Coral Reef--My Epiphany

I spent a week diving the Kona Coast in 2013 and repeated the trip in 2018, going so far as to stay in the same condo, have a nephew as a dive buddy, use the same operator, and dive some of the same spots.  In that respect, I am consistent (some would say “predictable” while others might suggest “dull”) but in 35 years of dive travel, I have seldom visited the same location.  This trip revealed the effects of coral distress in a relatively short period of time (especially when one considers the growth rate of corals) and thier omnipresence in our experience.  The discoveries alarm me. 

A healthy coral on the Kona coast 2018

Diving on coral reefs in the Florida Keys (1995), Bonaire (1998), Australia (2011), Hawaii (2013 and 2018), Grand Cayman (2016) and Fiji (2017), the fields of colorful coral seemed endless and ageless.  On a drift dive with my brother in Florida tethered to the a Norwegian buoy float that marked our progress to the following boat, migrated over coral reefs that seemed to go to the limits of of our air consumption and beyond.  The Salt Pier in Bonaire was a close as one could get to residing in a tropical aquarium. The bommies of the Great Barrier Reef, I am told, are hundreds or thousands of years old.  Surely, these widely separated coral communities transcended time and space.

Daily, the internet heralds details about the recent devastation of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, a place that I visited for 10 days in 2011 and absolutely came to love.  But, I have no frame of reference for visualizing the effects of a three year “marine heat wave” (water temperatures well above normal) that from 2014 to 2017 had caused “29 percent of the 3,683 reefs comprising the Great Barrier Reef lost two-thirds or more of their corals.  This high mortality rate threatens the ability of these reefs to sustain their full ecological function.”  That still leave a lot of healthy coral in place and an emerging strategy seems to focus on the remaining corals.

A few weeks before going to Kona, I saw the movie "Chasing Coral" a film about the demise of coral in different parts of the world over a one year period.  The dramatic decline shown in shocking resolution on the big screen of the BearTooth Theater Pub in Anchorage drew gasps from the assembled matinee crowd.  But, sipping a microbrew while viewing the carnage does have a way of tempering indignation and stepping into the cold, bright sun reflected off a Alaska snowscape after does make the problem seem remote.

The areas that we dived in Hawaii suffered a coral bleaching event in 2015.  Coral bleaching occurs when corals, stressed by high water temperatures or other changes such in nutrients or light, expel symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae which give corals their color.  Seeing white coral, we describe them as “bleached."  I noticed a lot of coral rubble, algae covered sick corals being invaded by urchins, some coral that was half dead, half healthy, and wsome that seemed unaffected that seems unaffected.

A partially alive coral head, Kona coast 2018

Coral appears half alive, half dead, Kona coast 2018

Urchins and other competitors invade the coral's structure

Coral rubble

The video shows first-hand pbservations of a healthy coral that had many more fish than the nearby dying coral that had only a few reef fish swimming about its branches.

My dive buddy, Luke, remarked “you seem to be taking a lot of pictures of the coral”   
“Yeah,, “I want to get some images before I forget what I see.”  

Baselines have a way of recessing in the memory, which always seems to remember ideal underwater vistas. I know something is wrong.  I see it firsthand.  The state of coral has my attention.  The devestation is not complete.  There is as much if not more "alive" than "dying" or "dead".  But, what is the trend?  Now, I need to figure out what I can do about it.

Manta Madness

Manta soars overhead on the dive

A must do dive for anyone going to Hawaii is the night dive to experience manta rays feeding on plankton.  The operator to do it with is Kona Diving Company.  Luke, my dive buddy for the week, and I did the two-tank late afternoon and night dive. 

The first dive is an exploration of the site at Garden Eel Cove just offshore of Kona Airport.  It is dive done in the waning hours of daylight, when there is only one other dive boat on the site.  The dive team reconnoitered the area.  We were in a four diver team, not including the leader.  One of the other two divers had an irritating of dropping in from above and furiously kicking whatever was around him.  It got to be quite tiresome after a few minutes, so we gave him a lot of space with which to churn the ocean.  I had seen mantas at this location on a previous late-afternoon dive, but I did not see any today.  Earlier in the day, we observed the impressive aquabatics of the mid-water column courtship ritual of a couple of eagle rays.  We saw nothing as remarkable as that on this dive.

