Drones Die, Kim Dives, and the Hermit Sings the Blues.

   Since we have last met around the old laptop,  Sandra and I have been scrounging for a good, blog-worthy story.  We have a few tidbits to relate to you, but first, in the spirit of our sometimes neighbor Bradley Smith, a joke. 

Dive-reticulitis?   Inconceivable.

   Brad teaches college physics at the Skagit Valley Home for the Bewildered.  He tells us that to set the proper mood, he starts off each lecture with a joke. Considering his high powered intellect, these jokes are routinely sophomoric and, to be acceptable in the classroom, devoid of racy themes.  Fortunately for us, in addition to all his other accomplishments, Brad is an excellent cook.  Unfortunately for us, he frequently begins the dinner routine by telling us one of the jokes that he inflicts upon his students.  After our excursion to Mahukona (Pyramid Butterfly, Rock Damsel, et al.) Sandra came up with a joke worthy of Physics 101, and in that spirit, I present this to you. 

   As we were approaching the Pyramid Butterflies, about fifteen minutes into our swim, Sandra spotted a a lone reticulated butterflyfish.  Like many species of butterflies, the reticulated is usually seen as a mated pair.

Dwatted Dwone.

  This troubled her and she thought about it day after day.  At last, she decided that the mate had succumbed
to dive-reticulitis.  Ba-dum.

    Sandra presented that little bit of humor to me on our drive to City of Refuge about a week ago.  At the picnic table, as we were donning our dive suits, we met what we initially assumed was a handsome young

couple from San Diego.  The girl was a cute little pixie, so naturally I had to chat her up.  As it turned out, this boy and girl combo were associated with an adverting firm and were at City of Refuge filming an ad for a water-borne drone produced in China. The drone was radio controlled and could take pictures of things both under water and on top of the water.  We had noted a couple scantily clad beauties on paddle boards just off the two step entry (hardly a common occurrence) and it turned out that the drone was attempting to film them while the divers filmed the drone.

A drone's eye view.  Things were never like this back in San Diego.

   One might be reminded of Howard Wallowitz with his satellite-controlled car attempting to look up Penny's skirt.

   The guy wandered off to assist in the production and the girl remained.  According to her, she had scored a trip to Kona for the purpose of watching the stuff.  Just think, if I was a cute twenty something girl , maybe
I could score a free trip to Kona. 


    While you are trying to get your mind around that bit of aberrant sociology, I will tell you that the Chinese had sent this crew two drones.  One had ceased to function the day before and the second bit the dust while Sandra was putting on her dive skin.  Hence, the picture you see here are members of the team contemplating the second non-functional drone.

Howard can't wait to get her on a paddleboard!

    We looked really hard for a blog worthy fish.  We found some boulders way out on the north cusp, but try as we might, we could not roust out a rock damsel.  But the water was cool and clear and there were lots of other fish.  Not to mention the handsome young advertising team from San Diego.

   Last Friday we went swimming with the church ladies.  We had been threatened with another non-swimmer, a newbie of a certain age at the Methodist church, but she had decided to go on the Fairwinds, the cruising catamaran that takes swimmers and non-swimmers alike for a dip at the Captain Cook monument down in Kealakekua Bay.  This worked out well for Sandra, who has developed a healthy fear of non-swimmers.  And the new non-participant was afforded the opportunity to get rid of a portion of her extra money.  So things worked out well for one and all.

   The water was cool and just a bit cloudy.  Out by the fourth swim buoy, I spotted an octopus about nine feet down.  The water was just cloudy enough, and the octopus was so cryptically colored, that Kim and

Kim Davison.  The next Jacqueline Cousteau.

Sunny were unable to see him. Sandra, now an accomplished diver, was able to descend for a fine look at this handsome cephalopod.

   After several frustrating minutes of diving and pointing to no avail,  I swam off in search of something shallower. As I returned to the group, Sandra and Kim were talking gaily.  In my absence, Sandra had taught Kim to dive.  No more missing out on octopi for Ms, Davison!   In the case of Sandra, it was see one, do one, teach one.  She was so proud that she had me take Kim's picture in mid-descent. 

   Yesterday, mostly to get away from the stifling house, Ms. Gray and your humble correspondent wandered down to Kahalu'u.  We are in a period of what the news is calling King tides.  This has been going on for a couple weeks now, with tides in excess of two feet.  This won't sound like much to those in temperate latitudes, but when augmented by offshore winds, it has been enough to cause flooding both in Honolulu and on the windward side of this very emerald isle.  These floods have created a brown water situation and it took some fast talkin' on my part to convince Sandra that it was safe to swim.

Gotta be a hermit crab!

   The water at Kahalu'u was high, higher than we expected, and as cloudy as I have ever seen.  But it wasn't too warm and it cleared a little when we got away from the entry.  There was a good bunch of fish, including both red labrid and dragon wrasse.  Towards the end of the swim, we spotted a beautifully encrusted triton shell sitting on the coral about three feet down.  Hermit crab!  Even better, through the adjacent fenestration we could see some really large legs, a washed out orange in color, I thought they must belong to a lobster or a larger crab. 

   We directed our attention first to the the hermit, diving down and positioning the shell to coax him out for a free peek. As has been my luck of late, he just would not come out except when his triton shell was face down.  There was just enough current in the vicinity of the rescue shelter to make this experience frustrating.

