

    On the way in I had a delightful encounter with a small stripe belly puffer.  Usually stripe belly puffers don't like to have their picture taken, but this little fella came over and smiled for the camera.  How accommodating. 

   What I didn't see was a single rockmover.  In the cellars of Moet Chandon the guys who turn those bottles one quarter turn each day are called riddlers.  Here at Kahalu'u the riddling is done by

rockmovers, who are continually turning over the stones.  They turn the stones as there are relatively few bottles of maturing champagne on the floor of the bay.  And in the same vein as the scorpion crossing the stream, its in their nature.  I'm hopeful that the rockmovers will return.  In the meantime, try not to be too busy to go snorkeling. 

jeff

   

Underwear Run 2017

   Each year on the Thursday before the big race, the Ironman sponsors an underwear run.   There is a charity aspect to the run and anyone can participate, although it is best if you are able to jog a hundred yards or so.  A few large groups come with matching underwear and hats, while many competitors don original costumes.  This year Sandra and I made it down for this unusual event, which kicks off at 7:30 in the morning, the idea being that after the underwear run the athletes have the whole rest of the day to train.   Here are some of the better pictures.

Your humble correspondent embraces a pair of Wonder Women

The Bolshoi never had it so good.

Presumably a Scotsman

Nuns on the run

Just in case you wondered what Santa looks like under his big red suit.

Swimming with the Ironmen on Paul Allen's Reef

Last Friday we got up bright and early and parked down by the pier around 8 AM.  As the competitors for the I

The King Kam Hotel.  Where are the Ironmen?

ronman had arrived and were training for the big event, parking was at a premium.This day Sandra and I were lucky to be joined by Kim Davison from the Methodist Church.  It is one of my pleasures living in Kailua to introduce friends, who have somehow avoided the event, to the joy of the Ironman. Hanging with the competitors at the pier has proven to be one of the most enjoyable for me, and we hoped Kim would  have a memorable time.

   As the Ironman side of the pier was full of ironmen churning back and forth in an expanded swim lane, the better to accommodate the multitude, we chose to swim on the Paul Allen side in front of the King Kamehameha Hotel.  The three of us donned our swim gear and left our clothes in front of the beach boy shack.

    The beach and the lagoon were almost empty, in contrast to the rest of the village and especially the other side of the pier where the competitors were training.  As we headed into the water, which Sandra and Kim thought was cold (in fact I put it at 82 degrees) we encountered a handsome young man and his six year old daughter who was frolicking by his side.  I asked if he was a competitor and he allowed that he was.  And he had a story that he was eager to relate.

   Johann was from Switzerland and he was 40 years old.  He  had competed in Kona 16 years ago, as a relatively young man. .  On his 40th birthday his wife had asked him if he thought he could qualify for the Ironman again.  I suppose she wanted a family trip to the Big Island.  Or perhaps she wanted Johann to buff up.  Regardless, he whipped himself into shape and, he being now able to check a new box on the entry form, qualified for the 40 and over age group.  As he finished relating his story, his daughter shrieked merrily, tossing her flaxen locks she grabbed his hand and he spoke to her in some inscrutable tongue.  Swiss-German, I presume, but have you noticed how foreign languages never

Two Flowery Flounders.  Which one gets to be on top?

sound the same as they do on the instructional tapes when the natives are speaking to one another, or in this case their children?

    Well our mini-interview was over and it was time to swim.  Just inside the small jetty by the heiau Kim spotted a whitemouth moray hunting.  We watched the eel for a minute or two and as we did he swam over a pair of flowery flounders, lying on the bottom in about five feet.  Kim had never seen a flounder before and enjoyed the hell out of it.  Although one would suspect that she has enjoyed flounder with some lemon and tartar sauce, she had never considered the curious physiology of this curious group of fishes.  Among other things, she wondered how the flounder avoided sucking sand into the breathing apparatus on the side that faced the bottom.  What a twisted world the flounder inhabits, I explained, with all the important structures, eyes, gills, cat and wives, rotated to the top.  How many flounders were going to Saint Ives?   Well there were two here, which is sort of unusual.  I wondered if they were getting in the mood to make the two headed flatfish.  Even my photographic efforts couldn't interfere with true love, fishy style, so I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

   Out in the bay we were lucky to spot a yellowtail filefish.  he wasn't terribly deep, perhaps eight feet, and he was more cooperative than most.  I had not seen one on the Paul Allen side before two

Yellowtail Filefish, Kailua Kona Pier, October 2017

years ago and this one was closer to the pier than any previously.  Perhaps they are getting more common.

