Saturday, August 1, 2009
Black Grouper Picture
Magazine Ad by Bomber Saltwater Grade
Cool magazine ad from Bomber Salftwater Grade. My agent found it for me in Sport Fishing magazine. I thought the graphic design was very good. These jigs look as good as my grouper picture ;-) I'm going to get some and try them out on Hawaiian tunas!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Kona's Independence Day
My wife and I went to town for the first time in years to watch fireworks display in Kona. Every year we watched them from our house, but I had a photo request on fireworkds, so I wanted to shoot some pictures of them for the client.
Before even got dark, we drove around the town and scouted many locations for good angles to take pictures. After all we decided to get a location closest to the launching pad which was located on a barge in the middle of Kailua Bay. Good crowds were out there and everybody was having good time. Island live music, ocean breeze, beer & cocktails... the town was filled with full of excitement and anticipation of fabulous fireworks. What a great atmosphere! We felt excitemet and energy that reminded us a bit of city lives we both grew up in.
As we anticipated, the fireworks started on time at 8:30 pm. Kona's fireworks weren't as big as those in cities or those in Japan, but the reflections on the water and the close distance made them certainly more dramatic and memorable.
Before even got dark, we drove around the town and scouted many locations for good angles to take pictures. After all we decided to get a location closest to the launching pad which was located on a barge in the middle of Kailua Bay. Good crowds were out there and everybody was having good time. Island live music, ocean breeze, beer & cocktails... the town was filled with full of excitement and anticipation of fabulous fireworks. What a great atmosphere! We felt excitemet and energy that reminded us a bit of city lives we both grew up in.
As we anticipated, the fireworks started on time at 8:30 pm. Kona's fireworks weren't as big as those in cities or those in Japan, but the reflections on the water and the close distance made them certainly more dramatic and memorable.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Killer Whales in Hawaii? - Transient Orcas of Hawaii
Part III of The Epic Wildlife Encounter
After the brief but playful dolphin encounter, we rushed home. We had so much excitement and so many wildlife actions to remember and talk about from this day... Wait a minute! It's not over yet! What could top that blue marlin attack, five mahi mahi actions, tunas, birds, etc.?
At sunset, on the dark horizon of mauka (island side), Naomi spotted something unusual. I looked out and focused my eyes on the horizon at that direction. I screamed. Orca!!! Orca???
Wow! There were two of them! One of them had its signature long dorsal fin, which was characteristic of a large male orca. Unmistakable. It was the killer whale, Orcinus orca.
Killer whales of Hawaii are called "Transient", and believed to hunt and eat only other marine mammals such as dolphins and whales, no fish at all. The transient killer whale sightings in Hawaii are extremely rare.
I contacted the renowned cetacean scientist, Robin W. Baird PhD, and found out that both are actually adult males. He said, "the one with the bent fin has an exceptionally large fin for an open ocean killer whale - other adult males documented in Hawaii have had relatively small dorsal fins (and smaller overall body size) than coastal adult male killer whales. It seems that open ocean/tropical killer whales are not as strongly sexually dimorphic as are coastal animals. We have a very small catalog of killer whales from Hawaii so we'll compare these and see if they happen to match - unlikely though as I think it is a pretty wide-ranging population."
He also had a scientific publication which was published in October of 2006. It was a compilation of data and information about the transient killer whales of Hawaii, titled "Killer Whale in Hawaiian Waters: Information on Population Identity and Feeding Habits." According to this paper, the last recorded encounter was in April of 2004 in Lanai! About 5 years ago! Yes, our encounter was that rare!!! How lucky Makoto and Naomi were!
At sunset, on the dark horizon of mauka (island side), Naomi spotted something unusual. I looked out and focused my eyes on the horizon at that direction. I screamed. Orca!!! Orca???
Wow! There were two of them! One of them had its signature long dorsal fin, which was characteristic of a large male orca. Unmistakable. It was the killer whale, Orcinus orca.
Killer whales of Hawaii are called "Transient", and believed to hunt and eat only other marine mammals such as dolphins and whales, no fish at all. The transient killer whale sightings in Hawaii are extremely rare.
I contacted the renowned cetacean scientist, Robin W. Baird PhD, and found out that both are actually adult males. He said, "the one with the bent fin has an exceptionally large fin for an open ocean killer whale - other adult males documented in Hawaii have had relatively small dorsal fins (and smaller overall body size) than coastal adult male killer whales. It seems that open ocean/tropical killer whales are not as strongly sexually dimorphic as are coastal animals. We have a very small catalog of killer whales from Hawaii so we'll compare these and see if they happen to match - unlikely though as I think it is a pretty wide-ranging population."
He also had a scientific publication which was published in October of 2006. It was a compilation of data and information about the transient killer whales of Hawaii, titled "Killer Whale in Hawaiian Waters: Information on Population Identity and Feeding Habits." According to this paper, the last recorded encounter was in April of 2004 in Lanai! About 5 years ago! Yes, our encounter was that rare!!! How lucky Makoto and Naomi were!
Although it was about 6:30 pm, I wanted to get a shot of them underwater somehow, which I assumed nobody had. Makoto and I quickly got ready but after a couple of blows, they dove and disappeared. I marked my GPS and we patiently waited for another 30 minutes or so, and then, we heard their blows again on the opposite side, but far away about 500 yard away. They spouted several times and then dove again. We waited another 40 minutes or so but they never showed up after that.
Blue Marlin Attack!
Part II of The Epic Wildlife Encounter
At the third FAD of the day, my fish finder was locating lots of fish at 80-250 feet. The very first drop of my jig hooked a nice size bigeye tuna, Thunnus obesus. Now we had enough fish for ourselves, but we still wanted to see the shark.
Our time was running out but we decided to check out one more FAD located 6 miles down south. We arrived there late afternoon and soon picked up a decent size skipjack tuna. Then, the unthinkable thing happened. As I reeled in my fish, a humongous billfish showed up under our boat, and went straight for my fish on line in a blink of an eye. I moved my little fish swiftly away from the bill but the hungry monster fish relentlessly attempted to attack the tuna right by my boat! It was a blue marlin, Makaira nigricans, parhaps about 15 feet in length, weighing...who knows but easily 300lb or more. The body was lit by its neon blue lines. It was so fascinating to watch such a big fish being able to move that fast! Literally lightening fast! The size, speed, outrageous color, and its determination as an apex predator... impressive. The event was crazy, frenzy and surrealistic but all of us witnessed the animal's stunning beauty and overwhelming power.
It was an awe-inspiring experience to see it hunting the prey like that. Freaked out poor tuna and merciless, brutal attack of the marlin... Wow! It was a scary sight, too, but I realized this to be the once in a life time opportunity, so I handed the fishing rod and the "bait" to Naomi, and specifically told her NOT to feed the marlin. Makoto and I hurried up to get in the water to photograph. And then suddenly with one burst of the loud noise and huge splash, the marlin gobbled the bait in one bite, leaping out of the water, and snatched it off my puny 50lb line. Holy sh**!