The anchorage was noticeably more crowded when we returned to the boat.  The flotilla of vessels of every type headed to this spot hauling divers and snorkelers who wanted to observe the mantas feeding, a spectacle not to be missed.  The KDC crew presented a rather detailed natural history of the species, including information on the unique patterns on a manta which allows observers to identify individuals.  The crew related that photographers were encouraged to submit photographs in order to identify previously unknown individuals.  If your photograph establishes the presence of a new individual, the photographer may select a name for the critter.

The spot pattern is unique to the individual, like fingerprints in a human.

The crew explained that divers would be stationary on the bottom, shoulder to shoulder, shining a dive light upward, which would illuminate the plankton on which the manta feed.  Snorkelers on the surface would do the same, shining lights downward.  Supplementing these hand-held lights were spot lights placed on the bottom.  Divers went without snorkels and the barrel became protuberances that could scrape on ensnare a manta passing overhead (yes they get that close). 

Boats of every size continued to arrive at the site.  One of the catamarans carrying snorkelers tossed our boat a bow line which the crew secured to a clean on our stern.  The situation reminded me of the scene from Jaws of all the boats in Amity harbor preparing to go after the shark, only in our case it was nearly dark.  The operators are so confident that the diver or snorkeler will see a manta that many offer a guarantee that if a manta is not seen, the customer can get a free manta dive.  The number of boats and people in the water are testament to the popularity of the dives.

We entered the water as a group and saw to the mooring line with which we would make our descent to the bottom.  Not only does this strategy keep the divers together as a group, the line provides a reference to a diver who may otherwise become disoriented during descent.  Once on the bottom, we were taken to our designated area in 33 feet of water.  Our purposely slightly negative weighing kept us firmly on the bottom during the dive which went on for 45 minutes.  The mantas would come “flying” in consuming the plankton illuminated by the lights and then ascend toward the surface to continue feeding on the plankton illuminated by the lights on the surface.  The mantas moved in a surface-to-bottom loop, moving from one cluster of lights to the other.  

At one point, the 14 mantas seemed to be in a scrum as they completed each loop.  Everywhere were mantas.  Yet they managed to avoid colliding with each other and the divers and snorkelers, getting so close as to allow a diver to reach out and touch the critter, although we had been admonished to keep our hands to ourselves.  The manta body has a mucus veneer which protects the manta.  Touching the manta could remove this mucous to the possible detriment of the animal.  One has to kill the urge reach out at times as the mantas approached within what seems like inches as they pull up from the bottom of their loop, buzzing the diver.

Say aaaahhh

The experience can be summed up in one word—“fabulous” or an emphatic "whooaa.".  The three-quarter of an hour dive passed quickly.  Given the tunnel vision caused by the mask and the limited aura of illumination from the lights mantas seemed to be everywhere and come out of nowhere doing precision approaches and turn on a dime evasions as they passed. 

Levitating Luke and Peak Performance Buoyancy

The Lotus Position

As part of the dive trip to Kona, Luke participated in the Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) training offered by Kona Diving Company.  Hailey was the instructor for the two dive in-water portion of the course and I was teamed the two of them to complete the group.  We dived at Windows and Aquarium. As Hailey remarked, “every dive destination in the world has a site called ‘the Aquarium’” and I recalled just such a site in the Channel Islands of California and a reef bearing that moniker in the upper Florida Keys.

Achieving near perfect buoyancy is greatly emphasized in the course as the foundation to becoming a competent diver.  Gone are the days of having students weighted to be negatively buoyant for stability on the seafloor and then adding air to be buoyancy compensator to become positively buoyant.  The predictable outcome was divers who plowed the bottom of the sea.  Correct weighting and buoyancy control as a means of being an efficient diver seem to be the goal of today’s training protocols.  It is the foundation of personal achievement in programs such as those that come from the cave exploration and mapping experience of Global Underwater Explorers. 