  I never got a good look with my eyes.  Perhaps as a consequence of the current, but more likely secondary to operator error, I took a bunch of inferior pictures.  But luckily, there were a couple good ones where we

Hazlett's Hermit Crab Peeks Out From His Triton

captured the little fellow poking his nose out from under the edge of the shell.  In the pictures his legs look black, but I am writing that off to the lack of light in the shade of the shell.  three is no doubt that his eye stalks are rufous terminating with a white band.  So I'm calling it a Hazlett's hermit crab in a Hawaiian hairy triton.

   As for the large crab or lobster, after I finished with the hermit I dove down, held on and looked from the upside down perspective under the coral head.  A raccoon butterflyfish looked back at me, but there were no arthropods.  Perhaps you'll see a lobster the next time you go swimming.  Or better yet, maybe you will buy one or two at the market and serve them with butter and lemon.  And a cool, crisp pinot grigio.  Yeah.  That's the ticket.

jeff

   

  

    

  

Juvenile Barred Filefish, Disaster Strikes and a Fish Story

   Yesterday Sandra dropped me off at the pier for an hour in the afternoon, while she enjoyed the friendly confines of the air conditioned  mall.  It was a super high tide and a Sunday afternoon with a host of locals cavorting in the warm, turbid water.

    I saw nothing on the way out and by the time I neared the pier on my return I was wondering how I was

Barred Filefish Juvenile  Kailua Kona 2017

going to waste the next half hour. Luckily,  near the first swim buoy I spotted a juvenile barred filefish, the black fish with the pin point white spots.  As I was admiring him, and hauling out the camera, two kids swam over.  It was a boy and a girl in the ten to twelve range, the girl being the older sister, but just barely.  Before spotting your humble correspondent, they had been annoying an older brother who was attempting to fish.  He would throw his lure in the water and they would grab it and throw it back.

    It's a sad thing in this day and age, but a single adult, no matter how well intentioned, must consider the implications of befriending children. What a shame. I talked to them a little, but didn't ask their names, somehow figuring that might cross the line.  For the purposes of the the blog let's call them Kimo and  Jen.

    The girl was wearing swim goggles and the boy a mask.  Neither had flippers, but when you grow up swimming like a fish, perhaps they aren't so necessary. I asked if they would like to see a cool fish and when they assented we watched from the surface while the keiki filefish swam out from under the coral overhang.

Kimo   "That's a damn big eel!"

 We we all got a good look.   Kimo was surprised that a fish as big as this was still a baby.  Suffice it to say, the barred filefish is a big fish and the keikis are
commensurately large. From the standpoint of getting the kids interested, one has to admit that with the filefish shape, the fine black spots and its butterscotch tail, this is a pretty cool fish.

    The kids swam a short distance then turned together and gave me a wave.  I asked if they would like to have their picture taken for the blog and they waved eagerly.  I spent the next five minutes trying for a picture.  The filefish was just cooperative enough to make it a challenge.

   When I was done with the filefish,  I swam out beside the pier.  Near the end of the small coral reef there was a large peppered moray eel.  The kids were about fifteen feet away and looking at me, so I beckoned them over.  They swam faster that I could wearing fins. I showed them the pictus and Kimo allowed that it was, indeed, a damn big eel.

A Lovely colony of Hydras, Kailua Pier August 2017

   By this time I was having fun, so I swam back by the pier, where Kimo and Jen were hopping in and out onto the pier like a couple of otters.  There, looking in a spot that had supported the colony in the past, I found a nice clump of hydras.  I explained that they look like a bunch of tiny Christmas trees and both of the
kids were able to dive down and enjoy these beauties.  I managed one last photo opportunity, getting Kimo and Jen to dive the hydras and point.  What delightful keikis!

    Time was about up so I swam to shore, noting a dead male boxfish on the way. Alas poor Boxfish.  I knew him Horatio.  A fish of infinite jest and a host of significant angles.

    Back at the ranch, Sandra plopped the camera in to soak while I hung my swimming outfit to dry.  Inside, I took the camera from its bath and was caring for the lens, carefully sucking up each drop with the ragged edge of a paper towel.  It took just a moment, one or two sucked drops, as it were, for me to realize that

What's Missing in this Picture?

something was desperately wrong.  The ring that surrounds the lens was missing and I was able to look right in to the lens assembly.

   We hunted in the camera bag, in the trunk of the car and in the pockets of my suit, all to no avail.  With Sandra's encouragement we drove back to the pier.  I had some vague recollection that when I pulled the camera from its bag I heard a ping, like something metal hitting the asphalt. We looked all around, near the cubbies, around the shower and in the dressing room.  The ring was nowhere to be found. 

    The following morning I went for an early swim, hoping that I might find the ring in the vicinity of the first swim buoy, the first place I had pulled the camera from my pocket.  Of course, it wasn't there.  Not only that, but the juvenile filefish had moved on.  After a thorough search, I began examining the other areas I had swum the previous afternoon.  Not too far along, I ran across a longjaw squirrelfish that had been hooked, probably the night before, and broke the line by

Longnose Squirrelfish and a Web of Monofilament, Kailua Kona 2017

wrapping around the coral.  The coral near the fish, with a web of criss-crossing monofilament  line, was reminiscent of the inside of busted piano.  I dove down and cleared some of the line, but failed to free the fish. 

