Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Ariel's Octopus

These days, it's pretty unusual that I would post anything during the week.  Work is during the week....octopuses normally (hopefully!) on the weekend. But yesterday a friend at work brought in the ceramic octopus that her daughter had created for me. So amazing!
 Incredible, right?!
The girl has amazing talents: she took a white ceramic octopus and totally rocked it. I told her Mom that if I were braver, I'd get a tattoo reminiscent of this octopus. We'll see. So happy with the outcome....the girl has a great future to look forward to!
And while I'm on the subject of pretty, see above for the flowers that bloomed inside one of the NTBG gardens. Delicate. Nice colors. And always a surprise. Some are this color, some pink, some white. Lovely.
And have a great day.

Monday, June 26, 2017

No octopuses, but had a good swim anyway

For some reason, the octopuses are hiding from me....unless it's this guy:

Neither the turtle nor the seal look very energetic or hungry, for that matter, but I do know that seals eat octopuses.  I do hope this isn't a trend. I am jonesing for a glimpse of my fave cephalopods!
Perhaps next weekend.
 A crab was once again hiding in this little shell.
And this triangular shell, Flea Bite Cone, was upside down at first.  Then when I turned it over (carefully by the big bottom part), I discovered it was in fact occupied by the animal that should be in there.  This was by far the largest cone shell I've seen in quite a while. Larger than my hand stretched out..
And as I have announced before, these shells have a poison dart that can hurt animals and people, so best not to touch it.
This poor eel was being chased by a bluefin trevally.  I followed quite a few trevally yesterday, but they all led me to an eel, not an octopus. 
This poor eel had a chunk out of its hide, so not sure how long it will survive.  I also thought it might be cranky, so I swam away.
There were several small Cornet Fish....too cute! These were about as long as a pencil and more thin than one.
And we have the nice Trunk Fish. Scooting away from me..
Found two different types of Scorpion Fish:
Their eyes give them away.  Spotfin Scorpion.
And Devil Scorpion Fish. If you have any trouble spotting it, look for the bit of orange: that's its fin.  The rest is to the left.  The slit near the bottom of the shot is the mouth.
Wow. This disguise was so good, it took me a minute to spot this one in the photo! The mouth is on the right hand side and the eye, just up a bit and to the left.
And Mr. Ugly again...
This blenny was a good hider...look inside the hole, above the shells.  Two little eyes peeking out.
Cute little Hawkfish. Just a sprout! Probably 3 inches long including the tail. 
Christmas Wrasse:

Nice colors and good flexibility.











Money Cowry:
They are so delicate and pretty.
Two eels...I couldn't immediately find the top one's type...possibly a juvenile coloration. The bottom one is the Snowflake Moray. They are all over the reef in Poipu, hiding and sliding from one area to another, in search of food.
Here's hoping and praying for seeing an octopus next weekend! Perhaps they'll be in for the holiday.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

North Shore swim

It is hard to write when a fly is buzzing around, but I'll give it a shot. We got up too early yesterday and drove up to the North shore. So beautiful! A very different place to swim. Deep enough to need scuba. So we didn't venture very deep.  But there were so many operculum! WOW! I picked up 220 of the things.
This is the pile of operculum, bits of shells and sand. I truly could have spent all day picking up operculum and probably left lots behind on the beach.
Not sure why there were so many. And I do need to determine if finding one means a dead turban shell. That would def take the joy out of it.
I looked for octopuses and didn't find any.  There was a place where rocks looked as if they had been placed, underwater, in a particular way that made me think an octopus could have been there, but I can't count coulda, woulda, shoulda!
It did rain on us a bit, on the walk back to the car. But just a light drizzle: I held my camera up to it, so it could be washed off a little until we got to the showers.
I wish I had taken a photo of the cars parked when we were finished: there's a place where you can park for Tunnels beach that is a narrow street. Cars park along the wall.  We were there early enough that we would have been first in line to get out (hard to turn around!), but we opted to go to the Haena State Beach Park instead where there was real parking and showers.
I did see some of my "regular" fish: the hawk fish and damsel:
The Hawk was usual...the damsel or chromis, not sure which, was an unusual one...yellow with blue along its back. Pretty. Some of the coral was in better shape than on the south shore. An unusual find, at least for me on the South shore, was the Picasso Trigger:
You can see the water vis wasn't great. But I was glad to see this pretty fish. I do think they are prettier than the regular humu.  They are all cool, though. My hubby said the King Tide is the cause of the visibility: it moves the sand around more than a usual incoming and outgoing tide.