I have seen over-weighted divers flailing in a movement of arms and legs as they bounce across the reef, leaving a path of broken coral as if blazing a trail for others to follow.  They are more of an air powered anchor with fins rather than efficient diver.  Their disturbance of the habitat is not intentional; the divers don’t set out to destroy the experience they so highly prize.  Rather it appears to be the result of poor fundamentals, inadequate techniques, and lack of practice from infrequent diving.  Training like PPB addresses the first two of the three factors.

The in-water training put Luke through a series of exercises, which started with properly weighting him to be neutrally buoyant when he exhaled at the surface and progressed with exercises to becoming a streamlined and efficient diver.  The first exercise involved an evaluation of his underwater swimming technique to eliminate things like sculling to maintain position. The second exercise involved picking up weight pouches, practiced over a sand bottom so as to eliminate the possibility of damage to the habitat, starting with a single one-pound pouch and progressing to a multiple pouches for a total weight of five pounds.  Next, Luke practiced maintaining vertical and horizontal hover for safety.  The culminating activity--assuming the stationary lotus position in the water column for as long as possible-- seemed to bring all the skills together.  Hailey coached Luke through each exercise using and signals and notes scribbled on a dive slate.  Touring the reef between exercises allowed Luke to incorporate techniques he learned into his routine movement.  I tangentially took part in some of the exercises and noticed a marginal improvement in my own technique.  I guess a return to fundamentals is sometimes in order to rediscover what we know, what we have forgotten, and to eliminate those little nuances of inefficiency that have crept into our technique.

 

Picking up the weight pouch

Luke did great.  He held the lotus position for more than 80 seconds, a very respectable time.  He appeared to pluck the weight pouches from the bottom as if they were very fragile without disturbing a single grain of sand.  He held depth at the safety stop as well as I, a diver of thirty four years.  Most noticeable was the easy efficiency with which he moved through the water, like he was born to it, a natural merteen.  The payoff was the remarkable improvement in air consumption, extending his time underwater by at least 20 percent compared to the beginning of the week.  He is the kind of diver with whom I am pleased to share my dive adventures. Besides, like I said above, you have to use the skills to keep them perfect.

Moving efficiently across the reef

Hover at the 15-foot safety stop

The Wolf Eel and Me

A Facebook post from the Alaska Sea Life Center features the wolf eel that resides in the Fish Habitat tank at the Center.  I have fed it many times before cleaning the windows and doing other chores in my jobs as a volunteer aquarium scientific diver.


I am reminded of a trip I took nearly eleven years ago down the Inside Passage with the Nautilus Explorer.


Friday, July 27, 2007, Dillon Rock, Shushartie Bay, British Columbia.

Today we dive on Dillon Rock, a navigation light-marked pinnacle, which according to the British Columbia GIS database was "named in 1850 after William Ward Dillon, RN, master, 1843, who when temporarily serving as master on HMS Daedalus on this station in 1850, made a sketch survey of Daedalus Passage and Shushartie Bay." 

We expect to find wolfeels, Giant Pacific octopi (or “GPO” for short), and ratfish at this spot. The always thorough dive briefing advises that wolf eels and octopi are most likely found below 30 feet in the rock’s numerous cracks and crevices.

Wolf eels have intrigued me since I first encountered one named “Captain Crunch” on a dive trip to Campbell River/Quadra Island more than a decade earlier. In writing up this log entry, I checked some of my field guides to review the natural history of wolf eels. The guides’ listing of the adult fish’s length varies from 6 to 8 feet. Primary habitat is dens on rocky reefs in depths from intertidal to 700 feet. Males and females apparently mate for life. The practices of some of the Native tribes along the coast restricted consumption of the wolf eel to the shaman or medicine man for it was believed to increase healing powers. Finally, they are incorrectly referred to as “eels” being most closely related to blennies. While they are alternatively known as “wolf fish” (which sounds a hell of a lot better than “wolf blennie”) comparisons to eels seem inevitable especially given their deceptively ferocious appearance, a feature highlighted in most of the guides. 

