Tag Archives: On The Coast

Monk seal scars

Monk seal scars

Monk seal with scarsThese are older photos, but still interesting to me. I spotted this monk seal one day, not too far from a second seal that is a regular around the Big Island.

The top photo shows some lighter marking on the side of the seal, below and behind the two dark marks. This lighter marking is bleaching, which is applied to seals when possible, to help researchers monitor the population and keep track of their travels. The bleaching only lasts a year as seals molt annually. In addition to the bleaching, most seals have red tags placed in their rear flippers, to help identify them. It can be a hit and miss method as these photos show. This seal has tags in both flippers, but they were never visible to me.

The other interesting thing is those two dark circles on the seal’s back. They’re made by cookiecutter sharks. Cookiecutter sharks are small dogfish sharks, less than two feet in length. They feed by gouging round plugs, hence the name, out of larger creatures such as monk seals.

Cookiecutter sharks live in the deep ocean during the day, sometimes at depths over two miles. At dusk they rise up toward the surface, before descending to the depths again around daybreak. Another reason not to go swimming at night.

Better Days: Abandoned car

Better Days-Abandoned car on coast

Better Days-Abandoned carOne of the Big Island’s scenic attractions is its sprinkling of abandoned vehicles. One doesn’t have to drive too far to spot a car being swallowed by weeds or a wreck languishing just off the highway. Usually the person dumping the vehicle has stripped it of all the identifying information or never registered it and so can’t be traced.

I did a double take when I saw this car on one of my regular walks. Was this something new or something I’d simply failed to register for days/weeks/months? The latter is entirely possible, but I think this was a recent arrival that someone was not content to just abandon, but also felt it necessary to push it into the ocean. Perhaps it was stolen, perhaps used in a crime. Either way, it didn’t make it to its planned watery grave, at least not yet. Next winter’s storms might yet snatch it away. I doubt it will be retrieved before then.

Your tax dollars at rest

Sikorsky CH 53E Super Stallion helicopter at Upolu Airport

I was out on one of my usual coast walks when I heard the thrumming of engines. I looked up to see a pair of military helicopters heading west. I see a lot of helicopters on my walks, sometimes military ones, but more often those on tours.

I kept walking but, as they sometimes do, the helicopters turned and came in to land at Upolu Airport. This wasn’t unusual. Military aircraft often land at the lightly used airstrip. I’d have carried on, but the two aircraft had come to rest a little way above where I was walking. All I could see of them was their rotors turning, though I could hear plenty; helicopters are loud.

Anyway, I thought the situation had some photographic potential so I edged toward the airport fence and took some shots – not too interesting as it turned out. Still, I knew that when military craft touch down here, they only tend to stick around for a few minutes before taking off again. I thought these large helicopters rising above the vegetation might be interesting, so I waited, punishing my ears in the process.

Five minutes passed, then 10. I started to get antsy. What were they up to? I waited another five minutes or so and then I saw one of the crewmen through a gap in the vegetation, walking on the runway from the second helicopter to the first. Now it was possible he was returning to his aircraft prior to takeoff and I just hadn’t noticed him going the other way, but I figured if the crew were wandering around on foot, chances were that nothing was going to happen any time soon. I put away my camera and started walking again.

At this point in the story, one might expect that both helicopters to take of and collide in a flash of flame, or a UFO comes down and lands between them, but no. I walked a bit and turned around in time to see the rotors on the second helicopter turning slower and slower on their way to stopping. Something was wrong.

I kept going and several minutes later there was a surge in noise and the first helicopter rose up, made a sharp curve through the air, and headed off toward Oahu. I didn’t get a photo of this in part because I was looking directly into the sun and in part because it was halfway to Honolulu before I reacted.

Instead, I finished my walk and saw that the second helicopter was still sitting forlornly at the far end of the runway (something of a hazard for anyone else wanting to land there). So I drove my truck down the road and parked opposite the helicopter. I didn’t see anyone in it, but the doors were open and I didn’t think it had been abandoned. I was tempted to yell across asking if they needed a gallon of gas, but restrained myself, aware that such a craft was probably bristling with machine guns. Instead, I took these photos and left.