   Out on the PAR we admired the dead coral, which is neither better or worse.  This being the end of summer, we should be thankful that no major bleaching occurred in 2017.  The main reason to admire the dead coral flat here, about 15 to 20 yards from shore, is the opportunity to look for Potter's Angelfish.  We had prepared our guest to look for this blue tailed beauty, but none were found.  We all spotted four voracious crown of thorns starfish, though.  This was a new species for our guest and she was quite pleased.  Knowing that the crown of thorns eats coral polyps, and that this particular reef has so few polyps to spare, we were less than overjoyed.

Yellowtail Surgeons and Kim Davison Brave the Surf

   My last treat for Kim was a look at the spotted surgeon.  I swam over by the steep lave reef that forms Paul Allen's beach and sure enough, there were three of these dinner plate-sized surgeons cavorting in the surf as it exploded against the lava wall.  My friend Kimmy is not a wuss, but she was a bit
cowed, intimidated if you will, by the surf crashing against the rock. It took a bit of persuasion.  Finally, though, we coaxed her within five feet of the reef and she was able to see the spotted surgeons as they swam though the surging bubbles.  Brave Kim, happy fish.

    Sandra had seen enough spotted surgeons, and has tasted the vengeance of the lava and the waves, so she watched this introduction to the surf on the reef experience from a safe distance.  Not that there was ever any danger.  Just keep telling yourself that and things will be fine.

   On the way in, we spotted a reef lizardfish reclining on the rip rap on the outer part of the jetty.  Usually not a big deal, but it was Kim's first lizardfish.  

All he needs is a mask and snorkel

   Back on the beach we headed to the showers, where we met a petit Ironlady from the Phillipines.  I was able to tell her about the 19% of my felow Hawaiians that are Filipino, the state holiday in their honor and invite her to go shopping at Walmart where she can speak Tagalog with her countrymen.
  For here in Kona we are all one big happy family and we embrace our friends the Ironpeople from all around the world.

  Maybe if Donald Trump and Little Rocketman came to the Ironman, we could all live in peace.  Perhaps I could  persuade them to look at the spotted surgeons on a particularly rough day.  Now your talkin'.

jeff

Welcome to the Ironman

The Ironman cometh and He's Bringing a Kawa Kawa

    I suppose I need to apologize for the hiatus in blogs.  We were in Portland visiting children and grandchildren, one more slippery than the next.  For the first week we suffered with the smoke blown in from

Playing at the Kailua Kona Library through October.

nearby forest fires, then a few days of rain cleared things out and it was gorgeous.  Blue skies and 75 dry degrees.  We've been back in Kailua for five days, getting the paper mache fish exhibit up on Saturday at the local library.  To quote America's greatest impresario, Ed Sullivan, "Its a really big shooo."  If you have a chance, drop by the library and take a gander.

    As the title suggests, Ironman season is upon us.  One might have thought that our first inkling would have come at the beach, freshly littered with hard bodied Ironman competitors.  But no!  Yesterday at church, of all the god forsaken places, we saw our first ironman of the season in the person of Michelle Vesterby.   With a name like Michelle you might have assumed she was French, like a plate of petit fours, or possibly an eclair.  But no, she's a Danish.

    That Michelle should have showed up two years running, as it were, to the Lutheran church is not entirely

Don't give me that freshman philosophy crap.

a surprise.  The second most famous Lutheran (after M.L. himself) is Soren Kierkegard, who is, or was, Danish.   Kierkegaard invented existentialism, the philosophy that states you should live life in such a way that it provides the most meaning.

    Along these lines, I am reminded of Professor Clifford Skridlow, as portrayed by Dan Akroyd,  in Dr. Detroit.  When Smooth Walker has rendered him non compis mentis, Clifford says, "Don't give me any of that freshman philosophy crap.  I'm talking existential being."  to which Karen Blittstein replies, "Of course you are, gorgeous."  Fran Drescher never looked

Michelle Vesterby looking good as she wins Copenhagen

better than when she played Karen.  Too bad for Soren Kierkegard that he never got to hook up with Fran...that would have given his life meaning!

    During the church service, Michelle was introduced as a guest and afterwards my lovely wife cornered her while I went off to browse on good old American pastries, brownies and snicker doodles.  Enough to make ya say, "Hallelujah."  Having brought my blood sugar up above 150, I joined the group where Sandra told me, "Not only is Michelle an Ironman, but she's a pro."   Out of the thousands that compete, only the elite few, less than 200, are professionals.  If you're  not from Europe, it may be hard to imagine  professional triathletes.  Its a much bigger sport outside the USA.

