Close Encounters with Wyland the Artist, Part II

After a marathon day with Wyland, the Artist, where we boated, swam and snorkeled all day, followed by an artist’s reception at Wyland Galleries in the evening, Wyland was up and ready for more the next day! Wyland is a machine!

It appeared his gallery reception had gone well, and Masa and I had a good time, too. Besides the awesome original Wyland art we received (see Wyland Part I blog 12/28/07), we had met Dean Bernal, the Dolphin Whisperer. Dean was famous for his work with dolphins in the Turks & Caicos, where he used to live. For years, I had been selling our SeaPics.com photos of him with JoJo, the sociable Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus (that’s Dean & Jojo in photo at left), and suddenly, here he was in Kona, where he now resides! What an amazing coincidence!

Dean’s story of why he no longer lives in the Turks & Caicos, and how he ended up in Kona, Hawaii is a little long and personal, so I won’t go into detail. I will say, however, that the story involves a stopover in Crete, where sirens sing to you and cure whatever ails you. Enough about that, and on to our adventures with Wyland!

It was Saturday morning, the 29th, and we still wanted to see humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae, so we headed north. If you come to Big Island, Hawaii during whale season, which is December to March, you’ll usually find majority of migrated humpback whales north of the Kona airport, especially up in the Kohala Coast region. Humpback whales breed here in winter after their long migration from Alaska.

As we headed north, Wyland said he wanted to stop and check out Turtle Pinnacle, one of Kona’s better known dive sites. SeaPics.com has many photos of green sea turtles, Chelonia mydas, being cleaned by yellow tang and other reef fish, and most of them are from this spot. We have so many of these nice shots that divers visiting Kona tend to think sea turtles are always getting cleaned somewhere, waiting to be photographed. Well, the key to getting these great shots is to be at Turtle Pinnacle, a time-honored cleaning station. If you look for this anywhere else, you’ll likely be disappointed.

The water was kind of rough, but we stopped at Turtle Pinnacle for Wyland to work his magic and find some sea turtles. Strangely, though, it didn’t happen. We searched for sea turtles for about 45 minutes, but never found any. Hmm, it seemed the Wyland magic was wearing off!

We continued north, convinced we’d see some long-snouted spinner dolphins, Stenella longirostris, around the airport. Nada. We wondered where all the marine life had gone.

As we searched the area, we stumbled upon a huge fishing net drifting in the ocean. The net was so large, we couldn’t even attempt to retrieve it. Like an iceberg, the tip of it was at the surface, and the rest of it hung down, down, down, fading into the blue.

A drifting net like this is certainly a danger to marine life. On the other hand, it’s also a refuge for thousands of other species. There were countless fish using this net as a floating reef, as were the sea plants and tiny crustaceans attached to it. When small fish and inverts gather, big fish follows. Any decent size, floating objects are great fishing spot! Usually you can expect big games like yellowfin
tunas, Thunnus albacares, wahoo, Pacific kingfish or ono, Acanthocybium solandri, and dolphinfish, dorado or mahi mahi, Coryphaena hippurus, as well as off shore sharks like oceanic whitetip sharks, Carcharhinus longimanus.

Masa dropped a jig to see what's down there, and his lure was immediately hit by a fish! He caught a rainbow runners, Elagatis bipinnulatus. Rainbow runner is one of jack or trevally speceis and belongs to the Family Carangidae. Masa said it is underrated but the fish is very tasty when prepared correctly. Everytime he dropped a jig, he caught one. All sizes are pretty big for rainbow runners. After we saved some for our dinner, Masa & Wyland decided to get in the water and see what was really happening down there around the net. After a dive, Masa came back to the surface and excitedly said there were hundreds of rainbow runners, Elagatis bipinnulatus, and whitespotted filefish, Cantherhines dumerilii, and mahi mahi near the surface, and then, deep under all the fish there were a dozen wahoo hanging around. Wyland videotaped and Masa photographed those shooling fish (see Masa's picture - Wyland and hundreds of fish). Wyland said he got some great footage and we may see it in his music DVDs!

After Wyland got back in the boat, I spotted a breaching humpback whale in a distance. Wyland was eager to go see if we could get some photos of it, but Masa was thinking he wanted to stay a bit longer in the water and photograph the net. To Masa, finding this size of floating net and the amount of marine life around this humongous net was very rare and significant event, and he must document that thoroughly as a marine wildlife photographer. It's certainly one of the greatest opportunity of this kind of subject.