Marty Snyderman characterizes the fish “as perhaps the fiercest looking of all the reef creatures encountered…Though capable of inflicting serious wounds with the canine like jaw teeth, their looks belie their docile nature.” Gar Goodson relates “they are eel-like, and grow very large; with their powerful canine teeth and stout molars, they can be quite dangerous. Yet divers…report that the wolf eel quickly grows accustomed to diver, even greedily accepts hand held food, much like morays….” Finally, as only he can, Milt Love notes that “wolf-eels are really easy to identify…We are talking about an eel-shaped fish, colored gray…with dark eye spots on its body and fins. Combine this with big canine teeth and massive molars and you can’t miss. Oh yes, the adult males have lumpy misshapen heads and look like the title characters in Chainsaw Flesh Eaters from the Planet of Mutant Savings and Loan Executives….” Finally, from the log entry from a previous trip to the site, Skipper Mike reports, “this is also the only place that I have ever had the extremely rare experience of been bitten by a wolfeel (a male that I believe to be "alpha" came up behind me and latched onto my leg as I lay on the mud bottom taking a picture of another wolfeel). Being bitten by a wolfeel is virtually unheard of.” One thing the sources can’t agree on is spelling; take your choice between “wolf eel”, “wolf-eel”, and “wolfeel”. (The accompanying images show a Dillon Rock wolf eel and me as a Dillon Rock diver. Any resemblance ala the above description is purely coincidental.) 

After a quick trip from the Nautilus Explorer, the dive skiff anchors and we descend, seemingly en mass, down the anchor line into the dark green water which gives this part of the eastern Pacific the name “emerald sea”. We switch on the dive lights and with their beams probe the nooks and crannies for the wolf eels and octopi. We quickly locate our objective. The wolf eels abound on this site and prove very willing subjects for observation. The photographers begin a leisurely frenzy of activity as they frame their shots before withdrawing to let their companions have a look see as they move on to the next subject. No one wants for the view of a wolf eel on this dive. I manage to capture a few images of a wolf eel’s face-in-the-hole with my Sony Cybershot. Maybe call this spot should be called “Wolfeel Lairs”. Other divers shoot video to capture side-to-side undulation of a swimming wolf eel. The distinct movement also makes the taxonomically-incorrect comparison to eels inescapable. 

Moving along, I spy a pile of shells on a small ledge that marks the base of a crack that rises toward the surface. Rising up a few feet, I observe the mantle and folded arms of a rather large octopus wedged far back in the crack. Divers find several similarly ensconced octopi at the site, but none of us had any luck in coaxing the critters to emerge from the confines of the rock. Unable to draw out the GPO, my attention is diverted by the applause-like movement of the free swimming scallops. I am still amazed by the motion of this bivalve. Most of the scallops I have seen have been firmly and forever cemented to rock faces in Channel Islands of California.

Ascending toward the surface, we encounter a stronger than anticipated current; less than a rip, but enough to pull the kelp down from the surface. We find a sturdy stalk and hang on as the three minute safety stop ticks down on my computer. Breaking the surface we have little time to wait before the dive skiff swings in to pick us up.

We make the second dive at the same spot. While conditions at depth are a little darker than the first dive, the results are pretty much the same—lots of wolf eels and GPO back in their holes. After descending, I help one of the divers connect the inflator hose to the suit. A tab on the end of the connector makes the hook up easy. I had done this same thing for another diver a few days earlier. After the dive he observed that with my bulky dry glove, using one finger instead of two to pull back the connector lock would probably be easier. His advice was right on. Using just one finger makes short work of the task.

Me during the dive

Wolfeel during the dive

Please Dont Kill the (Hawaiian) Lionfish

While diving off Kona on the island of Hawaii recently, Hailey our divemaster explained to my buddy Luke and I, “we might see a couple of Hawaiian lionfish at this site, we have seen them here recently” showing us a photo in the well-worn fish identification book, she continued, “these lionfish are endemic to Hawaii.  That means they only exist here and are part of the natural reef ecology.  They are not like the invasive lionfish in Florida.  Please don’t kill our lionfish” she exhorted.  I asked if they had venomous spines like the Indonesian lionfish now found throughout the Caribbean and she explained that they did. 