We also saw some 3 spot damsel fish. In this case, a lot more of them than I'm used to:
They are protecting the coral head.  I have never charged at them, so I'm not sure what they would do to protect it. Or perhaps they are just hiding in the coral.
I should show you some of the lovely scenery in that area:
I do love rain out at sea. Maybe because it's not raining on me? 

Oh so pretty! Loving that light on the cliffs. NTBG's garden, Limahuli, is up here. I have yet to visit it! 









I also spotted two of what I think are razor fish:

They are cute fish that have a razor on top of their heads.  Usually solitary, these two were about 2 feet from each other...perhaps from the same batch of eggs?
Here's the photo that I caught where I said: "That's the reason we came here!"
Yes, a little crab hiding inside the shell. Note the eyes (at the bottom..he was upside down) and the two feisty legs in the middle, bracketed by the 2 other sets of two legs at the edges of the hole. Electric Blue Crab. So I had to put the shell back down. Drat.





There were clouds, of course:
Very beautiful when reflected on the water. Which was pretty flat, by the way. My fave kind.  That's why we ventured up north...even with an  hour and a half drive, it was worth it. Although we did decide we wouldn't do it very often. We were able to evade the traffic in Kapaa, which made each of us very happy.

To quote an old hymn: Praise God from whom all blessings flow! The moon was just a small sliver. These cloud pix were taken near our house. 
As were the flower pictures:

You may remember these pink beauties from an earlier post. I never get tired of their colors and shapes and patterns. Ah.




A friend had told me about Kilt Lifter beer, when we were discussing the wedding where hubby wore a Kilt. So we stopped for some. Not my fave, but sweetheart liked it:
The name is just so cute! And of course, I do love kilts. My sweetie looked quite manly and amazing in his. 
From the glorious to the awful:

That hook I found on the sandy bottom was abhorrent! And the lead was big, too. Not sure what the fisherman thought he/she was going to catch with that big thing. Upon Alex's idea, I placed the hook in a wine cork to throw it away. The fishing line was thick too.  They must have been hoping for a huge fish to catch!

And as seems to be a regular thing, there were mysteries.  These were attached to the sand.  They seemed to be empty, so I'm not sure what they were, but I saw quite a few poked into the sandy bottom:
Really, no idea what there were. Perhaps it would be boring without at least one mystery.

So we were happy with our visit to the North shore, but we also decided we wouldn't do it very often. When we lived in Texas, driving for 3 hours was nothing. Now, we're spoiled...

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Gnarly water...quick post!

The waves and water were even more gnarly today, so I was only in for about an hour... the deeper part was closed due to rips and high tide, so after fighting the waves and the bad vis, I called it a day. The only time in recent memory when I took only 50 photos!
There were seals:

Awww, nose to nose! and the other one was out on the island.  When I popped up again, it was gone. Oops! My friend, it turned out later, was watching my progress and said the seal was in the water when I was. Glad it didn't decide to meet me, as I wouldn't have been it until it was pretty close. That's one problem with bad visibility...
Trunk fish:
Nice male Trunk Fish. You can tell that it wasn't sunny...normally the male's colors of gold and blue would stand out more.











I saw a group of 8 Rock Mover Wrasses. But not all in one shot. Here are 3 of the group:
One on the rock, and one to the left and one below the rock. The rest were further out, where the waves were.  See the poor visibility?