Wyland suggested we leave Masa at the net, check out the whales, and then come back for Masa later. Strangely, Masa was not eager to go along with this plan. It seems being left drifting with a net in the middle of the ocean was not Masa’s idea of a good way to spend the day. I admit, I could see the logic in his reasoning. Wyland promised we’d quickly return to the net and Masa, but we thought it better to all depart together to look for the whales, which is what we did.

Well, the Wyland magic was definitely on hiatus, as we didn’t saw a humpback whale the rest of the day. After looking long and hard, we decided to go back to the floating net and do some fishing. But now that net was playing hard-to-find. We went up and down the coast, looking for it. It’s a really good thing we didn’t leave Masa out there, drifting with the net, as we might never have found him again!

After half an hour or more, finally, we spotted it and this time, Masa put out a couple of trolling gears and caught a mahi mahi right away. When you catch a mahi mahi, it’s common to leave the first one on the hook for a while, as strangely, the other mahi mahi will congregate around it. This happened in textbook fashion, and within minutes we had our second mahi mahi. We caught two more mahi mahi and packed it in for the day.

We headed south to try Turtle Pinnacle one more time at Wyland's request. Masa free-dived over the pinnucle and confirmed there were no turtles. Despite Masa's scouting report, Wyland decided to go for scuba diving, so we let him go solo. While Wyland was diving, we swam and snorkeled around there for at least an hour, but never did see a turtle. Too bad for Wyland; at least we live here, so we’ll see the turtles another day!

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!

The Strange Dietary Preferences of Oceanic Whitetip Sharks

We went out earlier than usual today because we were up at an ungodly hour. I went in to work at SeaPics.com for a while before going out. Amazingly, my employee, Christine, was already in the office at 5:45 a.m. Yes folks, I have some seriously dedicated employees! There weren't many trailers down at the marina, which is usually a sign that the fishing's bad. No worries for us, because when the fishing's bad, we're taking photos. Likewise, when there's nothing to photograph, we're fishing, so we're always occupied.

We did our usual rounds of going out to the FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices), but there wasn't much happening. Masa put out all kinds of trolling lures, but we had no luck. Because we were out earlier than usual, we had a nice view of Hualalai (see picture of Hualalai volcanic mountain, 2,523m/8,271ft above sea level, last historical eruption in 1800-1801, off Kona Coast, Big Island, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean), which is often clouded over a little later in the day. There were no whales or dolphins to photograph, so we took some scenic shots of the mountain.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Big Island, Hualalai is one of the 5 volcanoes that make up this island. It's not as well-known as Mauna Kea, the highest point in the Pacific, or Mauna Loa, the most massive mountain in the world, or the active vocano, Kilauea, all of which are also on the Big Island, but it's the dominant geographical feature of Kailua Kona, where we live. Hualalai is dormant, but will no doubt erupt again at some point in the future. It last erupted in 1801, and they say it erupts in a 200-year cycle, which means ... well, let's think about fishing.

We headed south, trolling for wahoo, Pacific kingfish or ono, Acanthocybium solandri. We traveled at high speed of about 8 to 12 knotts, which is best for ono fishing, and with all the right gear out. We found ourselves in a small parade of fishing boats doing the same thing: going out to the 150 to 250 ft. depth, called "Ono Lane", then following the drop-off in a southerly direction. We did this from about 7:30 to noon. There was no action on our lines, so were taking pictures of the nothing that surrounded us. The Kona coast doesn't have the dramatic cliffs of the Hamakua Coast on the north side of the island, so pictures of this area aren't very marketable. We got some scenic photos that could make background shots for a magazine spread or pamphlet. We also got some shots of the waves crashing on the 20 ft volcanic rock cliffs when we passed by the tip of Kealakekua Bay.

Having gotten up so early on this beautiful, calm day, I was sleepy, so I slept on the deck for a while. Masa told me later that C buoy was as dead as it could be for fishing. When I woke up, he was driving the boat down to UU buoy, which is near Kona Paradise subdivision. Finally we saw some activity. There were about 5 fishing boats working at the buoy and many birds flying overhead.