The game was over as quickly as it started. I was extremely disappointed in not getting any pictures of this event, but at the same time I felt a bit of relief because I didn't have to get in the water with the angry marlin!
The marlin did not only scared us but also did other fish in the entire visinity, so the fishing was so over there, too. Now we were completely drained by the event, so we gave up on the shark, and headed home. The sun was setting but we still had 30 miles to go. We pushed the accelerator to the max.
Less than half way back, we found our selves surrounded by large pod of pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata. The sun was low with some clouds, but we were able to snap some shots as the dolphins were playful. This was the first encounter for Makoto and Naomi during their stay, so all worked out pretty good.
To be continued...
Our time was running out but we decided to check out one more FAD located 6 miles down south. We arrived there late afternoon and soon picked up a decent size skipjack tuna. Then, the unthinkable thing happened. As I reeled in my fish, a humongous billfish showed up under our boat, and went straight for my fish on line in a blink of an eye. I moved my little fish swiftly away from the bill but the hungry monster fish relentlessly attempted to attack the tuna right by my boat! It was a blue marlin, Makaira nigricans, parhaps about 15 feet in length, weighing...who knows but easily 300lb or more. The body was lit by its neon blue lines. It was so fascinating to watch such a big fish being able to move that fast! Literally lightening fast! The size, speed, outrageous color, and its determination as an apex predator... impressive. The event was crazy, frenzy and surrealistic but all of us witnessed the animal's stunning beauty and overwhelming power.
It was an awe-inspiring experience to see it hunting the prey like that. Freaked out poor tuna and merciless, brutal attack of the marlin... Wow! It was a scary sight, too, but I realized this to be the once in a life time opportunity, so I handed the fishing rod and the "bait" to Naomi, and specifically told her NOT to feed the marlin. Makoto and I hurried up to get in the water to photograph. And then suddenly with one burst of the loud noise and huge splash, the marlin gobbled the bait in one bite, leaping out of the water, and snatched it off my puny 50lb line. Holy sh**!
The game was over as quickly as it started. I was extremely disappointed in not getting any pictures of this event, but at the same time I felt a bit of relief because I didn't have to get in the water with the angry marlin!
The marlin did not only scared us but also did other fish in the entire visinity, so the fishing was so over there, too. Now we were completely drained by the event, so we gave up on the shark, and headed home. The sun was setting but we still had 30 miles to go. We pushed the accelerator to the max.
Less than half way back, we found our selves surrounded by large pod of pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata. The sun was low with some clouds, but we were able to snap some shots as the dolphins were playful. This was the first encounter for Makoto and Naomi during their stay, so all worked out pretty good.
To be continued...
Mahi Mahi Extravaganza!
Part I of The Epic Wildlife Encounter
June 9th, 2009. This day should be marked as one of the most memorable wildlife excursions in my life. Makoto, Naomi and I started late this morning as we did manta ray dive last night. We cruised straight to the first FAD to make up the time loss from our late start. No fishing boats were around. Yep, that was usually a bad sign. However, from my experience, I know sometimes I get lucky.
As we approached the buoy, we saw several mahi mahi hanging around. Yay! We successfully shot HD video and captured stills, and then picked up five of them! More than enough for our dinner as well as other friends' and families' dinners! While we were having fun catching them, we were soon discovered by other fishing boats nearby. Mahi mahi could not help leaping out of the water numerous times, and could be easily seen by others who were located a few miles away. Mahi mahi bites were disrupted by arrival of bigger boats, so we left the scene totally satisfied with everything we've got.
After about two hours 0f swimming and fishing actions, we already had loads of excitement and adrenaline rush to be emotionally and physically drained. However, this was the last day Makoto and Naomi could go out as they were leaving tomorrow, so I was determined to take them out as far as I could. In addition, Makoto wanted to see oceanic whitetip sharks, Carcharhinus longimanus, so we were looking for them everywhere. Without much success in finding oceanic whitetip sharks, we arrived at the next buoy. The buoy seemed to be holding some fish from the look of sea birds and other fishermen.
And then, we saw fish breaking surface and sea birds started diving down. Here we go! Feeding frenzy started. We trolled through the birds pile and my Penn reel immediately screamed as a fish devoured my lure. Hanapa'a! It was a fairly big skipjack tuna or aku in Hawaiian, Katsuwonus pelamis. We wanted to catch much better eating yellowfin or bigeye tunas, but we weren't interested in catching any more aku, so we moved out to the next FAD in search of the oceanic whitetip shark and other better-eating tunas.
To be continued...
As we approached the buoy, we saw several mahi mahi hanging around. Yay! We successfully shot HD video and captured stills, and then picked up five of them! More than enough for our dinner as well as other friends' and families' dinners! While we were having fun catching them, we were soon discovered by other fishing boats nearby. Mahi mahi could not help leaping out of the water numerous times, and could be easily seen by others who were located a few miles away. Mahi mahi bites were disrupted by arrival of bigger boats, so we left the scene totally satisfied with everything we've got.
After about two hours 0f swimming and fishing actions, we already had loads of excitement and adrenaline rush to be emotionally and physically drained. However, this was the last day Makoto and Naomi could go out as they were leaving tomorrow, so I was determined to take them out as far as I could. In addition, Makoto wanted to see oceanic whitetip sharks, Carcharhinus longimanus, so we were looking for them everywhere. Without much success in finding oceanic whitetip sharks, we arrived at the next buoy. The buoy seemed to be holding some fish from the look of sea birds and other fishermen.
And then, we saw fish breaking surface and sea birds started diving down. Here we go! Feeding frenzy started. We trolled through the birds pile and my Penn reel immediately screamed as a fish devoured my lure. Hanapa'a! It was a fairly big skipjack tuna or aku in Hawaiian, Katsuwonus pelamis. We wanted to catch much better eating yellowfin or bigeye tunas, but we weren't interested in catching any more aku, so we moved out to the next FAD in search of the oceanic whitetip shark and other better-eating tunas.
To be continued...
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Steve Drogin Memorial Service
Steve Drogin's memorial service will be held on Wednesday, April 29th at The Robert Paine Scripps Center for Oceanography at Scripps Institute in La Jolla, San Diego, California.
If you would like to write to his beloved wife, Hiro or his family, please send your message to his son, Mike Drogin, or to Hiro at home: Hiro Drogin, 5410 Pacifica Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037.
Mike and Hiro also told me that if you live in Kona and would like to do something for them, instead of sending flowers to San Diego, please make a donation on behalf of Steve Drogin payable to: Holualoa Foundation For Arts & Culture, and let them know that you made a donation to them.