   I also took a couple pictures of the fish in its predicament.  These were taken with my old buddy, the Canon D10.  I had hoped to use the Canon to take a picture of the lens trim ring on the sand near the first swim buoy.  Now I was pressing it into battle for real fish photography.  An hour or two earlier, the nice man at Olympus echoed their website; the camera can be used without the trim ring and they plan to have more replacement trim rings for sale by November.  Apparently, this part which appears to protect the space around the lens is non-essential.  This is lucky, since both the T3 and the T4 shed this so-called trim ring faster than a growing hermit crab changes shells.  

    This idea of non-essential parts reminds me of a bird watching trip to Ecuador 20 years ago.  As there was a coup going on, the government had closed the airport, so our options were limited.  Thus, at the Hotel Intercontinental we had  rented a VW Fox, made in Brazil.  Early in our adventure, we encountered a mudslide covering our path.  We had birds to see, so my good friend

The Cock of the  Rock says, " Hey Miguelito.  Via con Dios"

Mikey plowed right through.  A bit further on there was a tractor with a scoop parked by the side of the road.  The tractor proved to be a harbinger of things to come, specifically more mud slides.  As we exited the third of these exciting driving obstacles, we noted that the car was dragging something.  It proved to be the front stabilizer bar.  Mike asserted that  (like the lens trim ring on my Olympus T3) the stabilizer bar on the Fox was extra and unnecessary parts.  Being a resourceful anesthesiologist, I attempted to secure the dragging bar with a roll of one inch cloth tape.  For a little while the car thus looked a bit like a narwhal.  However, when we plowed through the next mudslide the other end of the stabilizer bar was torn free.  I assume that unnecessary part is still in the depths of the Andean mud, somewhere on the old road to Santo Domingo.

    Mike was right, though, and we were able to complete our circuit of western Ecuador sans stabilizer bar.  Eventually we got the Fox back to Quito where we traded it in for an Isuzu Trooper, which we took into the Oriente.  There we survived the rest of the military coup and saw many wonderful birds including the Andean

Usain Bolt.  Some guys have all the luck.

Cock of the Rock at a lek: seven orange birds, each the size of an NFL football, bouncing up and down on a branch.  This on a misty morning hard by the Cascada San Rafael.  Those were the days. 

Mike is gone now.  I'm hoping that he's ripping through mudslides and avoiding the Federales up in heaven.  With any luck, he's out bird watching right now with St. Peter along for the ride.

   A bit further out, on the far edge of the same coral, I saw the trailing two thirds of an enormous undulated moray.   He was a gorgeous specimen with a chocolate ground and a fine white undulated pattern. And I'm reasonably certain that this was the largest undulated moray eel I have ever seen.  My thought at the time was that his body was bigger around than my thigh.  That I am a spindly white man, who's thighs in no way approximate those of Usain Bolt  (the fastest man on earth, now recently retired) may lend

Undulated Moray courtesy of Maui. net. 

credence to my assertion.  Regardless, this was a truly big eel. 

    I swam further out, not finding the trim ring or any other unnecessary parts.  On the way back, I checked in on my friend the hooked squirrelfish.  To my surprise, during my brief peregrination he had vanished.  I dove down, attempting to discover where our friend had gotten off to and came face to face with the ginormous undulated, who was welcoming enough to grace me with a real close look at his shiny, sharp fangs.  It is our understanding here at Snorkelkids that the undulated is one of the few moray eels that really wants to bite you.  In fact, I know a man who was bitten, more or less unprovoked, by an undulated moray eel.  The fact that he was a well known asshole probably had little to do with it, unless you're a big fan of karma, in which case he had it comin'.  Regardless, I was in no mood to test out my standing with Vishnu and his ilk, so I backed off carefully, without attempting a picture.

   Well.  You got an uplifting story about the keikis, a tale of tragedy worthy of the bard himself, and a heck 

Notice How Vishnu Still has All Twenty of His Fingers. Good Karma!

of a fish story.  I'm trusting that our friend the eel enjoyed his fish dinner and is none the worse for having to shoot some line and a hook out the other end.  Them eels is tough.  I hope you are too and we'll see ya out there on the reef.

jeff

Batting For a High Average at Mahukona

    Yesterday we were lured yet again to the northern Kohala coast by our friend Peter, this time with the promise of a family of Rock Damselfish, which my lovely wife refers to as the Rock Island Damsel.  What follows is an account of the outing.  As you will see, the fish watching was superb, but due to conditions, the subject fish and my human frailty, only one of several species was captured by the camera (as wielded by yours truly) in a fashion suitable for this glossy

Pyramid Butterflyfish in Their Rocky Lair

magazine.  Well, all right, its only a blog and it isn't going to make it to your coffee table, but even by those low standards the pictures are inadequate.  To make up for this, I am going to throw in a couple photos submitted by our loyal readers.

    Sandra and I got an early start and met Peter at 9 AM.  (Marla was home cleaning the estate in anticipation of their imminent departure to go watch the eclipse on the mainland.)   The wave predictor had promised completely flat conditions, but there was a modest surge.  A particularly vigorous splash attempted to wash my sweetie's fins prematurely into the soup, but she snagged them and we were soon, all three of us, swimming out of the bay.

