Enjoying Hawaii's Sharks

I enjoy going out on the ocean, especially since we live in Hawaii but sometimes life just makes it a bit hard to get out - especially around April 15th. Well, taxes are all filed on time and I am taking a well deserved day on the ocean.

We head out of Honokohau Harbor around 11 a.m. - having a few boat issues slowed us down. I think everyone knows that having a boat sit around for 3 weeks is almost like automatically signing the credit card bills for the repairs - rust just never seems to take a day off.

We headed out of the harbor and immediately saw Hawaiian spinner dolphins, Stenella longirostris, leaping by the green buoy. The spinner dolphins are almost always here - hanging out and sleeping during the day and then going out at night to hunt. They were in resting mode so we just left them be and continued on. We passed a NOAA research vessel and then head over to neaby FAD (Fish Aggregation Device) - absolutely nothing was happening there so we decided to go out to an offshore FAD lacated 10 nautical miles from there.

The ocean looked so calm from my house - but even though there were no wind waves the swell was actually quite large. A large swell makes it hard to find animals - really hard - but I'm actually really good at finding creatures! I thought I saw a splash - and sure enough we spotted a pod of pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata. It was a large school and the sport fishing boats were all in it hoping to latch onto a big tuna. We were hoping to get a shot of those spectacular leaps that pantropical dolphins do - they can leap so high it seems unreal. However - the pantropical dolphins were in feeding mode - this means they were all over the place - zig zagging all around and definitely not interested in playing with us. It was frustrating - dolphins leaping all over the place but in totally unpredictable locations - you simply couldn't track them! It is not always about photography - dolphins sure can make you smile! After awhile we came to the realization that we had been there for quite some time - and only taken three shots! Not exactly productive for wildlife photographers!

We decided on an alternative plan and turned the boat in search of that offshore FAD buoy - the most elusive buoy of all. This buoy swings a lot - it can be off by a couple of miles from the position you marked the previous week - and if it is off and the swell is high it is almost impossible to find it unless you have luck. Well no luck for us today (or at least not yet!) and no FAD to be found. Time to head on to another buoy down south.

When we found the next buoy we knew the fish were biting - lots of boats around is always a good sign. We tried jigging and caught a bigeye tuna almost immediately. The current was really kicking so we drifted quite fast. We would try to drop where the fish were - and according to our Garmin fish finder this place was loaded - but the current drifted us back so quickly that we ended up past the fish before we started jigging. A bit of maneuvering finally got us into a good position and both Masa & I got a hit on our lines. A few minutes later our deck had two convenient sized bigeye tunas on it. I like the 20-30 pounder range - bigger than that and I just can't fillet it myself. However today my fish was being given away as a gift - thanks Gerald & Ann - my carpool couldn't survive without you - hope you like the fish!

Masa decided to get in the water and try out his new fins - he had gotten huge fins and was itching to see how they worked. He got in and I handed him his camera so he could get the feel of things. He was swimming around, diving down and checking things out when all of a sudden he comes up and shouts SHARK! I saw the shadow underwater and then the fin started cutting the surface heading straight to Masa. Now we run a stock photo agency that specializes in sharks - we LOVE sharks, have experience with them and respect them. Living in Hawaii and going out where other people don't we encounter sharks. The most common shark that we encounter is the oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus. Oceanic whitetip sharks are not a common shark elsewhere - but in Hawaii these ocean cruisers are around - not near the shore but far out in the blue water.

Oceanic whitetip sharks are beautiful, but very aggressive and have been known to attack humans. The shark went straight at Masa (this is normal), bumped into his camera housing that was held in front of him (totally normal), then bumped it a second time - this is not so normal - then threw his tail - kind of like a peduncle throw - straight at Masa (this never happens). By now I am shouting at Masa to get out of the water - this was a big shark - a ten footer and it wasn't scared, or cautious or anything. It was powerful and supremely aware of its status as an apex predator. Then Masa pops his head up and says - "WOW - it's so beautiful! Sue you have to get in here to see this - it is fantastic!" I'm thinking a ten foot aggressive shark can be as beautiful as the Michelangelo's David and I'm not getting off this boat to see it - thank you very much!