I know that Steve put a lot of his effort and funds into this local charity for people of Kona to promote art & humanity in this small community, so I'm sure he'll be pleased if you make a donation to them.
If you have any questions, please contact me. Thanks.
Masa Ushioda
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Wildlife Photographer Steve Drogin Passes Away
The day started out with a bad news in the morning. My wife broke her heels at work, and asked me to bring another pair. I don't know in the US, but in Japan, traditionally breaking shoes is considered as a serious bad luck, a sure sign of something bad to happen - usually someone very close gets hurt or even dies.Just as I left my house to deliver another pair of heels to my wife, my friend Susan called and told me that Steve Drogin died of a heart attack in India. I was shocked and couldn't believe such bad news as I was closely talking to him in a couple days ago via emails, in these he said he's been having a fantastic time in India with Hiro despite the unbearable heat, and sent me a lot of Elephant Festival pictures. Also we talked about making a trip together to Cocos Islands for hammerhead shark shooting, etc. as I was telling him about my recent hammerhead shark encounters in Kona.
My wife is also a good friend of Steve's wife, Hiro, so she immediately called her cell phone but got no answers.He was a great man, a successful business man, an excellent photographer, an awesome family man, a caring husband to Hiro. I spent a lot of time with him on my boat, so it is very sad to see another one of my boat buddies go. Whenever he's around town, we got together and had dinner together talking about his next adventures and photography.
To me he was a good promoter and motivator as well as a good friend. He always encouraged me to meet more people and to go to more photo trips. In many occasions, he invited me to go on some of his unbelievable trips.
He left me a big photography to-do list and now I will have to do it without him or his help. I'll miss you, Steve.
Masa Ushioda
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Humpback Whale Pictures by Masa Ushioda
CoolWaterPhoto.com Stock Photo Gallery
The humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, is one of the most exciting subjects that I love to take pictures of. It is very challenging, difficult and even dangerous, but it is all worth my sweat & effort when I nail a good breaching shot or when they approach me and allow me to take a picture or two underwater.
Humpback Whale Pictures - Images by Masa Ushioda
Wildlife photography is about patience and concentration. Shooting is very passive in humpback whale case. You can basically wait all day for things to happen. It's all up to them. Sometime they breach out of water 30 times in a row, and the other day they decide to sleep all day. They are usually very shy but very occasionally there are those individuals which seek human encounters eagerly. They are incredibly intelligent animals. I've been taking pictures of them for over a decade now. I gathered a handful of my best work here and I will frequently update this humpback whale picture gallery in the future. It is dedicated to the beauty of the beloved whale. I hope you enjoy the pictures and help protecting this spectacular animal species.
Humpback Whale Pictures - Images by Masa Ushioda
Wildlife photography is about patience and concentration. Shooting is very passive in humpback whale case. You can basically wait all day for things to happen. It's all up to them. Sometime they breach out of water 30 times in a row, and the other day they decide to sleep all day. They are usually very shy but very occasionally there are those individuals which seek human encounters eagerly. They are incredibly intelligent animals. I've been taking pictures of them for over a decade now. I gathered a handful of my best work here and I will frequently update this humpback whale picture gallery in the future. It is dedicated to the beauty of the beloved whale. I hope you enjoy the pictures and help protecting this spectacular animal species.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Great Birthday Deal Of Espionage
My wife and I were asked to infiltrate and survey one of their signature restaurants at XXXXX Hotel, which might have been ripping off hotel guests, particularly non-English speaking Japanese tourists. If that's true, we agreed to help the internal investigation by pretending a dumb Japanese couple from Japan who didn't speak English at all.
I'm not gonna tell you all about it in detail because it's secret, but I tell you that we had a great deal and the day was actually my birthday as my lovely wife arranged that way.
In exchange of being spies, all of our expense were paid including three very expensive resort meals & snacks, internet connections, a nice room, valet parking, plus petty cash for tipping, etc. Whole thing should have cost them little under $1,000. Wow! That's pretty expensive for one night stay for two, right? What a deal!
After we arrived at the hotel, we had a secret briefing at a restaurant, and were given some cash to pay for it. The mission was a piece of cake and dim-sum, beer and service were all good so far!
We had some time to kill until the next fatty meal, so we decided to go swimming a bit to investigate their pools as well as to consume extra beer calories. On the way to the pool, we swung by the famous Dolphin Quest, where about 10 "Atlantic" bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, were trained spending the day interacting with humans.
Unlike scarred up wild dolphins, these dolphins were so clean and beautiful as they have been meticulously cared there by the Dolphin Quest stuff and some were even born there.
The enclosure was somewhat small but it was much better than most of enclosures I've ever seen else where. The water was clean and crystal clear all the time with a natural lagoon beach setting. Dolphins seemed happy there, too. That's very important to me as I believe that all mammals have and develop "feelings" just like us humans. Unlike other creatures like fish and invertebrates, mammals feel joy, happiness, sadness or pain.
As I have a privilege to deal with wild marine mammals such as dolphins & whales frequently over a decade, I learned to sense their mood because I could only take pictures of them when they let me. In the wild, sometimes they are friendly and come closer to play with me, and other times they don't want to see me at all. I just have to meet them at the right time at the right place. Hey, that's not easy!
Other than mammals such as sharks, fish and inverts are, to me, easy to take pictures of. Unlike mammals, their behaviors are rational and very much predictable based on their natural mechanism, genes, and not based on their feelings and emotions.
Anyway I can only hope those dolphins in captivities are well taken care of for the rest of their lives, and contribute to their honorable projects in a very positive way.
It was getting late, and now it's time to accomplish our mission. Actually I was getting a bit nervous. I know I ain't gonna be a good spy as I pretty much suck at lying. Even if this mission is out of good cause, I felt guilty to pretend to be someone that I was not. I thought my wife was much better at this, so I let my wife speak most of the time.
There were some minor happenings throughout the mission, but over all everything went well as we planned. The restaurant had great service and atmosphere at their prime location. We always wanted to check out this famous restaurant, but their price and not-so-good reputation held us back for all these years.
Guess what. We were right. The food there wasn't so good...lobsters tasted like dirt/mud, signature pork chop and fillet mignon were hard and dry, cocktail drinks were too thin, and we saw the tiniest piece of foie gra we have ever seen in our lives on the fillet mignon, etc. etc... Over all tastes of every dish were not quite right, in other words, sucked. If you consider their outrageous price, you would feel even much worth when paying. Lucky for us, we didn't have to pay for the tab. It was $250. Oh my..!?
Our mission was accomplished. Despite the bad tasting food, we had great time, having wines & beers, and laughing at the thumbnail size foie gra under romantic Hawaiian torches at the nicest table over looking Pacific Ocean.