   As we hit the deep water, Peter stopped us to admonish that the threadfin jacks were still around, so we should be alert for them, as if we weren't already.  On we swam into a mild but definite current.  After about ten minutes of this, Sandra was the first to spot the pyramid butterflyfish.  We had been hearing about this school from our friends for a while, and it did not disappoint.  A 15 minute swim from the ladder around to the south should bring you to a school of 40 pyramids, some of them over deep water, but many swimming in and out

The Home of the Rock Damsel

of rocky hideaways.  As you can see, it was a gorgeous display.  Gotta love those papal colors.   

   I suppose that this is as good a time as any to note that the swim south of the little bay at Mahukona is not carpeted with fascinating coral formations.  Much of what we swam over, and the spot we were headed for, was bare rock, possibly due to coral death over the last two decades.

   Soon enough we were swimming onward again into that pesky current.  Another ten minutes of hard work and we reached the spot where Peter had found the familia rock damsel.  A few words of explanation are merited here.  First, this is an extremely uncommon fish.  It only lives in the shallow surge zone.  You may recall that in past years, when we saw the five stripe wrasse for example, we have boasted

Rock Damsel, possibly out of the water

that we own the shallows.  Well, despite all my hubris, not to mention hours puttering around in the shallows, I had not seen a rock damsel.  Even John Hoover, no slouch to be sure, says, "They inhabit the shallow surge zone...and because of their habitat are seldom noticed." ...especially by divers, who could not possibly go into this particular habitat.   I was a bit surprised to discover these fish living in a habitat that we do not commonly search;  a collection of large boulders right at the shoreline.   Mostly when I am in the surge zone, I am on the edge of a steep lava drop off  which descends from a very shallow sloping lava flat.  Here we had large boulders forming a small inlet.  Perhaps these boulders were the rocks mentioned in the name.

   Peter guided us into the tiny cove formed by boulders against which the modest swell, even on this relatively mild day, made an exciting surge.  As you can see, there was virtually no coral in this area.  Sandra and I saw at least three individuals and at least one had a definite stripe.  Unlike the few pictures you see in field guides, the rock damsels were black, which contrasted with the significantly larger and  gray Pacific

My best effort at the rock damsel.  Can you see the stripe?

Gregories which were also present.  Although one rarely sees a picture of these fish without two stripes, we only saw one stripe.  And on at least one fish, no stripes.  And the stripe we saw was visible only when the light hit it just right.  But the shape of the fish was distinctive, which may be helpful in the future. Suffice it to say, floating rapidly back and forth with the surge, while negotiating the rocks is not ideal conditions for picture taking.  photography was further complicated by the fish, who, as noted above, were small, almost black and active.  Hence, along with my efforts I'm including  a picture taken by some other photographer so you can appreciate this highly uncommon fish.

   What, you may ask, led Peter to this particular spot.  My answer is, simply, "Hell if I know."  It was not anywhere near the place where he puts in and involves a swim through current to get there.  I couldn't see anything special about this collection of boulders and the conditions made swimming into this enclosure a little

Shortnose Wrasse 2013  Orange in front, Blue behind

dangerous.  And this was a mild surf day.  Lastly, when he poked his nose into this far flung bunch of rocks, Peter did a heck of a job noticing these small active fish with the fine white stripe.  

   We played dodge that rock for about five minutes until we all agreed that we had clearly seen the fish and that we had taken our best shot at a photograph.  As we headed out, Peter tantalized us with another pearl.  He had recently seen an Ewa blenny in about fifteen feet of Kohala crystal (yes Virginia, the water out there was really clear.) and 40 feet seaward of the rocky coast.

   Once again, and I do apologize, I must interrupt my narrative.  The Ewa (pronunced ev-uh, although until rather recently I pronounced it eee wah) blenny is curiously named for Ewa  Beach, a no account beach community just west of the channel leading in to Pearl Harbor.  Thus, Ewa Beach is west of the village that has served as the capital of Hawaii since about 1830, when it was a town of a couple thousand souls, four or five recognizable boulevards and Queen Ka'ahumanu was calling the shots.  In

Peter on the bottom looking for the shortnose wrasse. 

Honolulu, and sometimes elsewhere in the land of the hula, ewa means "to the west"  just like mauka means "toward the mountain".  No one seems to have any idea why this species of blenny is named for Ewa Beach.

   Two species of fanged blenny make it into a Hawaiian fish field guide, Gosline's and Ewa.  But  they haven't been there for ever.  Gar Goodson, the author of  The Many Splendored Fishes of Hawaii did not include them.   That small paperback was all I could find to teach myself the names of the fish way back in 1979.  Dr.Tinker's book, the true bible for ichthyologists of that era,  might have been available to me in a university library, but not in an average bookstore.  And it had no colorful pictures.  While his drawings were a landmark for amateur fish identification in Hawaii, Goodson's book led me down the path of some spectacular mis-identifications.  As Gar didn't deal with these tiny blennies, the blame must fall on the great Jack Randall, who put his name to the dead fish guide just as I was starting to make fish lists in Kona. I looked at his pictures and, perhaps because the fish were small

2012...Green and Brown Bird Wrasse Juveniles Masquerade as Fanged Blennies

and I was willing to fudge, I decided these small green and brown fish at Kahaluu and elsewhere must be Gosline's and Ewa blennies. Amazingly, I kept on fudging for the next 25 years.  Unlike bird watching, a sport in which one is usually mentored, and one that is frequently carried out by supportive groups, fish watching for me was totally self taught; no one was there to to tell me I was making a dramatic error in identification.