Later that evening, not long after dark, I heard that thrumming again and next day the runway was empty so I assume that whatever had gone wrong had been fixed.

The helicopter is a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion operated by the U.S. Marine Corps who have a base at Kaneohe Bay on Oahu. It’s used for heavy-lift transport and I think it was a couple of these craft that were stationed in Hilo recently in case people needed to be evacuated from the region threatened by the current lava flow in Puna.

Sikorsky CH 53E Super Stallion helicopter

 

Black sand, white pole holders

Fishing pole holders Kona coastKona coast surgeKona coast lava

Between Kailua Kona Airport and Kekaha Kai State Park is a stretch of coastline heavy on lava and aircraft coming in to land, but light on vegetation and people.

There’s a fair smattering of black sand to be found in little coves and one proper black sand beach at Makole’a (below).

In several places, white plastic tubes can be seen wedged or cemented in to the lava (above). They’re fishing pole holders and are a common sight on most of the island’s coastline.

And then there are the usual features of old lava flows by the ocean including blow holes and fractured lava tubes where the ocean surges in and out again (right).

Kona coast black sand beach Makole'a

What the tide washed in

Beach debris Big Island

These are scenes from the coast of the Big Island, a few miles northeast of South Point, the island’s southernmost tip. This stretch of coast is notorious for the amount of marine debris on its shores.

In late January of this year, a mass of rope washed up at Kamilo Point, just a few miles from where these photos were taken. The rope mass was estimated to weigh around 40 tons. Kamilo Point is nicknamed ‘Plastic Beach’ because weather conditions and ocean currents bring huge amounts of debris ashore there. At least some of this junk is believed to have come from the ‘North Pacific Garbage Patch’ and before that, Asia.

In early March, volunteers gathered 11.6 tons of debris from this same stretch of coast.

The debris in these photos is mild be comparison, but still unsightly, and dangerous for everything from seabirds to Hawaiian monk seals, turtles, and humpback whales. That said, the blue plastic soaking tub (below) on the ocean’s edge, looked awfully inviting.

Beach debris near South Point

Adult black-crowned night heron

Black crowned Night Heron on old tree

Black crowned Night HeronAnother response to the last edition of the WordPress photo challenge with a theme of ‘All time favorites.’

I’ve run photos of black-crowned night herons a few times before, notably here and here. Both those posts could qualify as favorites, but they showed juvenile herons and one feature of the juveniles is that they don’t have a black crown.

These photos are of an adult bird and make it fairly obvious why they have their name. Another feature of this breeding adult is the long white head plume. And finally, all I can say about the bottom photo is, “I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

Black-crowned Night Heron with fuzzy head

Keawaiki beach

Keawaiki Beach

I’m not a person who goes and spends a day at the beach, but I have been drawn to water and the ocean all my life. Possibly that’s why I’ve ended up in Hawaii, where the place is surrounded by it. And who wouldn’t be drawn to the water here?

This is Keawaiki Beach on the South Kohala coast. It’s a steep, black beach where sometimes the surf can roll in. But on a day like this one, it would be a fine place to swim. And on this particular day, not a soul was there, just me and my camera.

Posted in response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge ‘Place in the world.’

 

Better Days: Dead blenny

Better Days-Dead Blenny

Exploring tide pools one day, I found this unfortunate floating blenny. It was quite large, for a blenny, and in a small pool. The weather had been calm for a few days, without much ocean swell. I think the fish was trapped in the pool and, without fresh seawater reaching it, the pool had become stale and oxygen starved.

The macabre essence of the scene contrasted with its painterly quality, enhanced by the blenny’s coloration and the delicate creamy shells in the pool.

Updated 6-20-18

I’ve since learned that the ‘delicate creamy shells’ in the pool are actually a type of seaweed, Padina japonica. I’m also not sure about my oxygen starvation theory either since blennies are notoriously adept as jumping from pool to pool. Two things are unchanged however: the blenny is still dead and I still like the painterly quality.