Next morning we were notified by our contact that they didn't do any wrong doing to us. We were honestly disappointed at the outcome but our contact liked us very much and promised to use us again! So that's all great!
We spent the rest of the day swimming, drinking and shopping. We've been working so hard nowadays under the bad global economy, so this break became a perfect short vacation to enjoy and to get rejuvenated.
At the end of the day, we decided to stroll the famous beach at `Anaeho`omalu Bay aka A-Bay. Ever since the Kilauea erupted again more actively, the volcanic gas aka vog has been filling the skies of most of the Big Island. Today as usual in nowadays the vog was pretty heavy, but the sunset looked much better here than Kona where we live. The vog in Kona and South West Hawaii has been much worth than one in Kohala and North West Hawaii.
As we strolled on the beach, we found some green sea turtles, Chelonia mydas, basking. The sleepy turtle with sunset...I was able to capture a peaceful, beautiful moment of a turtle's life in Hawaii.
I'm not gonna tell you all about it in detail because it's secret, but I tell you that we had a great deal and the day was actually my birthday as my lovely wife arranged that way.
In exchange of being spies, all of our expense were paid including three very expensive resort meals & snacks, internet connections, a nice room, valet parking, plus petty cash for tipping, etc. Whole thing should have cost them little under $1,000. Wow! That's pretty expensive for one night stay for two, right? What a deal!
After we arrived at the hotel, we had a secret briefing at a restaurant, and were given some cash to pay for it. The mission was a piece of cake and dim-sum, beer and service were all good so far!
We had some time to kill until the next fatty meal, so we decided to go swimming a bit to investigate their pools as well as to consume extra beer calories. On the way to the pool, we swung by the famous Dolphin Quest, where about 10 "Atlantic" bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, were trained spending the day interacting with humans.
Unlike scarred up wild dolphins, these dolphins were so clean and beautiful as they have been meticulously cared there by the Dolphin Quest stuff and some were even born there.
The enclosure was somewhat small but it was much better than most of enclosures I've ever seen else where. The water was clean and crystal clear all the time with a natural lagoon beach setting. Dolphins seemed happy there, too. That's very important to me as I believe that all mammals have and develop "feelings" just like us humans. Unlike other creatures like fish and invertebrates, mammals feel joy, happiness, sadness or pain.
As I have a privilege to deal with wild marine mammals such as dolphins & whales frequently over a decade, I learned to sense their mood because I could only take pictures of them when they let me. In the wild, sometimes they are friendly and come closer to play with me, and other times they don't want to see me at all. I just have to meet them at the right time at the right place. Hey, that's not easy!
Other than mammals such as sharks, fish and inverts are, to me, easy to take pictures of. Unlike mammals, their behaviors are rational and very much predictable based on their natural mechanism, genes, and not based on their feelings and emotions.
Anyway I can only hope those dolphins in captivities are well taken care of for the rest of their lives, and contribute to their honorable projects in a very positive way.
It was getting late, and now it's time to accomplish our mission. Actually I was getting a bit nervous. I know I ain't gonna be a good spy as I pretty much suck at lying. Even if this mission is out of good cause, I felt guilty to pretend to be someone that I was not. I thought my wife was much better at this, so I let my wife speak most of the time.
There were some minor happenings throughout the mission, but over all everything went well as we planned. The restaurant had great service and atmosphere at their prime location. We always wanted to check out this famous restaurant, but their price and not-so-good reputation held us back for all these years.
Guess what. We were right. The food there wasn't so good...lobsters tasted like dirt/mud, signature pork chop and fillet mignon were hard and dry, cocktail drinks were too thin, and we saw the tiniest piece of foie gra we have ever seen in our lives on the fillet mignon, etc. etc... Over all tastes of every dish were not quite right, in other words, sucked. If you consider their outrageous price, you would feel even much worth when paying. Lucky for us, we didn't have to pay for the tab. It was $250. Oh my..!?
Our mission was accomplished. Despite the bad tasting food, we had great time, having wines & beers, and laughing at the thumbnail size foie gra under romantic Hawaiian torches at the nicest table over looking Pacific Ocean.
Next morning we were notified by our contact that they didn't do any wrong doing to us. We were honestly disappointed at the outcome but our contact liked us very much and promised to use us again! So that's all great!
We spent the rest of the day swimming, drinking and shopping. We've been working so hard nowadays under the bad global economy, so this break became a perfect short vacation to enjoy and to get rejuvenated.
At the end of the day, we decided to stroll the famous beach at `Anaeho`omalu Bay aka A-Bay. Ever since the Kilauea erupted again more actively, the volcanic gas aka vog has been filling the skies of most of the Big Island. Today as usual in nowadays the vog was pretty heavy, but the sunset looked much better here than Kona where we live. The vog in Kona and South West Hawaii has been much worth than one in Kohala and North West Hawaii.
As we strolled on the beach, we found some green sea turtles, Chelonia mydas, basking. The sleepy turtle with sunset...I was able to capture a peaceful, beautiful moment of a turtle's life in Hawaii.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Pantropical Spotted Dolphin Play - Part II
This day is continuing from The Beauty Of The Oceanic Whitetip Shark - 10/30/08 Part I
After we had great time with the beautiful shark, we moved on toward C buoy to catch some fish for dinner. Half way there...we found a few fishing boats getting together further offshore. We immediately sensed that there were a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata, as those fishing boats were going after large yellowfin tunas or ahi in Hawaiian, Thunnus albacares, which frequently traveled with such dolphin pod.
First thing I do in this situation is to see if dolphins are playful. Pantropical spotted dolphins are usually very playful when they are awake and excited, and love to ride wakes of boats. Even when they are not playful or in a sleepy mood, they like to hang out at the bow. In addition, they frequently display spectacular leaps. Large adult dolphins leap as high as 30 feet or more in the air. From my observation, most of the time, they seem to rocket out of the water and then land hard on the water in order to get rid of remoras off their bodies. Sometimes I believe they do that just for fun.
Today they were extra playful. Jumping all over the boat wake I created and gave us good opportunities to take some pictures of their play. Unfortunately it was already afternoon, so the sun is overhead and vog (volcanic gas) kicked in to obscure the scenes.
Well...the light wasn't so good but thanks to the dolphins, we managed to produce some cool dolphin pictures. This picture shows a leaping baby dolphin in my boat wake. It jumped a few times in a row, so I was able to grab a shot. The baby dolphin typically have pretty pink belly and no spots like this ones.
While we played with dolphins, we closely watched other fishing boats to see if anybody is catching humongous ahi. It seemed like they were having tough time catching one today. As Sue and I don't have as much patience as those professional tuna fishermen who troll all day long among leaping dolphins, besides the vog got thickened, we left the scenes to continue to the way points of the day.