   Gosline's fang blenny is green and the Ewa blenny is brown.  Says so in the dead fish book.  The pictures are right next to one another and suggest that the fish are the same size.  It wasn't until 2008 that John Hoover authored the Ultimate Guide...  If I had looked closely, I would have noticed that he included a juvenile bird wrasse, which is what those green and brown fish at K Bay actually are.  So year or so ago John

An Honest to God Ewa Blenny

Hoover was contemplating making a fish identification app aimed at snorkelers and he asked me to help him delineate which fish an average snorkeler might see, as opposed to a diver.  I gave him my list and he pointed out that he was surprised I was seeing Ewa blenny and curious worm fish, as these species are found only occasionally by divers and deeper than what he would consider snorkeling depth.  Kind soul that I am, I forwarded him a picture of both green and brown "blennies" taken at Kahalu'u.  Imagine the extent of my shame when he appraised me that these were juvenile bird wrasse.   The shame went on, as what I was calling curious wormfish (which is also a rare fish of the depths) was, in fact, Gosline's fang blenny.  So in that fell swoop I lost two life fish and a large portion of my confidence.  Sucks to be me.   Only seeing an Ewa blenny for real this time, could restore a modicum of my self esteem.  And what was the likelihood of that?

   Now let us return to the Kohala shore, 150 yards south of Mahukona, with the salty shame of the Ewa blenny burning in the still un-heeled wounds of my psyche.  I was tagging behind Peter and Sandra and

looking down in about 15 feet when I saw two fish, auburn in front and bright blue behind, the coloration of

Purple Linkia courtesy of Gail DeLuke says, "Go Huskies!"

Potter's angel, which I momentarily thought these two must be.  But they were the wrong shape; they were long and skinny.  A quick dive and I ascertained that it was two shortnose wrasse adults.  Earlier in the year I saw a baby shortnose, but these were the first adults of this gorgeous fish that I had seen in a while.  I called to Sandra and Peter and dove again to take a picture.  By the time I got down to eight feet, I had lost the wrasses, but right in front of me, perhaps ten feet away was an Ewa blenny.  It was big and brown with blue stripes and a relatively tall dorsal fin running the length of its body.  Hoping that the camera might focus on this actually very small fish some distance away I took two quick snaps.  The camera did not get the fish clearly, but it is indelibly etched in my minds eye.

"Miss Scarlet, You stay away from dem dwarf morays!"

   Well, if two life fish in ten minutes time doesn't cheer you up, you need to be on Prozac.  The swim back was fairly uneventful, but our host lingered in the middle of the small bay for a few minutes after Sandra and I had showered off.  When Peter joined us ashore, he said that he had been tracking a dwarf moray.  We used to see this uncommon species way down south at Ho'okena  (from my mammy's lap, think her name was Layna) but the small fragment of coral reef that supported dwarf moray has been degenerating into dead coral and sand.  Hence, I haven't seen him in a couple years. 

   We hit for a really high average at Mahukona yesterday, but we already have something on the wish list for next time.


jeff

Pass the Dog Biscuits and the Rainier Beer!   Courtesy of Chuck Hill

The Return of the Prodigal Bloody Hermit Crab

    Yesterday Sandra and I went swimming on the Ironman side of the pier.   There was a modest breeze and

Bloody Hermit Crab / Episcopal Miter 2012, Kailua Pier

the water was more than just a little choppy.  Coupled with a bit of swell, it was enough to give you motion sickness, if you were so inclined. We had our swim without seeing much of interest, but on a hot day it was really peasant being in the cool, albeit choppy water.

We completed our swim by crossing under the floating line next to the pier.  Right away we saw the milletseed butterfly that has bee hanging out in that vicinity.  And then, just as we were starting to head in, I saw a beautiful miter shell sitting on the bottom.  Without skipping a beat, my heart sung with joy.  This was a five inch long shell in fine condition.  The mollusc who ordinarily inhabits the shell, I suppose we might call

Bloody Hermit Crab, D. sanguinocarpus  Kailua Pier 2014

him the miter snail, chooses to live in the sand below forty feet. The only way that shell got there was by dint of a substantial  amount of effort on behalf of a hermit crab; a crab capable of lugging that substantial shell from the depths to the coral rubble by the pier.   












    I picked up the shell and looked inside. There was a furry leg blocking the entrance.  The hermit crab inside never came out, but there is no doubt that it was  a bloody hermit crab, Dardanus sanguinocarpus.  Sandra and I are not the biggest experts on hermit crabs in Hawaii, but we have a fair share of experience

Episcopal Miter with Bloody Hermit Crab Inside July 2017

with this species.  I have pictures, which I am sharing with you here, of the bloody hermit crab hauling a long miter shell in the vicinity of the pier dating back five years.  In our experience it is obvious that different species of hermits, given a choice, will choose a certain species of shell.  Of the half dozen or so bloody hermit crabs that I have seen, at least two others were lugging this enormous Episcopal miter shell.  All the others, one at the pier and two or three at Kahalu'u, were living in much more manageable triton shells.  We have never seen any other hermit hauling around a large miter.  As you can see from the pictures, the choice seems misguided.  Sort of like asking big ol' cumbersome Russia to interfere in our presidential election.  And who would be  that foolish?

