Wednesday, October 17, 2012

We Be Swimming With The Fishes!!!!!

Very much alive,  we swam with the fish most of the morning!!  Ahihi Kenau Reserve, south of Kihei is an awesome snorkeling site.  The locals used to go to Fish Bowl, across half a mile of extremely rough lava ... you had to know where it was and there was very little parking.  That has since been closed, forcing the locals to this Reserve.  You can definitely see the traffic and it's resulting damage at this location, but the site is gorgeous and entry into the water is fairly easy, although rocky.  No nice sandy beach here ... just crushed lava rock.
Miss Patty, having gotten her sea legs, was flying along enjoying the sites!!
As you an see, the corals and anemones are alive and well here!!  The corals growing on the rocks are huge and very colorful, from purple to green to bright yellow.
There are several varieties of each kind of fish and I cannot tell you which is which, so I will just give you the general name.  This beauty is a Butterfly Fish.  Pretty amazing colors.  You should see them up close and personal!!!  It's pretty hard to get images ... they are moving in the surf, you are moving in the surf and your camera is always focusing on the wrong thing!!!
Yellow Tang ... all the while you are trying to photograph them, they are snacking on the tidbits in the coral.  It's like a huge lunch wagon to them!!
Orange Band and Black Triggerfish.  One of the things I learned in my Scuba Diving Instructor course (yeah, I do that too!!) was that water diminishes colors.  As you can see, yellow is the brightest underwater.  My fins and most of my gear are bright yellow so students can see me easily and know who to follow.  Red is the first color to disappear under water.  The orange band on this Orange Band really stands out.  The Black Triggerfish actually has quite a bit of blue on him that doesn't show up.
The Hawaii State fish is the Humuhumunukunukuapaa.  Say that that in one breath here and you get a free drink!!!!! Here's what he looks like!!
In the shallows are huge schools of Yellow Goatfish.  Don't ask me how they got their name ... maybe a better question would be WHO named them?????  They are here by the hundreds and you swim right through them as you stand up to get out.  The water here is about 18" deep!!
Finally a pencil anemone.  Fairly close to the surface, their rust color shows up.  The fish is another kind of Trigger Fish.
Tired and cold for having been in the water all morning, we check out the beach for sea glass and find a couple of small pieces.  I don't have any problem with bringing the glass home ... but if you come here, please DO NOT take any piece of rock or lava home with you.  It is said that Pele, the Goddess of the volcano, will follow you with bad luck until you mail the piece back.  The hotels around here get hundreds of pieces every week which they throw back on the beach.  Not saying I'm superstitious, but if everyone takes one piece, pretty soon there won't be any pieces left.  

One last treasure I wanted to purchase was a carved piece of bone.  We stopped at a local shop and the artist talked story with us for quite some time.  I learned that most of these necklaces are carved from cow bone ... a shocker to me!!!  Some are from whale and walrus bone which they can purchase from native Alaskans.  Some are even from mammoth bone.  After agonizing over which one to get, as they are all beautiful and have meaning, I settled on this one made of walrus.  It represents the Holy Spirit ... which will follow you always as you travel around the world.  
I haven't shown many images of the critters around here ... here's one of the moochers!  Every day when we come home, we open the door and screen to get some air.  This guy just walks in and makes himself at home ... right in the living room ... to let us know he's hungry.  We then obediently walk him to the door with lots of goldfish and cracker crumbs for his dinner.  Seriously, he was here EVERY day!!!  
Lastly, an image of one of Patty's great dinners!!  I have been eating like a queen!!! 
Our time here is getting short, so we are off to get a few more gifts/souvenirs and mail our boxes home. My luggage is already VERY heavy, so any additional "stuff" must be mailed.  The large USPS flat rate boxes work really well should you come here and need extra gift space!!!


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