We saw a small pod of short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus, nearby, maybe 9 or 10, logging. As expected, there were some oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, milling around with them. Masa wanted to get in the water for some photos. He entered the water quietly and found himself fairly close to the large bull pilot whale that was relaxing there. These bulls can be unpredictable, and Masa didn't want to get close enough to disturb it. They floated around in the water there together for about 10 minutes or so, just eyeing each other. While Masa was attempting to photograph one of the oceanic whitetip sharks coming his way, he saw one of the pilot whales poop 50 feet below, which sent the oceanic whitetips into a minor frenzy. Three of the four sharks immediately sensed the huge, free meal and rocketed into the cloud of poop, eating it. This behavior explains why they hang with the pilot whales, but it makes you wonder why they don't spend more time checking out the delectable diver in their midst. I guess whale poop is tastier, which is lucky for Masa.

Masa got back in the boat and we continued fishing. Right there at UU buoy, he got a 20 lb yellowfin tunas, Thunnus albacares, on a jig. He bled it over the side, which is what Masa does to ensure tasty sashimi. This brought those whitetips barreling over to the boat. With all that blood in the water, Masa jumps in for some pictures! Unfortunately, the whitetips didn't approach Masa close enough for the picture he wanted, of several in the same shot. Masa finally came back on the boat to try for another tuna.

Right away, he got a tuna, but with the blood in the water, those whitetips didn't let Masa enjoy it for long. They latched onto that tuna, churning up the water, and tore it apart. Now we know why the whitetips are nice to Masa; he feeds them tuna!

We headed south for a while and ran into a pod of friendly pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata. They hung with us a bit, but the light was poor, so it wasn't a great photo op.

Now we were at B buoy, which is really far out from Kona for a small boat. The B buoy is located about 5 miles offshore of an old fishing village, Miloli`i. We quickly got another tuna, 15-20 lbs, then another. These fish are great for sushi, but for the moment, we were fascinated by the small cookiecutter shark, Isistius brasiliensis, scar that decorated the side of one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with this species, a cookiecutter shark is a small (20 inch) shark that latches onto dolphins, whales and large fish with a suction action. It then twists its body in a violent motion and slices off a hunk of flesh, leaving a single circular scar of 2 to 4 inches in diameter, depending on the size of the shark. The victims generally have no long term effects from this, but live the rest of their lives with that nice, round tattoo.

On our third strike, we knew a shark was in the area. The tuna was being reeled in at a predictable pace, when suddenly, in a burst of strength, it just took off, as it tried to avoid the shark. No luck for the fish or for us, as the large shark grabbed the tuna and settled in for a short game of tug-of-war. The shark was thrashing around and cut the tuna in two; all we pulled up was the head. You'd think Masa would be disappointed to lose the tuna, but he seemed pleased that he didn't lose his jig. However, with sharks in the area, we knew we'd lose any tuna we'd catch, so we headed back to UU.

There we caught a small great barracuda, Sphyraena barracuda. Barracudas are beautiful fish, but not good for eating because of the danger of ciguatera, a reef toxin prevalent among predatory fish that inhabit tropical reefs. It's rare to catch a barracuda so far out, as they generally stick near the reefs where they feed. As we took some photos, it thrashed about and cut the line with its sharp teeth, and plunged back into the water. Chalk up another one for the fish.

For our efforts this day, we had little to speak of in the way of photographs. On the other hand, we caught several tunas and managed to land 4 intact. Great sushi tonight! And for those of you who follow this blog, we are pleased to say that Sugar, my Tibetan spaniel, did really well on the boat today; no sea sickness at all!

Face to Face with Short-finned Pilot Whales & Oceanic Whitetip Sharks!

It's been two weeks since my last blog entry, but only because we had mechanical problems. The starter on Masa's boat didn't work, so we had to get it repaired. Two weeks confined to land; hate when that happens.

Today also started out a bit iffy. We were all gassed up and down at the marina, ready to rock 'n' roll, when we realized we'd left the ice on the floor of Masa's house. Raced back for that, wondering what else would go wrong. As it turned out, the rest of the day was excellent, if you can call a day without catching any fish excellent. What we had instead was the kind of photo opportunities that remind us why we live in Kona. It was also notable for another reason, too; it was the first time on the water for my new puppy, Sugar. She's a Tibetan Spaniel, and quite possibly the cutest dog in the world. We'd get to see what kind of sea legs she had, and because I have photos to capture the moment, so will you!