   To the best of my knowledge, based on photographs and fish lists, I have not seen a bloody hermit crab since 2014.  Suffice it to say, we are always looking.  So lets have a toast to this rare animal who, once

Bloody Hermit Crab In a Triton Shell  December 2013

again,  has found its way into the shallows of the Kailua Bay.  Confusion to the enemy!

jeff

The Missing Link

     This week I went snorkeling on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday..  That really shouldn't be any sort of exciting proclamation, but the sad truth is that it has been a pathetically long time since I have taken three consecutive plunges.  As you will see, our increased time in the water paid off.

Thou Shalt Not Watch Fish!

    Tuesday has become an important day for swimming, what with Sandra working in the church office Wednesday morning and both of us having a potential church obligations on Thursday mornings.  Its almost as if God doesn't want us to go snorkeling.  Actually, as I have previously reported, the bible takes no position what so ever on wildlife observation.  Noah and the Ark aside, it's almost as if wild animals of any variety didn't exist in the Holy Lands. (I don't think the snake in the garden qualifies as a wild animal and I don't think we can credit Eve with being the first herpetologist.)

   Regardless of ecclesiastical conflicts, we loaded up the car Tuesday morning and headed north to the Mauna Lani.  We had been aiming for a trip down to City of Refuge, but the wave predictor, which is sort of like the bible, prophesied that we would be better off avoiding City on that day.  The morning was bright as we drove under a blue sky, fleecy clouds gracing the heights of Kohala Mountain, the observatories

Flying Gurnard Black Sand Beach 49 July 2017

twinkling on the to of Mauna Kea.

    I was surprised when we arrived at Black Sand Beach 49 to find that there was a significant amount of wind, perhaps fifteen gusting to twenty knots blowing right at us from the north. This wasn't enough to deter us, so we unloaded our folding chair, which only blew over once before we found a hedge that would shelter it sufficiently, donned our swimming togs and headed down the steep black sand slope to the beach.  It was early, around nine in the morning, so that black sand hadn't had a chance to warm excessively.

    The water was fairly clear and a pleasant temperature, probably in the low 80's.  As we swam, the wind blew us back a bit so we ended up swimming through rocks that hug the seaward shore. Finally free, we enjoyed the remaining coral, which is as good as anywhere in these days of coral bleaching.  Towards the middle, we spotted a patch of coral that was
supporting a number of soldierfish, other wise known to spear fisherman as menpachi.  It is a really good year for the epaulet soldierfish, which are appearing in significant numbers in lots of spots where we hadn't seen them before.  As we watched them hovering in their coral depressions, I noticed a Hawaiian squirrelfish swim across a fenestration.  This is a fish that we ordinarily only see at night, so this quick look was exceedingly lucky.

Kentucky Fried Benthic Worms, They're Finger Flickin' Good!

   Moving on, I was happy to find a big, fat flying gurnard in the sand patch smack in the middle of the bay. This odd fish, with pectoral fins that look for all the world like wings, had eluded us so far this year.  We always look for it at the pier, where it appears with modest dependability on both the Ironman and hotel sides, plying its trade in the sand.   We have been lucky to see some juveniles in the past, these being much more handsome with lots of blue in the wings.  This old bird was big and gray, hardly any color at all.  The gurnard has the curious habit of crawling slowly across the bottom while finger like projections from the elbows of the wings (hence just to either side of the mouth) flick at the sand, disturbing small invertebrates which, in their attempt to flee the incessant flicking, become lunch.  I took a ten second movie, attempting to capture this finger flicking, but the fish was too deep, probably around thirty feet, so I wasn't able to get close enough to capture this interesting behavior effectively.  Never the less, we suspect the gurnard was enjoying his brunch, which was (I have it on good authority) finger flickin' good.

     There was little else to see in the bay, so we swam ashore, showered and retired for our own lunch.  I like to let you know about the facilities available near the snorkeling beaches.  In this instance I am sad to

A Coneshell Hermit Crab at Kahalu'u Hopes for Cooler Water

report that the Mauna  Lani, at least on this day, had let the facilities near Black Sand Beach 49, slip a bit.  The men's room looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a while, with a substantial amount of black sand piled up in the sink (it looked like turpentine and smelled like India ink).  Not only that, but the establishment had taken the wrought iron chairs from around the table and moved them into the tennis court, put the table umbrella upon the chairs and locked the gate.  Where, oh where, were the snorkelkids to have their picnic.

   Well, the manicured bits of lawn by the courts, shaded by flowering trees were still there, so I on the beach chair and Sandra on her mat, spread out our repast. What do you think about that? In fact, it was damn near heavenly sitting in the shade, dining sumptuously and watching the tourists trudge by with their beach equipment.  Between bites, we took a moment to gaze through the chain links into the tennis court, which was piled at one end with dead leaves.  If one were looking forward to his next visit to BSB 49, he might add all these things together and be a bit

Run Silent, Run Deep.  Scribbled Filefish at City of Refuge 

concerned that something is afoot.  Or maybe we caught the Mauna Lani on a bad day.

    The following day Sandra did her stint at the church while I ran errands.  Somehow in the afternoon I found the energy to drive down to Kahaluu for a swim.  The bay was nice and flat and the tide just right for an easy entry.  That is about where the good news stops.  The water was cloudy and very warm.  In fact, when I was getting out I swam through a patch close to shore that had to be in the upper 90's.  Early on I saw a cone shell hermit crab which escaped my grasping fingers.  Following my fumbling attempt, he peered up at me from between the rocks.  Out by Surfer's Rock there was a pair of saddleback butterflies.  And that was about it.  Even the tourists in the shelter didn't provide much amusement.  So for this installment, the hot water is the story.  Heaven help the coral at K Bay.