Neither petit fours or an eclair, Michelle is a Danish

    Trying to join the conversation, I asked if she was hoping to finish around five o'clock.  No, she replied, she hoped to finish before three.  We have made it to the finish line to watch the winners come in the last three years.  This happens around 2:30.   Michelle told us that she is hoping for the podium...one of the top three women finishers.  Hoo ahh.   She finished sixth two years ago and won the Copenhagen Ironman a couple months ago.  Note in the picture that, holding the winning banner, she doesn't look especially bushed. And the Copenhagen Ironman includes a swim in the Baltic Sea!  Of all the things that amaze me about the race, the fact that most of the finishers are not exhausted is the top.  The other thing that amazes me has to do with the condition of the bicycle seats following the ride.  As this is a family forum, I will refrain from being more specific.

    At this point we will bid Michelle goodbye and head on down to the pier this morning where a variety of super fit young, and not so young, men ad women are prepping for the race.  Sandra and I reminisced a bit.  Ironman season will do that to you.  I remembered that a few years ago, just before the Ironman, we saw the pelagic jelly harboring the juvenile unicorn filefish.  She recalled that last year my knee

Big Bad Rainbow Runner

was messed up and we scored a disabled pass for parking.  Ahh, the memories.

   Today the water was cool and clear, perfect for a quick two mile swim or a leisurely three hundred yard snorkel.  We swam out on the far side of the swim line, the better to avoid the hard charging Ironman swimmers.  Once past the last swim buoy, now a large yellow pyramid, the better for the Ironmen to find their way back to the beach, we encountered the bait ball.  And almost immediately we were joined by a huge rainbow runner.

   You may recall that for many years I thought opelu were rainbow runners, they are both blue jacks with yellow tails, after all.  Bob Hillis gently corrected this misapprehension a few years ago, kindly pointing out that many people make that mistake.  Which may or may not be true.  Most people, to say the least, probably couldn't care less.  Fisherman, who have a certain pecuniary, as well as culinary, interest, probably know the difference.  My guess is that they probably

Let's Eat!

don't catch many rainbow runners, which are not all that common (now that I know what I am looking at) inshore.

   Prior to today I don't think I have seen a rainbow runner bigger than 16 inches.  Sandra thought this guy was pushing three feet.  I'd settle for 30 inches.  (the  book says they achieve four feet!)  At any rate, he was a truly big, powerful predator of a fish.  He didn't flee when I chased him for a picture and we were able to watch him make a couple dives at the huge congregation of scad.

   At this point, we were super pleased with ourselves.  But only a few minutes later I saw three large jacks, or so I thought, scream by the baitball heading out to sea.  They were silvery, two to three feet in length and had a curious pattern of with and black wavy lines over the back third of the saddle.  I knew this was something I had never seen before. I looked up, ready to ask Sandra if she had seen them, but she was ten feet away.

   We circled the large bait ball, scoring a Christmas wrasse and a nice cooperative swimming turtle, ending up twenty yards out from the yellow plastic pyramid.  We decided to swim back on the inside of the bait ball, which was lucky because those fish returned, striking at the scads as they screamed by.  This time Sandra

Wavy-back Skipjack aka the Kawa Kawa

got a look.

   At home we looked at Randall and Hoover with no luck, except to find out that there are over 20 species of jacks in Hawaii.  Only six or so are pictured.  In a moment of inspiration I pulled out my ancient copy of Dr. Tinker's book, Fishes of Hawaii.  Published in 1978, it has only a few color pictures, but its got lots more fish, some black and white photos and some drawings.   We struck pay dirt on page 325, with a primitive black and white photo of our fish.  Tinker called it the wavy-back skipjack or the kawa kawa.  It is still known as the kawa kawa, now also known as the mackerel tuna.  We thought these three fish were about two feet in length, although Dr. Tinker says that these fish are never too far from shore, but occur primarily in open water.  Most caught kawa kawa, he goes on, are around twenty inches.   I thank the Nervous Fly Fishing site for the picture.  You can see the ornamental black stripes.  Also note that the lucky angler is holding a fish more like two feet in length.  The ones we saw were big and fast.  Woosh!

   Ashore we met some Ironmen who were finishing up their water training for today.  We look forward to seeing more of them in the following two weeks.  And hopefully we'll see Michelle in church.

Gramps teaches Colsen itsy-bitsy spider.

    

   

Our Queen Lili'uokalani Canoe Race

The Lili'uokalani Canoe Race as seen from Kona Makai  SKG

   Yesterday, in the late morning, just as the day was really heating up, Sandra suggested that we take our lunch down to the beach and watch the waves splash against the rocks.  This seemed like a wonderful idea and soon we were sitting in the shade at our favorite beach access condo.  We settled in, munching on scrumptious chicken salad sandwiches, listening to the waves crash against the rocks and enjoying the latest Michael Connelly novel,  The Late Show.  Its an excellent read, if you enjoy that sort of thing,  featuring a new character,  Detective Renée Ballard, who is as down on her employer, the LAPD, as Michael's former alter ego, Heironymous Bosch. 

