A local beach

Today was a day of high surf which closed a number of parks to swimming, snorkeling, and surfing.  As a result, we headed off to explore an overlooked beach that is popular with locals.  Some guidebooks mention this beach, but suggest avoiding visiting on the weekend, because it is very popular with locals.  Many of them camp at the beach.  

After a narrow, windy road that drops about 1000 feet in a little over 2 miles, the beach with its bordering shade trees looked really inviting.

The sand was like finely ground pepper

Camping sites

High surf crashing into nearby rocks

Locals enjoying the high surf

A few more of our swimming neighbors

This morning, we snorkeled in deeper water again, and encountered some interesting fish.

I'm sharing photos of two species of triggerfish.  The Hawaiian name for triggerfish is humuhumu.  The first photo is a lagoon triggerfish (one of two species to be called humuhumu nukunuku apua'a). This species grows up to 12 inches.

The second triggerfish is the finescale triggerfish, which is rare in Hawaii.  It occurs in the eastern Pacific from California to Chile.  This species grows up to 30 inches.

The third species is the barred filefish (Hawaiian name: o'ili). This species can reach 15 inches.

Not exactly cauliflower

This morning, we were snorkeling in a different area, deeper, with more live coral.  Among other things, I was struck with the structure of one coral species.  The coral heads look quite a lot like giant heads of cauliflower.

Our snorkeling excursion was graced by the presence of a terminal-phase male redlip parrotfish (Hawaiian name: palukaluka).  He was about 20 inches long. This fish reminds me of the terminal-phase male rainbow parrotfish from the Caribbean.

The fish were busy not paying attention to all the snorkelers in the water, and they tended to be 10 or 15 feet deep.  As a result, lining up decent shots was challenging.  And the camera doesn't always focus on what we see.  But I managed to take enough photos of teardrop butterflyfish (Hawaiian name: kikakapu) to end up with a couple that I wanted to share.  This fish was about 5 inches long.

Heading downward

Heading to the right

The color yellow

Today's post features the color yellow.

Often, as we are snorkeling we encounter a lot of yellow fish.  Most of them are yellow tang (Hawaiian name: lau'ipala).  This bright yellow fish is a surgeonfish. They graze algae off rocks and dead coral, sometimes in large numbers.  Their bright yellow seems like an extra ray of sunshine.

This morning, we were fortunate to find a bright yellow trumpetfish (Hawaiian name: nunu), foraging among the yellow tang.  This was our first yellow trumpetfish of the season.

Melting pot

Hawaii represents a blend of so many things: people, cultures, plants, and animals.  While diversity is generally a good thing, many of the introduced species compete with or prey on native species.  But the diversity makes visiting here a very exotic experience.

One introduced species that I regularly see in our yard is the Kalij pheasant.  It is native to the foothills of the Himalayas.  This species was introduced to Hawaii in 1962, as a game bird.  This morning, I encountered a pair while I was out walking.

The pair

The male

The female

Rockmovers

This morning, we watched two rockmover wrasses for quite a while.  They are interesting looking fish, and sometimes we see them moving rocks to get to the prey which might be lurking beneath the rocks.  In the past, we have observed something that looked like courtship between two adults.  However, today the pair that we were watching was one adult and one juvenile.  The juvenile stages mimic drifting algae.  These fish were about 4 and 6 inches long.

Adult on left, juvenile on right

Juvenile on top, adult below

Juvenile rockmover wrasse

An adult rockmover wrasse from another day

Idols

The moorish idol (Hawaiian name kihikihi) is the only species in the moorish idol family.  It occurs in the Indo-Pacific and tropical eastern Pacific.  It reaches 8 inches in length.  This species has a striking appearance with broad black bars, a pointed snout, and a high dorsal fin with one long, filamentous spine that gracefully trails behind as it swims.

We often see one or two, but the last time we snorkeled we were surprised to find about a dozen of them travelling together, grazing on algae in shallow water.

Time for plants

Being in the tropics is interesting for lots of reasons, but the lush vegetation certainly seems to transport you to a different place.  Most of the vegetation that we are most familiar with is not native, including the coconut palms that were introduced hundreds of years ago by the first settlers from Polynesia.

Although they are non-native, it is always a joy to see the beautiful and fragrant blossoms of Plumeria (also known as frangipani).  Some days we see people out picking the blossoms to make leis.  This time of year, we often see trees without any leaves that are loaded with blossoms.

A leafless Plumeria tree

Another non-native flower that is growing all over the place is Bougainvillea.  These come in several colors, and the color comes from modified leaves called bracts.  The bracts surround their tiny, white flowers. 

The pigmented bracts surrounding the Bougainvillea flowers

This morning, as I was walking along the old airport beach, I found a group of ukulele enthusiasts playing under a shade tree.  They were playing "You are my sunshine."

Enjoy the sunshine and all it brings. 

Another beach, another color

This morning, we headed south, then east to the Punalu'u Beach County Park.  This beautiful black sand beach in very inviting.  Green turtles are abundant in the little bay, and can often be seen in the water, or hauled out on the black sand or rocks.

This is the best place to get in to swim, but the water felt pretty chilly.

We sat under the palm trees for a while and enjoyed the day.

A golf course borders the access road to the park, and Nene geese reside on the golf course.  The Nene (also known as the Hawaiian goose) is the official bird of the state of Hawaii.  Today, I was happy to see more Nenes (10 or 12) than golfers (0)!

Nene

Blending in

This morning, we encountered our first flounder of the season, a Flowery Flounder.  It was about 12 inches long and blended in pretty well with its background.  It was hungry, and we watched it approach a small, White-spotted Toby.  The toby was able to stay out of its reach and survived.

Flounder facing to the right

Flounder facing to the upper left, eyeing a toby

Close-up of the flounder's head: mouth facing up, eyes to the right

Bori took all of these photos.

Tide pooling

This morning, we headed to a nearby salt-and-pepper beach to poke around the lava-rock tide pools.

The beach is lovely, not too crowded, and has several large shade trees to sit under when the dark sand gets too hot.

Inside the tide pools, we found a variety of small fish species, invertebrates, and even a turtle or two.

A sea cucumber

Two species of sea urchins

A sea turtle in about 10 inches of water

In one pool, I found a little moray eel.

I found a couple of small freshwater springs feeding into the tide pools.  The fresh water is less dense than salt water, and so it stays near the surface and swirls around.  It also has different optical properties than salt water.  You can see the difference below.

Turnstones were foraging on the rocks as well.  Free divers were spearfishing just beyond the surf.  It was a great day to be on the beach.

Always fun to find

This morning, while snorkeling, we encountered quite a few longnose butterflyfish (Hawaiian name: lau wiliwili nukunuku 'oi'oi).  These beautiful little fish (5-6 inches long) are a joy to see, but difficult to photograph, because they flit about.  However, I continue to pursue a good photo of them.

Note: The top photo was taken using a different camera with different white-balance settings than the bottom two.