Heller's Barracuda

   Yesterday, our churchly obligations behind us, we headed down to City of Refuge, arriving around 10:30.  It was an overcast morning; we had driven through some sprinkles as we made our way through the highlands of Captain Cook.  However, this didn't seem to effect the tourists, who were there in astounding
numbers.  There were great clots of them out in the water, some with matching life preservers, entire extended families with color coded noodles.  We struggled through the maddening crowd to the two step entry, found a place to put on our fins and, swoosh, we were in the delightfully cool, clear water.  After my experience of the the day before, the water looked like crystal.  There were buckets full of fish of every stripe and once we swam ten yards from shore, we were pretty much on our own.

    Our mission on this day was to see the scribbled filefish, which was easily the most common fish missing from the 2017 list and the threadfin jack, which is appearing in bays this summer in Kona and Kohala  With that in mind, we swam straight out forty yards to the lava ridge that in extreme low tide pokes its head above the water.  Hence, we call it the island, even though it is rarely so.  The water around the island is deeper, perhaps 30 to 40 feet, but it was at the surface that I saw the first good fish for the day.  A small thin fish about ten inches long was swimming in front of me.  His body was quite straight, his tail a neat little fan  and  when I looked quite close, he had a fine blue line running the length of his flank.  As he swam, he joined an identical companion.  I decided that these must be juvenile Heller's barracuda.  They were too elusive, small and gray for a photo, but they were fun to observe.

Yellow and Black, Longnose Butterflyfish at City of Refuge

    Sandra and I swam around the island, at one point interacting with a fellow snorkeler who was enthused with a large turtle hanging out on the bottom.  Not seeing much else, we headed north, with the coral below becoming progressively deeper.  Suddenly there was a scribbled filefish deep below us.  As we watched he was joined by a mate and they circled  slowly below us before heading out to sea.

   We shared a high five, but didn't have much time to gloat before we saw a small school of adult Heller's barracuda.  They were about twenty feet down, but before I could get a picture the school went deeper.  At about the same time, a school of opelu, swimming wildly, occupied the spot previously held by the barracuda.  At times like this, the opelu remind me of crazy ants.

    Those of you who don't live in Hawaii may not be familiar with crazy ants.  Suffice it to say, we are blessed with ants in all sizes.  We have large red ants that often appear singly.  Mostly we have black ants that vary from medium size to microscopic.  I suppose there is a branch of invertebrate zoology that specializes in ants and a practitioner of such would be in hog heaven here in Kona.  Most of these black ants

Longnose Butterflyfish Transitional Coloration   City of Refuge, July 2017

send out scouts.  When a scout finds something of interest, the ants form a column, hauling away the booty in an organized, social fashion.  However, one of the smaller varieties of black ants, just larger than microscopic, does not form columns.  Instead, individuals scamper randomly, frantically, about one's counter top.  These are crazy ants.  If one uses the term crazy ants here in the land of palm trees and pineapples, his friends know immediately of what he speaks.  And a school of opelu, bright royal blue with pretty yellow tails, swim like crazy ants.

   Well, we attempted to photograph the scribbled filefish and the Heller's barracuda and in the process I got a couple of poor pictures of opelu, which as we have noted were sort of mixing with the barracudas.  Further exploration didn't yield anything of great interest, unless you live for extremely plain and not so

Dragon Fruit Cactus South Kona

uncommon fish like three spot chromis and Thompson's butterfly.  No matter how hard we looked, there were no threadfins and so we headed for the ranch.

   Just as we were preparing for the two step landing I was stopped dead by a very long nose butterflyfish in remarkable transition.  You will recall that this fish comes in two colors, yellow and black.  It is accepted that they change color from time to time, and that this color change does to indicate anything special.  For example, the black ones are not males.  We occasionally see a black one with a bit of yellow here and there, but  this fish was way different.  His wide flank was bronzy, an effect created by a mixture of yellow and black scales, His face and the trailing edge was black, but that edge was lined in yellow, as were the little spines on the dorasal fins.  Fancy!  This was a truly remarkable individual, one that we have been anticipating for years.

   We surfaced and looked at each other and I said, "the f***ing missing link."  And so it was.

   On the way home we stopped while Sandra took a few pictures of the developing dragon fruit on the cactus in the lava rock desert.  a fitting end to good day in South Kona.

jeff 

  

The Fisherman Strikes Back

    Before beginning, I guess I need to apologize to my loyal readers.  I really should have put together a blog before now.

   A few interesting things have happened since we last met, we have seen a few good fish and taken at

Fishing Doesn't Have to be Confrontational

least one good picture.

   Perhaps the most interesting thing that has occurred involved your humble correspondent getting attacked by a fisherman.  Ten days ago I went snorkeling at the pier.  I didn't see much of interest on the way out.  Thinking of the barracuda that Sandra and Kim saw a week or so before, I swam into the shallows.  As I swam I was aware of a number of fisherman on the sea wall.  They were fishing for a large school of big eye scad that is locally known as the bait ball.  The bait ball usually hangs outside the fourth swim buoy, so when it comes near shore, for whatever reason, the fisherman come out to try their luck.  I didn't see the barracuda, but there was a quartet of barred jacks that were harassing the scad.   While I was watching the ulua, I sensed something flying over my head.  Immediately there after a shiny weighted lure with a treble hook went whipping by my face, no more than two feet away.

