Achilles tangs are surgeonfish, with a scalpel near the base of the tail, in the aft end of the large orange-red spot. They’re quite common in shallow waters near the surge zone. This one is passing over a patch of coral, dotted with red pencil urchins.
This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Floral.’ (See more responses here.) I thought a few photos from my last visit to Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden (with Terri from Second Wind Leisure Perspectives) would fit the bill.
The top photo is an orchid, Catatante ‘Pacific Sunspots.’ In the middle is another orchid, Wilsonara Aloha Sparks ‘Halloween.’ Below is a heliconia against a backdrop of tropical foliage.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
I saw this piglet wandering through a cow pasture. It is likely the offspring of a feral pig, but there were no other pigs around. At this size and age, it would probably still have been drawing on its mother’s milk. Instead, it was grubbing through cow pies in search of worms and bugs.
I didn’t see it again, but I suspect it will be lucky to survive very long.
I like this photo for the three layers of different-colored underwater landscape. There’s the blue-green of the bottom, the pale, splotchy intermediate layer of rock, and the red-hued outcropping in the foreground. And complementing everything is the back end of a Christmas wrasse, disappearing from view.
Gold dust day geckos are colorful little creatures and I look out for them on colorful plants such as bird of paradise flowers and pink bananas. They’re attracted to these, and other flowers, for the nectar within. This one spent a considerable time drinking from this pink banana.
Scrawled filefish are at their most scenic when they catch the light. The blue scribbles that cover their bodies glow with intensity. They’re a peculiar-looking fish with a flat body and long tail, and they can quickly change color to a camouflage pattern when needed.
In this photo, the two dorsal fins are visible. The forward one is just a thin spine which can be raised and lowered. The other one is very fine and often hard to see. In this photo it has a bit of a wave going on.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Stillness.’ (See more offerings here.) It made me think of this scene.
I was out early one morning and stopped by the port at Kawaihae. There wasn’t much going on, but I was happy to see this adult black-crowned night heron perched on a rock in the shallows. It didn’t seem to be actively fishing.
Indeed, the heron remained mostly still. It was just dark enough for the lights of the port to illuminate the rippled waters inside the harbor. The port itself was also quiet. No boats moving, no trucks lining up, no machinery grinding. Just a couple of men fishing off the small boat dock.
At the northern end of Kealakekua Bay, near Captain Cook’s monument, is an area that has good snorkeling. People can hike down to the place or take a boat trip there with one of several companies.
Many of the tour boats are small runabouts. The skipper can just drift with the boat in the bay while the clients snorkel. The largest boat is Fair Wind II, a catamaran that features has two 15-ft waterslides and a high-jump platform! This is not a boat suited to drifting around a bay lined with shallow, coral rich waters and crowded with snorkelers. So they have a mooring buoy in the bay.
Mooring buoys are basically floating balls with a length of chain tethering them to something heavy, usually a large concrete block. The chain is long enough to allow for the ebb and flow of the tides so that the buoy is always available for use. The idea is that a boat ties a line to the buoy, which holds it in a relatively restricted area so that it doesn’t crash into underwater obstructions, land, or other boats.
The Fair Wind II buoy in Kealakekua Bay is different in that its length of chain keeps it permanently below the water, regardless of the state of the tide, as the photo shows. The idea is that when the boat arrives in the bay, a crew person jumps overboard with a mooring line and attaches it, not to the buoy, but to the length of chain hanging below the buoy. The line is then hauled in and the boat is secure and held in place. I think that the reason for this slightly different arrangement is that there’s no buoy floating on the water day in, day out, regardless of whether it’s being used or not. In this historically important bay, this might be regarded as an unwelcome sight.
The last time I was there, the eerie appearance of the buoy was augmented by movement of the water causing the loose length of chain to clank, loudly, against the fixed length. It was a scene straight out of scary movie where the ominous quiet is shattered by the terrifying … well, you get the idea.
Posted in response to this week’s Friendly Friday challenge on the theme of ‘Ebb and flow.’ See more responses here.
For more information about Fair Wind II, go to fair-wind.com/.
Graham's Island 