As we started late, we decided to go straight to C buoy FAD
(Fish Aggregation Device) without trolling. When we left about 5 miles from Keauhou Bay, we spotted a pod of short-finned
pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus. Probably 50 or 60 of them resting at the surface. The light was perfect, so we went in their direction for some pix. As we approached, we encountered some other visitors: a small pod of wild Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, had converged on the same spot. There must have been some baitfish there, as the dolphins were swimming frantically in circles. The pilot whales were there, too, and they didn't seem happy to have the dolphins mixed in their pod. One biggest male (bull, the leader in the pod) seemed very agitated. He was launching his body out of the water and slamming on the surface, in some kind of threat display to the dolphins. While all this was going on, a couple of oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, came into view. I mentioned in my previous blogs how oceanic whitetips are often in the vicinity of pilot whales, and here they were, right on schedule. This was clearly going to be an amazing day. How often do we get an opportunity to try and get dolphins, whales and sharks in the same shot? And as we got our gear ready for the big moment, of course, they all disappeared! Poof. Gone. Hasta la vista.

It was then that we noticed Sugar was gone, too, I panicked for a moment, wondering if she'd been on the oceanic whitetips' menu. We scrambled around the boat, calling her name. It's a small 19 foot boat, so to not see her was scary. Fortunately, we found her, wedged between the cooler and the side of the boat. She found the most comfortable spot by herself. Smart dog!

We thought the pilot whales had gone north, so we slowly went that way, back in the direction we came from this morning. We soon came across them again, still with dolphins this time. It seemed both pods were settled and started traveling together very slowly. We've seen pilot whales often, and it's always hard to know what kind of behavior to expect. Sometimes they leave as fast as they can, sometimes they stick around to see what's up. This time, fortunately for us, it was the latter. We watched them logging for a while. This is an observable behavior where they line up in a row, right next ot each other, rubbing skin, in some kind of socializing activity. As our boat approached, they didn't make a move to leave. They stuck around, curious, and started spy-hopping, a behavior common for all intelligent marine mammals such as humpback whales, Megaptera novaeangliae. One will pop its head out of the water, straignt up, and watch us. Then another one did it, and another. Soon all around us was this whole pod of pilot whales spyhopping like crazy. It was a little surreal, and not unlike a game of whack-a-mole, with their heads bobbing up and down, randomly on all sides of our boat. An amazing display, and one we hadn't ever seen this many "pops" before. We just stared at them, popping off shot after shot.

As we were enjoying the show, two oceanic whitetips approached the boat. Now we knew we had to get into the water, if only to get the whitetips and pilot whales in the same photograph. As Masa prepared to enter the water, he fretted about what camera gear to take. The dilemma in this situation is always the same, and it's a catch-22. To take good pictures of the whitetips, you need a bulky two strobe setup completed with long strobe arms. However, to get the pilot whales, it's better if you can swim freely at their pace, which is hard to do with all that equipment. Take the strobe and risk not getting the whales; go light and forget about the sharks. It's a roll of the dice. Masa decided to take the strobes as he was sure that sharks would approach him immediately. One of the whitetips was big, probably 9 feet or so, and usually the bigger the shark is, the closer Masa can get to as larger sharks wouldn't afraid of anything if it's particularly edible like Masa. In addition, past experience told him that if he left his strobes behind, sure enough, the shark was going to approach and pose for him inches from his dome port, so he took them with him this time.

He got into the water, and sure enough, the big whitetip rolled right up to him. This species will often do that, as they're curious to see what you are. They'll come right in for a bump to see if it's edible, so it's nice to have a camera housing between you and them. With the adrenalin rush of that big whitetip coming in, Masa waited and waited till the last second and snapped the shot. He got it nicely, and the shark veered off when the strobe flashed.

Later on, he also got some pics of the smaller shark and a rare shot of a whitetip with a school of pompano dolphins or dolphinfish, Coryphaena equiselis.

While we were focusing on the oceanic whitetips, the pilot whales continued heading north. Masa got back in the boat, and we followed them for another go. Masa kept shooting the oceanic whitetip sharks but he also had a good opportunity to observe a mother and calf pair. It is not easy to do as the mother is protective of her offsprings just like any human mothers, and invariably keeps the calf on the far side of her from strangers, which means she's usually blocking the shot. She kept nudging the calf away, but at one point, the calf, like a typical teenage, ignored Mom's warning, and slid under her for a better view of Masa.