   Renée was up to her ass in alligators, fighting off an internal affairs investigation after defeating an assault by a masochistic sex predator, when I looked up to see an odd craft heading towards us.  It was a tiny pontoon catamaran with a blue bimini top and something streaming back from a pole.  As it turns out, that streamer was a flag declaring that this unusual vessel  was the race committee boat for the largest

Chillin' at the Finish Line   Photo by SKG

outrigger canoe race in the world, the Queen Lili'uokalani Canoe Races, held here in Kailua Kona over the Labor Day weekend each year.

     Sandra and I were aware that the races were taking place, but this weekend one thing had led to another and we hadn't made it down to watch, although, with the assistance of our trusty binoculars, we were able to see some of the boats go by from our lanai.  Our little belvedere is roughly a mile away from the coast and one really couldn't say that they attended the races when viewed from that distance.

    But now here came the boats.  There were sixteen in all, spread out over about 100 yards.  With six paddlers in each canoe, they were heading into the clubhouse turn, having completed three 1.25 mile legs.  This distance is of some interest to us Kailuans, as the buoy around which these paddlers were racing was just a bit further away from the finish line that the the buoy around which the Ironman racers swim.    Most any of us can imagine paddling a canoe five miles.  Swimming  2.4 miles in an hour is a totally different 

The Canoes Come Ashore in front of the King Kamehameha Hotel

smoke. Suffice it to say, the Ironman 2.4 mile swim is an awesome feat.

    To be fair, this was the last day of the races and the premier event had taken place the day before, with women sixes paddling to Honaunau, nine miles distant, and the men paddling from Honaunau to the Kailua Pier.  We had a glimpse of the men during a commercial, while we devoted the bulk of our attention to the plight of the Florida State Seminoles. Who you callin' a couch potato?

     As the last of the canoes was rounding the buoy, I had a brilliant idea.  "Let's hop in the car and race them back to town!" I exclaimed.  So we threw our books and the remainder of our lunch in the beach bag and walked briskly (this canoe racing can be exhausting) up hill to the car, in which we then headed north.  We caught the last of the boats around the Kona Tiki Hotel, but by the time we got to Honl's Beach we were still trailing the leaders.

A Post Race Pow Wow on the Pier

    At this point, realizing that we would be slowed by the stop sign at the market, I changed strategy.  I would drop Sandra off in front of the Fish Hopper and she would dash across Alii Drive to catch a picture of the winning canoe.  I would continue on, turn around at the King Kam Hotel and pick her up going south.  This worked fairly well, except that the lead canoe was faster than I was, so sweetie was able to catch the second and third place boats as they crossed the finish line.  Wow,what a race!  I can't decide if we came in second or fourth.  The race committee, on the other hand, did not list the Blue 2009 Honda Accord among the finishers.  Go figure.

   Following the exciting race, we parked the car and made our way to the pier.  This had been the final race of the meet, and everyone was packing up to go.  The food vendors were cleaning their grills and the concessionaires were putting away their T-shirts and trinkets.  Several of the canoes were being hauled up onto the pier and loaded onto trailers.  Naturally, I was in the

Girls With Paddles   Photo SKG

way, but the athletes were kind enough to tell me to move, as opposed to crushing me with a canoe.  Over by the sea wall, I spotted a lady a few years younger than myself wearing an OHSU T-shirt.  Having just finished paddling, she was sitting on the rail and alternately drinking bottled water and pouring it on her feet.  Having completed a course of study at the Oregon Health Sciences University and, later in life, serving as an assistant adjunct professor (can you imagine a more demeaning category of academic distinction?) at the same institution, I felt empowered to engage her in conversation.

    She was a proud mother and I was soon introduced to her son, Kent, who will be  full fledged dentist in a
few months (hence the OHSU T-shirt) In short order, Kent introduced me to his vivacious  fiancée, Katie.  From the look of things, both Kent and Katy had competed in the same boat with mom.  Being a couple decades younger, they were full of smiles and did not feel the need to sit on the rail and pour water on their feet.  I asked Kent how often he trains as a paddler in Portland and he allowed that he never paddles.  A vacancy had opened up in the canoe and he

Kent and Katy.  Looking Good After a Five Mile Paddle.

was pressed into action.  One has to suppose that, this being the last race, participation was wide open, men, women, boys girls, paddlers and non-paddlers alike.  By the way, when I said earlier that it might be relatively easy for any of us to complete a five mile paddle, I was speaking from a  hypothetical perspective.  Or to put it the Australian way (there were, in fact, two Aussie crews paddling in that race) Good on ya, Kent!

   I was just happy that I hadn't been hanging around the pier a couple hours earlier.  Who knows where I would have needed to pour the bottled water!

jeff