Author Archives: Graham

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About Graham

I take photos when I'm out and about, recording life on the Big Island of Hawaii.

More manta rays

Two coastal manta rays in the waters off Hawaii

My most recent manta ray encounter happened a few days ago. I was swimming along and saw a familiar shape in front of me. It was a manta ray heading in the same direction. I tracked it for a while, hoping to catch up, but knowing that doing so was entirely up to the manta. Eventually I did draw level for a short while. Then the manta pulled away again.

As it disappeared, I thought at first I was seeing some kind of weird reflection in the water. Then I realized it was a second manta swimming toward me. As it approached the first manta turned and followed behind. Both were pretty large and up near the water’s surface, creating reflections.

A coastal manta ray in the waters off Hawaii

They passed by, and receded in the direction I’d come from. I hung around for a while hoping they’d reverse course again and, sure enough, a few moments later the two of them came back toward me. On this pass, I could see that one had a badly damaged cephalic flap. It looked like an old wound and didn’t seem to trouble the manta much, but I don’t know how it would affect it when it came to feeding since they use the flaps to funnel plankton into their mouths.

A coastal manta ray in the waters off Hawaii

Eventually, the mantas headed away and out into deeper water. I stayed out for a while on the off chance that they’d return, but wasn’t surprised when they didn’t. Still, it had been another wonderful encounter and I headed back toward shore in a very good mood.

Two coastal manta rays in the waters off Hawaii

Abstracts: Devil scorpionfish

A devil's scorpionfish in the waters off Hawaii

I had just jumped in the water and submerged my head when I saw something move. The fish immediately plopped down by a rock but I’d already recognized the distinctive shape of a devil scorpionfish. I hung around for a short while hoping it would spread its pectoral fins in its distinctive display, but it never did. The second photo, which has run on the blog before, shows what I was looking for.

Candlenut

The flowers of a candlenut or kukui tree in Hawaii
The flowers of a candlenut or kukui tree in Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Leaves and Trees.’ See more responses here.

Candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) is known as Kukui in Hawaii. It’s a canoe plant, brought to Hawaii by the early Polynesian settlers. The tree can grow to around 60 feet tall but is usually shorter. Large clusters of small white flowers are followed by round nuts, which can be seen at the top of the second photo.

The tree had many uses. Oil was extracted from the nuts for various uses and the nuts themselves were burned for lighting, hence the name. Roasted nuts are edible and were used for flavoring. Raw nuts are a potent laxative. The plants had several other uses, both decorative and medicinal.

Because of this versatility and cultural background, Kukui was named the state tree of Hawaii in 1959, replacing the coconut palm. It’s the only state to have a non-indigenous state tree.

Big Island Dairy

The old Big Island Dairy on the east side of the Big Island of Hawaii.

This aerial view of Big Island Dairy was taken before it closed down. Situated on the northeast side of the island above Ookala, the dairy was a fairly large operation with up to 1,800 cows. But it had problems with a series of spills from its wastewater lagoons, with manure-rich water running into neighboring Alaialoa Gulch and Kaohaoha Gulch and on down to the ocean.

The dairy closed in early 2019, leaving the Cloverleaf Dairy, at Upolu, as the only one on the island. But now, the assets of Big Island Dairy have been purchased and a proposal made to reopen the facility as a much smaller operation with no more than 200 cows. It’s still in the planning process, but the new owners have made an effort to contact local residents so that the issues from the previous operation aren’t repeated.