   Suffice it to say, this got my attention.  I looked up and a fisherman yelled at me.  He yelled, "Back off!"  Ever the diplomat, I replied, "I'm calling the police!"  I had the chance to appraise the geography of this encounter from both the seaward, and later, the land perspectives.  I'm sure that I was no closer than 25 yards to that fisherman and I had no idea they were fishing that far out into the bay.  Obviously I was wrong about that.  Since then I have wondered if that guy

Which of those fish is Sunny and which one is me?

was skillful enough to put the hook in front of my face or if he would have been equally happy to skewer me.  Now I know what its like to be a scad.  And I don't especially recommend it.









    The next day Sandra and I went swimming with Sunny and Kim from the Methodist Church.  Even though my assailant was not present on the seawall, I warned Sunny to stay away from the fisherman, lest she become a variant on the loaves and fishes story.  On the way out she followed Sandra, and I went searching for something special.  I took note of a wrasse that seemed a little different

There should be a sign for the ultra-plain disappearing wrasse

schooling with some immature belted wrasse.  I dove down and got a quick look before the fish swam under a rock, never to return.  Before he vanished I saw a couple fine blue streaks beneath and behind his jaw. When we got home I was pleased to note that this is the major field mark for the disappearing wrasse.  I didn't get a picture of this fish (he was too spooky) but even if I had it wouldn't be worth showing.  This is one exceedingly plain fish; a trout shaped fish colored a uniform washed out pink with no other markings  When I told her about it, Sandra said that the disappearing wrasse, in his plainness  must be Amish.

   We were able to show Sunny a turtle hanging out on the bottom and bore her half to death with a brief, on the spot lecture on sea turtle respiratory physiology.  As you will recall, sea turtles are unique among vertebrates in that they tolerate an incredibly low brain oxygen tension, buffer their accumulated CO2 to an amazing extent and restore their oxygen and dump their carbon

What?  No Warning Label?

dioxide with two quick puffs.  I'm surprised Sunny didn't fall asleep, lose her grip on the noodle and drift down to join the turtle on the bottom.

   And where was Kim Davison?  How did she get out of the lecture?  As we started our swim, Kim was showing off her copy of John Hoover's fish book rendered in water resistant paper.  As we were swimming out, Kim was attempting to use her new fish identification tool and made herself seasick.  Hence, by the time the lecture started she was halfway back to shore.  Perhaps John Hoover should include a warning in the forward to the book.  Don't read while swimming if you are prone to motion sickness.

    Four or five days later we received an emergency text from Peter...the threadfin jack was back at Mahukona.  As you will recall, this is the juvenile of the African Pompano, a large member of the jack family.  These relatively small diamond shaped fish develop long streamers that trail back from their dorsal and ventral fins.  It is thought that these fringes may imitate the tentacles of a Man of War jellyfish.  Sandra will tell you that the Man of

Sunny (under the halo), Sandra and Kim

War is not actually a jellyfish, but rather a different class of Cnidarian, a siphonophore. Unlike a normal jellyfish,
which is a single multi-cellular animal,  a Man of War is a collection of specialized individual animals.  And there goes Sunny falling asleep again.  


   At any rate,  the next morning Sandra and I left really early and met Peter at Mahukona around 8:30.  In the water, which was high and peaceful, Peter first directed us to a rocky area at the end of the pier where he found a leaf scorpionfish.  As you can see, this guy was a light gray and sufficiently cooperative for us to get a picture.

   We then went looking for the threadfin jacks.  About ten minutes into our search a snorkeler nearby made a hell of a commotion.  He had seen the jacks and chased them, I suppose to get a better look.  Peter interrogated the culprit and there was little doubt that this was what had transpired.   Try as we might over

So you tell me,

the next 40 minutes, we were unable find the jacks. Sandra did find a blacklip butterflyfish which hid under a rock before she could get me onto it.  It was a solid identification in as much as she reported the field mark, a blue forehead, as opposed to saying she saw a Klein's or blacklip butterfly.  If any of you are keeping track, she is now up two fish on me for 2017 (counting the barracuda).  Back ashore, Peter was impressed, as he and Marla had thought that the blacklips were no longer at Mahukona.

    Two days ago Sandra and I went down to Ho'okena.  It is a testimony to how lazy I have become, that this was our first trip to that wonderful bay in 2017.   We got there early and had the beach pretty much to ourselves.  In the water, which was warm and calm,  we saw the four fish we needed in short order.  (flame angelfish, gilded triggerfish, Hawaiian garden eel and bridled triggerfish)  We also saw three

Does a Threadfin Jack really remind you of a Man of War?

species of starfish: linkia, cushion and crown of thorns.  Or is it Game of Thrones?  Those  four fish bring the year's list to 151, which for some reason reminds me of a zombie that one of my friends ordered at a bar back in 1968.  Ancient memories aside, it was noteworthy that as we found ourselves leaving at roughly 10:30 on a Friday morning, the parking lot at this out of the way beach park was brimming with cars.  So much so that the couple that sidled into our spot thanked us profusely for leaving.  Not the first time I have been thanked for leaving.

   I guess if you're gonna go snorkeling in Kona, you gotta get up early.  And watch out for the fishermen.

jeff

Leaf Scorpionfish,  Mahukona  July 2017