Then Masa shouted "There's another one!" Sure enough another shadow began to approach Masa - but no fin cutting the water - this one looked smaller and I was able to see it was loaded with pilot fish, Naucrates ductor. Pilot fish are often found with oceanic whitetip sharks - theirs is considered to be a symbiotic relationship, mutualism - the shark gets cleaned of its parasites and the pilot fish feed on the scraps of the sharks (sharks are notoriously messy eaters). Pilot fish look like they are escaped prisoners from an old time movie - they are dressed from head to toe in black and white bars.

These were larger pilot fish than I normally see - maybe a 1 to 1-1/2 foot in length. The pilot fish were curious and left their shark host to come visit the boat - they hung out with me for a bit while the sharks disappeared. But of course the sharks were not done - they had found something very interesting floating in the ocean -MASA - and they wanted to see exactly what he was about. At this point I was begging Masa to get out of the water - but Masa has been in the water with a lot of sharks, he has over a decade of experience with them and he was totally calm. I kept threatening to call his wife and tell her exactly what he was doing but he seemed unperturbed and thrilled to be the center of the sharks' attention.

The big shark was the one that simply didn't follow proper shark protocol - apparently it hadn't read the shark handbook before it showed up. I rarely see fins of this shark species cutting the water - but this one was above the water a lot - you could clearly see where it was and where it was heading. And, of course, it was heading directly at Masa - again - for a nice hard bump against his housing and then it swam over to say high to me on the boat. It even poked its head out of the water (sorry no pictures of this). Contrary to my wishes, Masa comfortably cruised with the 10 foot shark and its smaller sidekick for about 45 minutes - and then as silently as they came, they left. Masa finally got out of the water and then I got to put my head under a towel to see what he had seen in the back of a 3 inch on camera LCD screen. Wow, did he get some great shots! They looked incredibly awesome and I was hoping he would get around to posting a few here for everyone.

Well, I know you are all thinking I'm a big chicken - and well, I am - but the little shark loaded with pilot fish did cruise back over again - and without its gargantuan cousin I did get in the water to check it out. OK - it is true that I didn't let go of the boat or the tuna bat in my hand - but I did get to see the most beautiful shark cruising with pilot fish in the blue, blue water of Hawaii - and as Masa said - it was gorgeous!

Hunt or To be Hunted - Gang of False Killer Whales!

As some of you may have noticed from our spotty blog appearances, Masa and I haven’t been out on the water quite as much as we’d like to. It’s the holiday season, when everything is really hectic, so things like fishing excursions get put on the back burner. We also had some technical issues to cope with at my SeaPics.com office, which occupied much of our time. Finally, on the 20th, we managed to embark at long last.

As a change from our usual pattern, we launched Masa's boat from Honokohau Harbor, which is just north of Kona town, rather than from the southern marina, Keauhou. We were hoping to find a whale shark, Rhincodon typus, as they often appear in this area in December. I bet you didn’t know whale sharks were harbingers of Santa, did you? There were reports of some sightings north of the harbor. For us, though, it remained just that: a rumor.

We took some pictures of the lighthouse and the deep sea water pipes at Keahole Point. These pipes suck up cold sea water from a few thousand feet deep and pump it to over 30 enterprises in the National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii (NELHA). Some companies use the cold, clear sea water for aquaculture, including the raising of main lobster, abalone, Japanese flounder, seahorses, algae, and more. Other companies produce mineral-rich drinking water labeled as Hawaii Deep Sea Water. This water is exported to Japan, where it commands a nice price. We recently read in the local newspaper, West Hawaii Today, that the pipe had some damage to it and would require extensive repairs.

We cruised past the open water fish farm operated by Kona Blue Water Farms. They have huge submersible net enclosures out in this area where the current rips past. They raise very tasty and now famous Kona Kampachi, almaco jack, Hawaiian yellowtail, or kahala, Seriola rivoliana. Paradoxically, farm raised amberjack is arguably healthier than the natural variety. The fish farming operation produces fish that are free from ciguatera, the reef toxin that is common to this species when they live in the natural environment. The fish are fed pellets, so they don’t ingest any reef toxins. An article from West Hawaii Today told of a recent fish breakout that occurred here. Apparently, a lot of the escaped fish just hung out in the area of the net, as they had no inclination to strike out for better things.