We picked up a few live baits at C buoy, a mackerel scad or opelu in Hawaiian, Decapterus macarellus, and a couple of juvenile amberjack or kahala in Hawaiian, Seriola dumerili. Besides being great at dinner table, these were perfect live bait for larger fish which we were after such as common dolphinfish or mahi mahi in Hawaiian, Coryphaena hippurus, and ahi.
Nothing much was happening at C buoy, so we hurried to B buoy for another 10 miles as we were informed by Doug. At B buoy, things were definitely happening. Fish were jumping all over and birds were flying. A few fishermen from the town of Milolii were there picking up small ahi and skipjack tunas or aku in Hawaiian, Katsuwonus pelamis. As we troll a small jig, we immediately caught a decent sized aku. After that, we continued to troll for a while and filled our cooler for friends and families to share.
As we look closely at those fishermen, we noticed that they were picking up small ahi. We started jigging deep but they weren't biting metal slabs, so we switched to use our stinky baits. We immediately hooked an ahi, and then a mysterious, much larger predator grabbed my hooked tuna in deep. A tug of war was started, but with what? Well...we soon learned that it was a shark as we reeled in just the head of the tuna with teeth marks.
We also found out that there were more than one sharks around as the fishermen hooked the other shark next to us at about the same time. As we watched the fisherman struggled with the large shark at the surface, we noticed that the shark was appeared to be a rarer silky shark, Carcharhinus falciformis (they are not that common to see around Hawaii). Next moment...pretty sad thing happened. The fisherman shot the shark three times in the head. They killed it and discarded it in the ocean. What a waste...
I understand that they were protecting their livelihood but it was very sad to see them killing such a beautiful shark for small commercial catches of juvenile tunas. Since taking shark pictures is my profession, I wanted to protect my livelihood, the shark, but I couldn't say anything to him who had a gun in his hand at moment. It's definitely something wrong here.
Anyway, to begin with..they shouldn't be catching those small tunas for sale, and also shouldn't be killing the shark to make it a perfect waste of natural resources.
We wanted to catch a couple of tuna for dinner before going home, but unfortunately a gang of rough-toothed dolphins, Steno bredanensis, showed up, which makes fishing at FAD much more difficult as they were so smart that they could snatch only the good bodies of hooked fish without getting themselves hooked. As we were disgusted by the act of the fishermen in addition to the presence of dolphins which were literally waiting for us to hook some fish for them, we decided to get back home.
On the way home, we finally saw fish were jumping around C buoy, so we put a small aku jig and swung by the buoy. To our surprise, my reel screamed as soon as we passed the buoy. Hanapa'a! Fish on!!! It was a huge bull mahi mahi which ate the tiny King-king lure!!! We battled with that mahi mahi for about 30 min and finally got him close to the boat to see if there were any followers. There was one swimming right next to the hooked mahi mahi as large as the one on the hook.
Normally it's easy to pick up the other one as we use the hooked one as " Charlie" or the fish attractor, but this one wasn't buying it. We threw jigs and all kind of artificial lures at him. In the end, we gave him a live bait...but he had no interest.
We were exhorted mentally and physically after another 30 minutes of try-out in vain. We gave up on the other one and decided to settle with one mahi mahi as the sun was setting. And then something unimaginable happened! At the very moment I touched the leader for gaffing...the leader line broke...Oh, Noooooooooo! As we were so excited about the hook-up, we completely forgot about the fact that we hooked this 40lb bull on 30lb aku rig!!!
The fish escaped into deep with his buddy. After all we ended up with nothing! Lesson to be learned here from Mahatma Gandhi "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." Damn, right!
After we had great time with the beautiful shark, we moved on toward C buoy to catch some fish for dinner. Half way there...we found a few fishing boats getting together further offshore. We immediately sensed that there were a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata, as those fishing boats were going after large yellowfin tunas or ahi in Hawaiian, Thunnus albacares, which frequently traveled with such dolphin pod.
First thing I do in this situation is to see if dolphins are playful. Pantropical spotted dolphins are usually very playful when they are awake and excited, and love to ride wakes of boats. Even when they are not playful or in a sleepy mood, they like to hang out at the bow. In addition, they frequently display spectacular leaps. Large adult dolphins leap as high as 30 feet or more in the air. From my observation, most of the time, they seem to rocket out of the water and then land hard on the water in order to get rid of remoras off their bodies. Sometimes I believe they do that just for fun.
Today they were extra playful. Jumping all over the boat wake I created and gave us good opportunities to take some pictures of their play. Unfortunately it was already afternoon, so the sun is overhead and vog (volcanic gas) kicked in to obscure the scenes.
Well...the light wasn't so good but thanks to the dolphins, we managed to produce some cool dolphin pictures. This picture shows a leaping baby dolphin in my boat wake. It jumped a few times in a row, so I was able to grab a shot. The baby dolphin typically have pretty pink belly and no spots like this ones.
While we played with dolphins, we closely watched other fishing boats to see if anybody is catching humongous ahi. It seemed like they were having tough time catching one today. As Sue and I don't have as much patience as those professional tuna fishermen who troll all day long among leaping dolphins, besides the vog got thickened, we left the scenes to continue to the way points of the day.
We picked up a few live baits at C buoy, a mackerel scad or opelu in Hawaiian, Decapterus macarellus, and a couple of juvenile amberjack or kahala in Hawaiian, Seriola dumerili. Besides being great at dinner table, these were perfect live bait for larger fish which we were after such as common dolphinfish or mahi mahi in Hawaiian, Coryphaena hippurus, and ahi.
Nothing much was happening at C buoy, so we hurried to B buoy for another 10 miles as we were informed by Doug. At B buoy, things were definitely happening. Fish were jumping all over and birds were flying. A few fishermen from the town of Milolii were there picking up small ahi and skipjack tunas or aku in Hawaiian, Katsuwonus pelamis. As we troll a small jig, we immediately caught a decent sized aku. After that, we continued to troll for a while and filled our cooler for friends and families to share.
As we look closely at those fishermen, we noticed that they were picking up small ahi. We started jigging deep but they weren't biting metal slabs, so we switched to use our stinky baits. We immediately hooked an ahi, and then a mysterious, much larger predator grabbed my hooked tuna in deep. A tug of war was started, but with what? Well...we soon learned that it was a shark as we reeled in just the head of the tuna with teeth marks.
We also found out that there were more than one sharks around as the fishermen hooked the other shark next to us at about the same time. As we watched the fisherman struggled with the large shark at the surface, we noticed that the shark was appeared to be a rarer silky shark, Carcharhinus falciformis (they are not that common to see around Hawaii). Next moment...pretty sad thing happened. The fisherman shot the shark three times in the head. They killed it and discarded it in the ocean. What a waste...