We caught no fish on this day, but it was awesome photo-wise. There's actually a lot more to write about, but I'm going to save if for another day. As a final shot, though, here's Sugar, expressing her feelings about today's experience on the water. Don't worry viewers; after two minutes on dry land, she stopped drooling and was feeling just like normal!

Drifting with an Oceanic Whitetip Shark

We started out today at VV buoy (FAD - Fish Aggregation Device) where the current was really ripping. There wasn't much going on there fishing-wise, so we concentrated on photography. We took some photos of the buoy, which was tilted over diagonally by the current. At SeaPics.com, we sometimes get photo requests for ocean currents, which is a tough topic to illustrate. Today, though, we got some decent shots of water currents around the buoy, along with the brown boobies, Sula leucogaster, resting on it.

After hanging around there for a bit, we spotted an oceanic whitetip shark, Carcharhinus longimanus, approaching the boat. Marine wildlife photographer, Masa Ushioda, was eager to get some shots of this one, so despite the strong ocean current, he jumped in at the up current of the buoy as the shark stationed at the down current. Predictably, he drifted fast away from the boat, buoy and the shark without getting off much of a shot. I took the boat down to pick him up, and we went back to the up current of the buoy to try again. We ended up repeating this exercise about 10 or 12 times until Masa got physically exhausted, trying to get off a shot of that shark right.

The current was still pulling hard, and there was a lot of fishing line tangled on the buoy chain, stretched out horizontally by the pull of the current. Masa was a bit worried about getting tangled up in that stuff while consentrating on the shark in the viewfinder. Most days, when there's no current, the lines just dangle straight down, unnoticed, but today it was a diver trap.

By now, the oceanic whitetip had accumulated some juvenile amberjacks, a nice rainbow runner and a pilot fish. These fish are sometimes seen together with oceanic whitetips, and shots of them in a group are colorful and very marketable. Despite the current and the dangerous fishing lines, we kept at it. Masa urged me to take a turn in the water on the grounds that I needed to witness this puppy face to face for my blog. I eventually got in, carrying a small bat with me, just in case...you know.

Oceanic whitetips are large pelagic sharks and known to be aggressive. They like to approach fishing boats and pilfer whatever fish are being reeled in. When a diver's in the water, they'll come right up to bump their nose with whatever, or take a nibble of whatever limb is being offered up. I was hoping this one, a female, wasn't in a mood for contact. As it turned out, she stayed about 12 to 15 feet away, which suited me just fine. We checked each other out for a while and drifted apart.

I got out of the water, and Masa tried his luck again. We repeated our game of hide-and-seek with the shark, but the current never did cooperate, and we called it a day, with just some so-so pics of her. Too bad; that oceanic whitetip lost her chance to be a cover girl for SeaPics.com.

As we left the area, we saw some small skipjack tunas, Katsuwonus pelamis, jumping out of the water. Boobies were flying all around us, attracted by the baitfish schooling there. A dog on a nearby boat was barking its head off, which made us laugh.

From there we went to C buoy. A small pod of short-finned pilot whales, Globicephala macrorhynchus, probably juveniles, was out there, just a little too far away for any decent shots. We noticed a great frigate bird, Fregata minor, circling, which is usually a good sign for fishing. As expected, there were some pantropical spotted dolphins, Stenella attenuata, leaping. We got some great pics of airborne dolphins. They jumped so high, it was sometimes hard to keep the horizontal line in the shot. There were also some big yellowfin tunas, Thunnus albacares, out there, and I got off a nice shot of a leaping tuna. I say it jump once and held ready for the second jump, which I got. Nice work, me! After a good afternoon of dolphin photography, we took off for home. Some baby dolphins followed us and rolled around and around in our boat's wake.

By now, a huge dark cloud had descended on us. We wanted to reach port before it really started pouring, but just then we spotted a beaked whale breaking the surface! We cut the engine, and miraculously, that whale metamorphosized into a large drifting log. Incredible, the things that happen at sea. Despite the impending rain, we decided to fish the log. Driftwood tends to accumulate small fish, and before long, it's a complete environment. We had time to catch a small wahoo, Pacific kingfish or ono, Acanthocybium solandri, by jigging under the log, and then headed back to the Keauhou Bay marina. We were drenched from the rain, but I had no time to change or even dry off, as it was my turn to carpool for my daughter's gymnastics group. No time to help Masa clean out the boat either; maybe next week!