We took some photos of airplanes landing at Kona airport, and because it was pretty clear, we had a great view of snow-capped Mauna Kea, and got some pix of that, too. Then we hung around with the "swim with dolphins" excursion boats for a while. About 3 or 4 boats were there, and all the tourists were trying to get close to the long-snouted spinner dolphins, Stenella longirostris, that were milling about in this area. The dolphins did their spins they’re so famous for, and everyone got a nice show. A dog barking on one of the boats drove us a little nuts. I love dogs, but I wonder how the paying customers felt to have that yapping going on all day. The ocean off the Kona coast is a quiet place, unless you bring noise like that with you.

After the boats left, Masa got in for some good picture opportunities. There must have been a hundred spinner dolphins there; a real sight to behold!

We headed out to ZZ buoy - the FAD
(Fish Aggregation Device), where the water was particularly rough. We tried XX buoy next, but there was nothing there either, so we continued on. We did some fishing out at OTEC buoy and caught a couple of small bigeye tunas, Thunnus obesus, for dinner. We almost had a nice one of about 40 lbs, but the hook came off at the surface. It was getting late and we were about 15 miles offshore and about to call it a day, when we noticed something going on in the water. We first thought they were wild Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, but as we got closer, we noticed their blacker, larger bodies and discovered they were something more rare and exciting: false killer whales, Pseudorca crassidens! Two or three of them! As their latin name shows, they share characteristics with more popular orca or killer whales, Orcinus orca. False killer whales are large marine mammals that grow to about 20 feet in length with a body shape somewhat like the killer whale, but more slender and without the distinctive black and white pattern. Like the orca, they are known to attack and kill other cetaceans such as dolphins and whales.

False killer whales live around the Hawaiian Islands, but range widely. They are generally difficult to see up close, as they are rare to find in the first place and tend to shy away from boats. This time, they seemed preoccupied with something at the OTEC buoy. They appeared to be blowing bubbles toward the buoy again and again. It would certainly be dangerous to photograph such "Killer Whales" up close, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for wildlife photographer, Masa Ushioda, to capture the moment.

As we slowly approached the buoy, we noticed the ocean current was ripping, so Masa dropped in the water up current of the buoy, and drifted toward it and two of the whales. According to Masa, it turned out the whales were trying to hunt a lone bigeye tuna which was using the buoy as a shield against the whales! Masa was kicking hard and trying to stay parallel with the buoy and whales in the strong current. He was barely able to keep himself positioned far enough from the buoy to not affect the activity of the animals, but close enough to watch and photograph this rare event. Masa said the false killers occasionally looked straight at him, but they seemed unconcerned about his presence. Apparently the tuna looked a lot more appetizing to them than Masa. Lucky for him!

Besides these killer whales, there was another rare species in the vicinity, a lone silky shark, Carcharhinus falciformis. These are fairly rare in Hawaiian waters, but they’re one of the most beautiful shark species. Masa was able to snap some good shots of the shark lit up by golden sunset light, because unlike the false killer whales, it seemed more interested in him than anything else, and it circled nearby.

As the whales continued to focus on the tuna, they blew big bubbles underwater with a loud noise. It seemed like they were trying to startle the tuna away from the buoy and snatch it as it tried to escape. Two relatively smaller whales tried this technique again and again, but at the last moment, the tuna was able to swim to the other side of the buoy, escaping the sharp teeth of killer whales. As this behavior kept on, a large false killer of about 19 feet came out of nowhere and swam right by Masa’s legs and joined the rest of the whales. Now three whales with open mouths blowing bubbles ganged up on this poor, frightened tuna. Can you imagine if you were that tuna dodging these huge black monsters? Three whales persistently attacked the tuna in vain, and finally the false killer whales faded into the blue one by one. Yes, the tuna prevailed and went on to live another day!

What a day! Masa was able to get some fantastic photos of two rare species. It was really a behavior we don’t normally get to see, and Masa nailed the images nicely!

As the sun was setting, we thought we saw the false killers again in the distance, but they turned out to be short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus. It was a large pod - maybe hundreds of them - spread out for miles. We all traveled together riding large offshore swells for a while, and tried to photograph the pilot whales rocketing out of large swells like in the emergency surfacing scene of the Navy submarine from the movie, Red October. Believe me, it was very hard to capture the scene in the near-sunset because the whales were quick and totally unpredictable as to where they were going to appear. Besides, the boat was rocking pretty bad, and in the end, neither of us got a decent shot. Despite that, it was a great day for marine photography; 3 false killers, spinner dolphins and a silky shark! We’ll catch the pilot whales and the whale sharks another day!