During the dive, as we swam along the reef, Hailey pointed out a couple of lionfish back in the rocks.   From the description in the guidebook, they looked like the red lionfish (Pterois sphex), which is also called a turkeyfish.  The fish looked smaller than the invasive species that I had seen, hunted, and relished in fish tacos two years previously in the Cayman Islands. They also appeared to be more cautious and less out in the open than their Caribbean counterpart.   Could the invasive’s behavior be attributable to having no predator which to avoid, whereas the endemic Hawaiian species does?  As shown in the image below taken in the Cayman Islands, the invasive lionfish in that setting exhibits little evasive behavior when approached and sheltering behavior appeared absent..

Lionfish in the Caribbean are indigenous to the Indo-Pacific area and seem to be most prevalent on the reefs of the Indonesia archipelago.  How they got to the Caribbean and Florida is a matter of speculation.  Some believe that they are the offspring of a half dozen or so lionfish that escape an aquarium during the flooding from Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992.  The lionfish is a popular salt water aquarium fish which leads others to attribute their presence to aquarium owners improperly disposing of the fish (as in flushing it down the toilet or tossing it into a storm drain.  Whatever the cause, the fish is now epidemic across much of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic and is decimating indigenous reef species.

Hawaiian Lionfish in the Reef Structure



Close up of the Hawaiian lionfish

A day or so later, at Garden Eel Cove, another divemaster pointed out the during the briefing that lionfish may be present.  Before she could add the exhortation, a pair of experienced divers, a father and his teenage son, ask if the lionfish be killed like they had on a recent trip in Florida, nearly salivating at the prospect.  “No” she stated, explaining that the fish were endemic to Hawaii unlike the invasive species in the Caribbean.

I was struck with the similarities in briefings between the two divemasters, which in part I attribute to the divemasters working for the same company and faced with similar circumstances.  Their information and admonition do point out the importance of local knowledge in diver's minimizing their impacts and knowing the difference between species with a similar common name.  Removal of the invasive in the Caribbean is seen in a positive light and is not only encouraged, it is organized with contests, attempts to create a market for the meat, and development of scuba diving specialty courses for the hunting of lionfish.  Not so in Hawaii.

For me, this drives home the importance of local knowledge when diving an area.  An understanding of endemic species and the role they play on the reef key to an appreciation of a reef ecosystem.  The folks at Kona Diving Company take the time to explain the species and reef ecology.

 

Invasive lionfish in the Cayman Islands.in 2016

 

Encounter with a Whaleshark--The Jonah Moment

We anchored off of Eel Cove on the Kona Coast on the Island of Hawaii.  Each of the three dive leaders briefed their assigned divers as to what we could expect to see on the dive, with reference to fish guidebooks and species behaviors.  They related how the site is “a very fishy place.”  They were not kidding.  In the momentary lull between completion of the briefing and getting into our gear a whale shark approached the boat.  “Encounter” does not quite describe the event which was more like he came by for a long visit.  

I was standing on one of two ladders on the transom of the boat when someone yelled “whale shark.”  I turned and spied a submerged shape a few yards off the port side of the boat, announcing “yeah, there it is.”  For a moment we just watched the shape, as if mesmerized by its presence.  As it came closer to the surface people started entering the water to get a better look.  For a while we had a private audience.  Boats of snorkelers moored nearby were not yet aware what was going on although our excitement must have signaled something special.  Most divers don’t rush to the stern and enter the water without full gear.  The skipper cautioned, “let it come to us, if you swim toward it you may spook it into leaving.”  For the next few minutes we floated in the calm water observing the shark as it swam in review, turned, and then came back.  By now, the snorkel boats had recovered their people in the water and moved toward our location.  We exited the water to gear up and commence our dive, figuring the snorkelers would overwhelm the site and drive the whale shark away.

As we descended, the whale shark returned, passing in the space between the divers and the boat.  It seemed intent to scratch its back on the side of the boat.  There was no real need to try frame a critter that big and that close in the view finder on my camera.  It was just a matter of keeping the camera pointed in its general direction and let size, light, and kismet count for the quality of the shot.  

