Hawaii Travelogue - Part 6
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a and the Coral Reef
A ride on the glass bottomed boats, called reef dancer, provides a closer look at the coral reef environs off Maui’s coast. Maui’s coral reef is still relatively young so it does not have a barrier reef like Australia. The reef dancer essentially is a narrow boat with an underwater cabin. The cabin has glass windows so you are able to see what’s going on beneath the surface. As you travel from shore the views alternate between the sandy bottom and coral colonies. Coral is actually live - the polyp floats around looking for a place to anchor itself. It then grows in colonies which acts as a habitat for a range of other marine life. You could actually see numerous schools of fish swimming about along the way.
The boat stopped around ¼ mile offshore and divers went down to rustle up a few of the shyer inhabitants and displayed them through the windows. There is some irony to this. We go to see the marine life in their natural environment. I imagine the presence of the boat itself is somewhat disruptive to them. On top of that, divers fetch some of the animals out of their lairs to show the passengers. Having said that, it was interesting to see the creatures they displayed - for unless you scuba dived yourself, how were you going to see the shyer denizens of the ocean floor.
We got to see various shells - especially a giant tiger cowrie (leho-kiko). The one we saw was almost 4-5 inches long. They can grow to almost 6 inches. They usually hide in the crevices and cracks of coral and feed on plankton and sponges. No 2 cowries look alike - each have their own distinct markings. The mollusk inside spreads a glossy substances all over its shell to protect it, giving it the shiny look. In Hawaii, cowrie shells were/are used in lures to bait octopus. The divers also showed us some sea stars (pe’ape’a) and sea urchins (vana). Sea Stars look like a brown star shaped pillow. Sea Stars eat by ejecting their stomachs and digesting their prey. And if an arm breaks off, it simply grows into a new sea star. The variety of sea urchin the diver showed us, was the purple-black ‘collector sea urchin,’ (hawa ‘e). It is called that as it holds onto bits of seaweed and debris. It is painful to step on a sea-urchin and some varieties are poisonous too.
One of the divers brought out the day octopus (he’e mauli). It has some 1920 suction cups so can really hold onto its prey. It then inject a poisonous liquid onto its prey and kills it. The he’e immediately latched onto our glass window with all of its suction cups, so we got a good look at its underbelly. The diver was holding onto it all the while, so it was not a Happy He’e.! It then tried to confuse the diver by restoring to its it classic defense mechanism - squirting jet black ink. The octopus is actually one of the most intelligent creatures of its class. The ink is meant to confuse the predator, create a similar shaped decoy or cause temporary blindness - giving the octopus the chance to make a 'wiki wiki' (fast) getaway. So we got to see the clouds of black ink, which to the octopus’s enormous disappointment was not deterring our diver in the least. The guide infact called that diver an ‘octopus whisperer,” as she was trying to stroke the head of the octopus. When the diver finally let go, the octopus glided away - its swaying movement is like a graceful dance under the sea.
A few of the fish I saw were Yellow Tang (‘lau’ipala), Orange spine unicorn (lau lau), reef triggerfish (humuhumunukunukuapua’a), Black Durgeon Triggerfish (humuhumu’ele’ele), parrotfish (uhu) and ornate butterflyfish (kikakapu). The butterfly fish are colorful and disk shaped; early Hawaiians thought they resembled leaves that turned yellow with age so named them after those trees. Some varieties of butterflyfish were considered taboo or kikakapu. The parrotfish is remarkable in its ability to sex-change. It starts off as a female and can change into a male if so required. The reef triggerfish makes grunt like noises when faced with predators possibly to scare them or to warn other fish. The humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apua-a (reef triggerfish) is Hawaii’s state fish, and means the fish that grunts like a pig. It’s a mouthful to say but there is a species of butterflyfish with an even longer name in Hawaii - lauwiliwilinukunukuʻoiʻoi, which translates to long snouted fish shaped like a williwilli leaf. I was disappointed to not see the pufferfish anywhere. It’s defence mechanism is to swell up with water like a balloon.
In 9th grade, I had taken Oceanography as an elective and we had studied the habits of many marine creatures, so it was interesting to get to see them. This was a young coral reef and overall a decent trip. I hope I get the opportunity to see the coral life in the Great Barrier Reef one day.
Hawaii Travelogue 2012
Part 1 - Aloha Maui
Part 2 - I Survived the Road to Hana
Part 3 - West Maui
Part 4 - North Beaches and Watermen
Part 5 - Whale of a Tail
Part 6 - Humuhunukunukuapua'a and the Coral Reef
Part 7 - Living Aloha
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