I was able to spot, no, not an octopus, but a Scorpion Fish:
I snapped off 4 quick photos and then noticed a man walking barefoot on the bottom. So by the time I popped up, warned him not to walk in that area, and popped back down, couldn't see the Scorp anymore. They are masters of disguise.
And last of all, a photo of the fishing line that was tangled on some seaweed:
This stuff is really awful: monofilament line.  Once it gets tangled there's just no getting out of it. So I'm glad I was able to pull it out and throw it away. Nasty stuff!
You can see my gear on the ground near: fins, 3 pouches (backup cameras, scissors for cutting line and one pouch for opercula and shells and trash. Of which there was a lot.)
Perhaps next week: North Shore, where in the summer, the water should be more tranquil.
Have a great week.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Lizard love story

Got home today and hubby said that he has been watching the lizards that lounge on our lanai...apparently, there's love in the air! I will attempt to snap some photos, but really, who wants x-rated lizard love in their mind's eye forever?! (And actually, I already have that picture, as we saw the love lizards engaged in amorous activity last weekend.  I was happy that they continued doing what they were, without being bothered by us.)
Anyway, the mixmaster was churning today: rip currents took me right away and I got up and around the currents to see what I liked.  However, the condition of the water, especially on the deeper half, was not great. There could have been several octopuses that I just couldn't see! But there were some of the other usual suspects: pretty shells, pretty clouds and even caught a photo of a surfer or two.
But first, to announce there were 3 seals snoozing and even a turtle.
The latter was good because I caught a photo of its fins, which are normally close to the body. But today, they were moving, so I almost thought there might be an egg-laying experience, but no joy on that one. Still an enjoyable swim. 
Awwwww.. Seal togetherness. And the turtle, too. They were roped off for protection, but I was able to crop that part out...
If your app lets you, click on the photo to make it bigger..you can see some divots on the turtle's shell..I can only imagine that it got those by being turned over and bashed against a rock. It wasn't talking, though, so it's a guess.  Poor turtle!
Here are the turtle fins I mentioned.  They are really good about swimming...well, obviously! But sometimes you want to help them along.  Not a good idea, but....
Almost forgot to show you my sweetheart's new t-shirt:
HAHAHA. Love it.  He does drink beer and he does know things, so it's all good. 













The aforementioned surfing:
Two surfers...click on the photo to see them closer up.  Catching some waves!!
This is the island which is at the tip of the two parts...deeper on the right (with the rip currents...I warned ya) and the kiddie pool on the left.  Both had major wave action today...I kept trying to get further out in the kiddie pond to find the octopus's home, but either I didn't find the right rock or he/she wasn't home.  But this area is where the waves smash from left to right and right to left, to make a huge washing machine action.  BE CAREFUL if you swim here.  Listen to the lifeguards....they know what to expect, in terms of dangerous surf and waves and rips.  No, really, that's their job. And really, like most people, they are probably at least somewhat lazy and they'd rather warn you than have to go swim out and grab your monkey-a*s out of the drink!
And I may have mentioned this before, but there are no lifeguards on the right side....Just on the left. Yeah, deeper water on the right, you'd think there'd be lifeguards.  Go figure. 
Male Trunk (Box) fish:
 Here's the mystery:
 I saw these whitish-greenish things accumulated under a rock. At first I thought it was some weird kind of leaf fish, but hubby and I think maybe egg cases of some kind...they do "cement" them sometimes to something, in order to let them hatch. If I find out, I'll let you know.
 Really nice blue spined unicorn fish....they are all over this reef. They are easygoing, but they could do some damage, if they had a mind to, with those blue spines near the tail.
 The seal had just turned over.  We love the blond tummy....he burped too. We all laughed.
Christmas Wrasse and on the left, a brighteye Chromis. There were a scadzillion of them on the reef today. Including really fast but really cute ones, about an inch long. Awwwww.
 What I at first thought was a lone cowry shell turned out to be two, hiding in a hole.
 And hiding was also what this Humu was doing. Before I got there, so don't blame me, please.....
 Shell....It is so tempting to pick them up, but I didn't.  This one was obviously occupied.
 And the Money Cowry. Gosh, they are pretty.
And since I'm rarely at the beach these days for sunrise, here's the palms and clouds of the later morning. Maybe next week, pix from the north shore...where it should be calmer this time of year, with summer just around the corner.

The big Rock Mover Wrasse and the juvenile.  So fascinating. If they weren't so fast, I'd watch 'em for longer.  But they move out of the way quickly.  And this time, no octopus that I saw were accompanying them.   I blame the rough water.....but a good swim anyway and I wasn't swept out to sea or to Japan! Thank you, God! He is so supportive.....thanks for reading!