I understand that they were protecting their livelihood but it was very sad to see them killing such a beautiful shark for small commercial catches of juvenile tunas. Since taking shark pictures is my profession, I wanted to protect my livelihood, the shark, but I couldn't say anything to him who had a gun in his hand at moment. It's definitely something wrong here.
Anyway, to begin with..they shouldn't be catching those small tunas for sale, and also shouldn't be killing the shark to make it a perfect waste of natural resources.
We wanted to catch a couple of tuna for dinner before going home, but unfortunately a gang of rough-toothed dolphins, Steno bredanensis, showed up, which makes fishing at FAD much more difficult as they were so smart that they could snatch only the good bodies of hooked fish without getting themselves hooked. As we were disgusted by the act of the fishermen in addition to the presence of dolphins which were literally waiting for us to hook some fish for them, we decided to get back home.
On the way home, we finally saw fish were jumping around C buoy, so we put a small aku jig and swung by the buoy. To our surprise, my reel screamed as soon as we passed the buoy. Hanapa'a! Fish on!!! It was a huge bull mahi mahi which ate the tiny King-king lure!!! We battled with that mahi mahi for about 30 min and finally got him close to the boat to see if there were any followers. There was one swimming right next to the hooked mahi mahi as large as the one on the hook.
Normally it's easy to pick up the other one as we use the hooked one as " Charlie" or the fish attractor, but this one wasn't buying it. We threw jigs and all kind of artificial lures at him. In the end, we gave him a live bait...but he had no interest.
We were exhorted mentally and physically after another 30 minutes of try-out in vain. We gave up on the other one and decided to settle with one mahi mahi as the sun was setting. And then something unimaginable happened! At the very moment I touched the leader for gaffing...the leader line broke...Oh, Noooooooooo! As we were so excited about the hook-up, we completely forgot about the fact that we hooked this 40lb bull on 30lb aku rig!!!
The fish escaped into deep with his buddy. After all we ended up with nothing! Lesson to be learned here from Mahatma Gandhi "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." Damn, right!
The Beauty Of The Oceanic Whitetip Shark - Part I
The weather has been not so great lately as if the season seems changing from the fall to the winter. Yes, folks, Hawaii has sort of four seasons. Today was...well, beautiful. One sunny day with almost no wind, and less vog (volcanic gas). Water was choppy due to small swells but I know the day like this makes great pictures.
My buddy, Sue, and I went out from Honokohau Harbor at about 10:00 am as we had business to take care of in the morning. Besides, my boat wasn't so ready for this morning's excursion because I unloaded many equipment last week in order to take it in to the repair shop for some engine check-ups. So it took some time to get everything loaded and ready.
I found the port side engine still had the stalling problem and was not generating the proper horse power, but we continued to go out offshore. I had a single engine boat before this, so it is definitely great to have twin engines for that matter.
We had a good heads-up report from Doug. He was out yesterday and said that mahi mahi (common dolphinfish or dorado), Coryphaena hippurus, and ono (wahoo or Pacific kingfish), Acanthocybium solandri, were hanging at C buoy FAD (Fish Aggregation Device), and tuna fishing was pretty hot at B buoy, plus he had good oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, encounter at B buoy, so we planned our trip accordingly. As we made a beeline for C buoy from Honokohau Harbor, we found a logging pod of short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus, almost exactly where we found a pod of pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata, two weeks ago (see blog...).
Immediately after I slipped into the deep water, I was greeted by an oceanic whitetip shark charging toward me from the depth to investigate me. Most of the people would get into panic when they see a large shark coming right at them, but I've been doing this long enough and now I know exactly what to do in this situation as a photographer. Typically I would have only a shot or two at most. As I expected, the shark came very close, bumped the dome port slightly, and then circled me once and disappeared into the deep. I was able to grab a coupe of decent shot of the shark.
As I hurried back to my boat to regroup to get another underwater strobe and some shark baits, I found a much larger 9 foot shark following right behind me. The situation like that would also create panic to most of people's mind but I've got used to that now as I've experienced this so many times in the past. Well...so far none of the shark has bitten me yet. Sharks are typically attracted by the gargling and splashing sound which was created by my fin-kicks. I also learned from my experience that they liked all kinds of squeaking sound that my camera housing and strobe arms created.
Anyway, to produce some decent shark pictures, I need the shark to be within a foot or two. In order to keep the shark interested in me, I intentionally made more sounds by kicking horrendously like a panicking swimmer and moving strobe arms to recreate bone-crashing sounds as I approached my boat. It can be extremely dangerous, so please do not do what I do.
The oceanic whitetip sharks are known to attack humans. FishBase.org explains, " This is an active, almost fearless shark also charged in human attacks. Probably responsible for many open-ocean attacks after air or sea disasters." I totally agree. Sometimes, they are so persistent that they stick around forever until they get some. One time I had about 6 oceanic whitetip sharks circled my puny single engine 17-foot CC boat for all day long. My buddy fed the sharks a bit too much and got them so excited that they started biting every metal object of my camera housings and strobe arms, and also the engine body and the propeller. I stopped the engine and put it up to avoid scratches from their laser sharp teeth. I was able to shoot some good pictures with my pole camera, but at the end of the day, they got us so scared when the boat engine didn't start for a long while. It eventually started and saved us from becoming shark attack victims of sea disasters.
I usually get out of the water when there are more sharks than I can handle by myself. Typically two are fine but more than that...I don't think I can watch my back (and the sharks usually sneak up behind to attack) unless I have some one with me in the water with a spear gun or a stick for protection.
As I finally reached my boat along with the 9 foot shark, I asked Sue to get me another strobe and prepare some baits for the big shark. As soon as she dropped a couple of baits, the shark ate them and decided to stick around with us instead of getting going with the pilot whales. Unfortunately the shark had only one pilot fish, Naucrates ductor, with it, but the shark was one of the most beautiful individual shark I have ever seen. The shark didn't have many scars as typically found in many larger sharks, and the form was stunningly balanced with white-tipped large round dorsal fin, extra long pectoral fins and caudal fins which are characteristic of this offshore shark species and after which this shark species was named as longimanus = long hand in Latin.
As the water surface was glass-calm, the scene of this beautiful shark and its reflection was absolutely splendid and fantastic. Although the visibility wasn't so good, the shark was so so cooperative and I was able to capture some of the most memorable scenes with my camera.
This awesome day continues to 10/30/08 Part II
My buddy, Sue, and I went out from Honokohau Harbor at about 10:00 am as we had business to take care of in the morning. Besides, my boat wasn't so ready for this morning's excursion because I unloaded many equipment last week in order to take it in to the repair shop for some engine check-ups. So it took some time to get everything loaded and ready.
I found the port side engine still had the stalling problem and was not generating the proper horse power, but we continued to go out offshore. I had a single engine boat before this, so it is definitely great to have twin engines for that matter.