The whale shark seemed oblivious to us as it made multiple swim bys for about 20 minutes, during one of which I had my “Jonah moment” with the biggest fish in the sea.  Recall the Old Testament passage where Jonah was cast into the sea by the crew of a boat to quiet a raging storm “but the Lord sent a large fish that swallowed Jonah” (Jonah 2:1). As it approached head on, I was able to look into its gapping maw as it filter fed, its massive tail lazily swishing back and forth and thought, “I wonder if this is what Jonah saw.” 

The fish continued to swim with a unhurried nonchalantness.  I watched in disbelief as surface swimmers and snorkelers attempting to grab its dorsal fin as if to ride on the back of the shark.  The shark seemed to shrug these attempts off, accelerating away with a swish of its huge tail.  Fortunately, none of the swimmers were slapped by the tail, which I imagine would be like getting hit by one of Mohamed Ali’s hooks.

I am told there is no real “season” for whale sharks in Hawaii, although the winter months offer the best chance of seeing one of the critters.  I was there at the end of March, so I feel fortunate for the event.  This instance was not my first encounter.  I had the fortune of diving with a whale shark in the Galapagos Islands in 2004.  Both encounters bring to mind another Bible verse, Pslams 107:23-24 “some went off to sea in ships, plied their trade on the deep waters.  They saw the work of the Lord, the wonders of God in the deep.”  On those dive, I did indeed get to see one of His many wonders.

When "Tails" Can't Work, Go with "Heads"

Near the end of August, as the fall chill began to set into Anchorage, my nephew and I started discussing where to go on a scuba diving vacation via Facebook Messenger. It came down to Hawaii or the Virgin Islands.  I told him to flip a coin: "heads" meant Hawaii, "tails" and we headed to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands.  He promptly reported "tails" complete with a photograph of the backside of a dime.  I joked that he would have to bring his two-tailed coin along for good luck.  Unfortunately, two hurricanes after the coin flip determined Hawaii as our destination.  While St. Croix advertised it was open for business, the on-island toursit serving infrastructure was still recovering.

• Hawaii was an excellent choice.  A short list of what we encountered, in no particular order, will provide a draft Table of Contents for future blogs:
• Coral Die Off and Resillience
• Peak Performance Buoyancy and air consuption
• Hawaiian Lionfish--an endemic species
• Whale shark and a Jonah moment
• Mantas
• Devil's Doorway--beware of what lies beyond, we went back twice just to be sure.
• Team Hei Matau

I have been to Hawaii, Oahu and the Hawaii's Kona Coast.  I seldom revisit a place far away place to dive.  For me, there are too many underwater places to go, too many underwater things to see, and too little time left.  Lima’s Law of Scuba Travel Utility states that "the total utility--the total satisfaction received from participating in dive travel--is quite high, while marginal utility--the satisfaction gained from travel to a location previously visited—is quite low."  Some laws may be meant to be broken.   

About three years ago I resolved to start filling the blank spaces on my world nautical chart by diving more in the Caribbean and Florida Keys.  In my geography of water, Bonaire was the place in that region that had a pin.  A trip to the Cayman Islands in 2016 put in second pin.  I do not count a trip made to the Florida Keys in June 1995 because an active tropical storm season prevented us diving all but two of the six days planned in Upper Keys, Middle Keys, and Lower Keys.  Why that section of the world?  An rekindled interest in treasure lore and history, a desire for warmer water, and less distance to travel.  Of course, from Alaska any water is warmer and any place is distant.  My passport shows stamps from the most distant reaches of the world with warmer water, starting with the Sea of Cortez in 1998 and continuing to Cocos Island (2002), Galapagos (2004), Oahu (2008), Socorro Island (2010), the Great Barrier Reef (2011), Kona (2013) and Fiji (2017).  Trips to Vancouver Island's Pacific Rim National Park (1993), down the Inside Passage from Juneau to Vancouver (2007), and in the Great Lakes (2008) provided the exotic cold water destinations of British Columbia and the Upper Peninsula.

Guess we will have to see what the hurricane season does this year.  Predictions foreshadow an  active one.  We are already planning an Anacapa trip.  It would seem I have a new dive  buddy to show the old and experience  the new.  Team Hei Matau.

The Blog is Back

Sorry for no posts for the last week or so.  I have been traveling to gather new material, a very successful endeavor.  Please stand by as the blog entries will begin shortly.