We had a good heads-up report from Doug. He was out yesterday and said that mahi mahi (common dolphinfish or dorado), Coryphaena hippurus, and ono (wahoo or Pacific kingfish), Acanthocybium solandri, were hanging at C buoy FAD (Fish Aggregation Device), and tuna fishing was pretty hot at B buoy, plus he had good oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, encounter at B buoy, so we planned our trip accordingly. As we made a beeline for C buoy from Honokohau Harbor, we found a logging pod of short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus, almost exactly where we found a pod of pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata, two weeks ago (see blog...).
Immediately after I slipped into the deep water, I was greeted by an oceanic whitetip shark charging toward me from the depth to investigate me. Most of the people would get into panic when they see a large shark coming right at them, but I've been doing this long enough and now I know exactly what to do in this situation as a photographer. Typically I would have only a shot or two at most. As I expected, the shark came very close, bumped the dome port slightly, and then circled me once and disappeared into the deep. I was able to grab a coupe of decent shot of the shark.
As I hurried back to my boat to regroup to get another underwater strobe and some shark baits, I found a much larger 9 foot shark following right behind me. The situation like that would also create panic to most of people's mind but I've got used to that now as I've experienced this so many times in the past. Well...so far none of the shark has bitten me yet. Sharks are typically attracted by the gargling and splashing sound which was created by my fin-kicks. I also learned from my experience that they liked all kinds of squeaking sound that my camera housing and strobe arms created.
Anyway, to produce some decent shark pictures, I need the shark to be within a foot or two. In order to keep the shark interested in me, I intentionally made more sounds by kicking horrendously like a panicking swimmer and moving strobe arms to recreate bone-crashing sounds as I approached my boat. It can be extremely dangerous, so please do not do what I do.
The oceanic whitetip sharks are known to attack humans. FishBase.org explains, " This is an active, almost fearless shark also charged in human attacks. Probably responsible for many open-ocean attacks after air or sea disasters." I totally agree. Sometimes, they are so persistent that they stick around forever until they get some. One time I had about 6 oceanic whitetip sharks circled my puny single engine 17-foot CC boat for all day long. My buddy fed the sharks a bit too much and got them so excited that they started biting every metal object of my camera housings and strobe arms, and also the engine body and the propeller. I stopped the engine and put it up to avoid scratches from their laser sharp teeth. I was able to shoot some good pictures with my pole camera, but at the end of the day, they got us so scared when the boat engine didn't start for a long while. It eventually started and saved us from becoming shark attack victims of sea disasters.
I usually get out of the water when there are more sharks than I can handle by myself. Typically two are fine but more than that...I don't think I can watch my back (and the sharks usually sneak up behind to attack) unless I have some one with me in the water with a spear gun or a stick for protection.
As I finally reached my boat along with the 9 foot shark, I asked Sue to get me another strobe and prepare some baits for the big shark. As soon as she dropped a couple of baits, the shark ate them and decided to stick around with us instead of getting going with the pilot whales. Unfortunately the shark had only one pilot fish, Naucrates ductor, with it, but the shark was one of the most beautiful individual shark I have ever seen. The shark didn't have many scars as typically found in many larger sharks, and the form was stunningly balanced with white-tipped large round dorsal fin, extra long pectoral fins and caudal fins which are characteristic of this offshore shark species and after which this shark species was named as longimanus = long hand in Latin.
As the water surface was glass-calm, the scene of this beautiful shark and its reflection was absolutely splendid and fantastic. Although the visibility wasn't so good, the shark was so so cooperative and I was able to capture some of the most memorable scenes with my camera.
This awesome day continues to 10/30/08 Part II
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Pygmy Killer Whale Families
Weather was fine today but the ocean was fairly choppy. Ten minutes after my buddy, Sue and I left the Honokohau harbor, I started feeling my head spinning...I was dizzy. It was a sure sign of sea sickness. Believe it or not, I am very much prone to sea sickness. I know, that doesn't go with my profession. As I recall, I got sea sick during almost every trip I made by boats. I was sick during the trip to Guadalupe Islands, Farallon Islands, Bahamas, etc. etc. etc. Most recently I got sick and threw up when I was out on a night fishing trip for squids and tuna (Ika-shibi fishing) with my buddy from Japan, Kenji. At night the boat rocks hard and made me totally disoriented, but that doesn't make me not want to go out at night. I will beat it one way or the other 'cause I love the night fishing!
It's genetic, right? My dad doesn't like boat, and I know I get sick most of the time when I get on a boat. However, I've got so much better when I got my own boat and started driving it myself.
Anyway while I was getting dizzy, Sue pointed at something ahead. As we got close, we learned they were Blainville's beaked whales, Mesoplodon densirostris. They are around the Big Island but it's pretty hard to find them. You just have to be lucky to see them.
In addition, they are usually very shy, so it makes this whale species one of the most difficult animals to photograph. I have some OK pictures of this species but I would like something much better.
It seemed that they were playing with something or feeding on something at the surface, so I thought I could have a chance to sneak up on them (only if they let me, of course). This time we approached them very cautiously, stopped the boat far from them and I swam out with my camera. As soon as I reached about 100 feet from the boat or maybe about another 200 feet to them, they dove and disappeared. I was disappointed but this is pretty much how the marine wildlife photography goes most of the time.
As I continued to swim toward them, I found some carcass of large squid - estimated diameter of about 8 inches and 4-5 feet in length. We knew Dr. Bird, who has been studying beaked whales around Hawaii, and he has been asking us to collect those, so we put it in a bag and iced it. It was a fresh kill but it was slimy and stinky...yikes! It looked like a humboldt squid, Dosidicus gigas, but I don't think those squids live here. It's definitely a type of deep water squid and we are hoping it's possibly a juvenile giant squid, Architeuthis sp. I'll let you know if I find out.
>
My sea sickness was gone and so were whales. We moved on. On the way to our next way point, we found a pod of pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata. Again they are one of those species that we don't regularly see. With a luck, I see them up north during humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, season, so this would be the first time for me to see them down South.
We were lucky with the finding of the whale, but the weather was getting bad. Strong wind started blow and clouds was covering the sky in a hurry. I slipped into the water and soon I was greeted with a curious scouting whale. The pod was made of about 50 whales, and I saw many mother and calf combinations. Some calves still had neonatal folds and looked fairly small.
They didn't let me get close enough to make a seriously good picture, but they let me swim by their side, so I was able to observe some cute and cuddly activities between mothers and calves. Calves were very playful and even breached a few times right in front of me. After I grabbed some profile shots (that was all I could get). I switched the position with Sue while they were still playful because she has never swam with them before. Luckily she was also able to swim by them and observe them play underwater. We followed them for a while but the ocean condition was getting worth with gusty wind and dark clouds, and eventually they disappeared among dark waves.
Despite the yucky weather, we continued to get to the next way point. Photography may suck under this condition, but we can still have fun catching some fish for dinner. At C buoy FAD (Fish Aggregation Device), we picked up several mackerel scads or opelu in Hawaiian, Decapterus macarellus, for live baits or our dinner.
We wanted to pick up a bit more fish but the offshore ocean condition was getting pretty bad and reached the point where we couldn't continue fishing due to continuous rough waves hitting my boat pretty hard. We decided to go inshore and fish. As you may have noticed, Sue and I normally don't fish inshore because we are afraid of ciguatera poisoning. Ciguatera is food poisoning illness caused by eating large predatory fish which feeds on ciguatoxin contaminated small reef fish and accumulates such poison in their body. Ciguatoxin is invisible and doesn't smell, either. The only way to find out is to run a chemical test (see Wikipedia Ciguatera for more information).
We've known our mutual friend and photographer/author, Carlos, who got ciguatera poisoned long time ago, and couldn't eat any fish for the rest of his life. As we love to eat fish, we don't want that to happen to us.
However, I also know that my Hawaiian fishing masters, Jim & George, catch and eat them all the time, as well as those shore fishermen. So I think it would be ok to eat them as long as we avoid eating huge fish like adult giant trevally or ulua in Hawaiian, Caranx ignobilis. My masters say that the best tasting fish is a gray snapper or uku in Hawaiian, Aprion virescens, so we decided to go for it.
As we looked for a good fishing spot for uku, we encountered a large pod of long-snouted spinner dolphins, Stenella longirostris. It was late afternoon and the dolphins seemed pretty active getting ready to leave for their routine night hunting. As soon as we approached them, they came all over us...wake-riding, bow-riding, jumping, leaping... They put up a quite show for us. Unfortunately the condition was super-gloomy, dark, gray...for photography.
Because the condition was too bad, we left the playful dolphins and continued to look for a fishing ground. As the day was ending, we picked a spot (not ideal) and dropped some bait and waited. Nothing happened. We tried a few more times but couldn't get anything although we had a bite but didn't hook up. Well...time's up. It was a gloomy day, condition-wise, and we had no good fish catch, but we had great time AS ALWAYS!
It's genetic, right? My dad doesn't like boat, and I know I get sick most of the time when I get on a boat. However, I've got so much better when I got my own boat and started driving it myself.
Anyway while I was getting dizzy, Sue pointed at something ahead. As we got close, we learned they were Blainville's beaked whales, Mesoplodon densirostris. They are around the Big Island but it's pretty hard to find them. You just have to be lucky to see them.
In addition, they are usually very shy, so it makes this whale species one of the most difficult animals to photograph. I have some OK pictures of this species but I would like something much better.
It seemed that they were playing with something or feeding on something at the surface, so I thought I could have a chance to sneak up on them (only if they let me, of course). This time we approached them very cautiously, stopped the boat far from them and I swam out with my camera. As soon as I reached about 100 feet from the boat or maybe about another 200 feet to them, they dove and disappeared. I was disappointed but this is pretty much how the marine wildlife photography goes most of the time.
As I continued to swim toward them, I found some carcass of large squid - estimated diameter of about 8 inches and 4-5 feet in length. We knew Dr. Bird, who has been studying beaked whales around Hawaii, and he has been asking us to collect those, so we put it in a bag and iced it. It was a fresh kill but it was slimy and stinky...yikes! It looked like a humboldt squid, Dosidicus gigas, but I don't think those squids live here. It's definitely a type of deep water squid and we are hoping it's possibly a juvenile giant squid, Architeuthis sp. I'll let you know if I find out.
>
My sea sickness was gone and so were whales. We moved on. On the way to our next way point, we found a pod of pygmy killer whales, Feresa attenuata. Again they are one of those species that we don't regularly see. With a luck, I see them up north during humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, season, so this would be the first time for me to see them down South.
We were lucky with the finding of the whale, but the weather was getting bad. Strong wind started blow and clouds was covering the sky in a hurry. I slipped into the water and soon I was greeted with a curious scouting whale. The pod was made of about 50 whales, and I saw many mother and calf combinations. Some calves still had neonatal folds and looked fairly small.
They didn't let me get close enough to make a seriously good picture, but they let me swim by their side, so I was able to observe some cute and cuddly activities between mothers and calves. Calves were very playful and even breached a few times right in front of me. After I grabbed some profile shots (that was all I could get). I switched the position with Sue while they were still playful because she has never swam with them before. Luckily she was also able to swim by them and observe them play underwater. We followed them for a while but the ocean condition was getting worth with gusty wind and dark clouds, and eventually they disappeared among dark waves.
Despite the yucky weather, we continued to get to the next way point. Photography may suck under this condition, but we can still have fun catching some fish for dinner. At C buoy FAD (Fish Aggregation Device), we picked up several mackerel scads or opelu in Hawaiian, Decapterus macarellus, for live baits or our dinner.
We wanted to pick up a bit more fish but the offshore ocean condition was getting pretty bad and reached the point where we couldn't continue fishing due to continuous rough waves hitting my boat pretty hard. We decided to go inshore and fish. As you may have noticed, Sue and I normally don't fish inshore because we are afraid of ciguatera poisoning. Ciguatera is food poisoning illness caused by eating large predatory fish which feeds on ciguatoxin contaminated small reef fish and accumulates such poison in their body. Ciguatoxin is invisible and doesn't smell, either. The only way to find out is to run a chemical test (see Wikipedia Ciguatera for more information).
We've known our mutual friend and photographer/author, Carlos, who got ciguatera poisoned long time ago, and couldn't eat any fish for the rest of his life. As we love to eat fish, we don't want that to happen to us.
However, I also know that my Hawaiian fishing masters, Jim & George, catch and eat them all the time, as well as those shore fishermen. So I think it would be ok to eat them as long as we avoid eating huge fish like adult giant trevally or ulua in Hawaiian, Caranx ignobilis. My masters say that the best tasting fish is a gray snapper or uku in Hawaiian, Aprion virescens, so we decided to go for it.
As we looked for a good fishing spot for uku, we encountered a large pod of long-snouted spinner dolphins, Stenella longirostris. It was late afternoon and the dolphins seemed pretty active getting ready to leave for their routine night hunting. As soon as we approached them, they came all over us...wake-riding, bow-riding, jumping, leaping... They put up a quite show for us. Unfortunately the condition was super-gloomy, dark, gray...for photography.
Because the condition was too bad, we left the playful dolphins and continued to look for a fishing ground. As the day was ending, we picked a spot (not ideal) and dropped some bait and waited. Nothing happened. We tried a few more times but couldn't get anything although we had a bite but didn't hook up. Well...time's up. It was a gloomy day, condition-wise, and we had no good fish catch, but we had great time AS ALWAYS!
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