Queen Emma's Bath, Kaua'i

(I am still catching up on blog posts from late 2018 and early 2019…the next couple pertain to a trip to Kaua’i in November 2018.)

Fishes in Queen Emma's Bath.

A few years ago, I went with the family to the Big Island, my first visit to Hawaii in many years. Over the course of a week and a half we circumnavigated the island, snorkeling, hiking, and exploring. Three years later during the same fall season, we decided to do a similar trip to the Garden Island, which like the Big Island in 2015, was a new destination for all of us.

One location on the north shore of Kaua’i that piqued my interest before arriving was Queen Emma’s Bath in the Princeville area. This landmark is a large pool set within black basalt at the end of a short trail on a section of coastline exposed to the north Pacific. The first time visited, we were quickly in the thick of a very muddy trail that descends from the parking area to the shore. I was completely unprepared for this sort of hiking, carrying an unwieldy bag and trying to walk on slippery mud in sandals. Once we made it down the slope of red mud and out onto the ledges of basalt, a gorgeous view of the northern shore of the island opened up with the coastlines of Hanalei and Napali in view to the west.

Large swells were crashing on the rocks and made the pool at least a little unsafe for swimming so we just explored the higher rocks along the shore. Water running off the coastal slope created a sort wetland where sedges and other plants grew where sediment collected in the volcanic rock, black tadpoles rested atop the orange silt, and a few light blue damselflies danced about.

Turtles just offshore of Princeville, Kaua'i.

I returned alone to Queen Emma’s two days later better prepared for the trail with sturdier footware and a backpack. However, it had probably had become even worse by this point. Down at the coast the swells had decreased markedly allowing safer access to the intertidal and snorkeling pools.

At the bottom of the trail I first turned east, away from Queen Emma’s Bath, and explored a large shallow pool that I had to myself for the next hour and a half. A ledge of higher basalt protected the pool from the open ocean where waves still hit, but with much less force than a few days before.

Green sea turtles were hanging out offshore of the pool, at times coming right up next to the edge of the basalt ledge. I counted at least five turtles, in a range of sizes. With my phone in hand to photograph them, suddenly a spotted octopus scampered onto the exposed rocks right in front of me! Perhaps its sudden appearance was due to escaping a predator, or it decided to abandon some hiding place because of the turtles swimming nearby. Since my phone was in hand and ready to go, I had the chance to capture a few photographs during the few seconds this normally shy creature was out in the open.

A surprise visit from an octopus!

Near the mouth of the large pool where it connected with the ocean, there were excellent populations of macroalgae. Tufts of bright green Chaetomorpha with individual cells evident to the naked eye were attached to the exposed rocks, and there were carpets of the red alga Pterocladia with its orderly pinnate branching. Other algae thrived submerged in thes shallow pool including the tropical green seaweeds Caulerpa, Halimeda, and Bryposis. I initially mistook one lightly calcified green seaweed, Neomeris, for a benthic invertebrate. There were several species of fish inhabiting the pool, most skittish.

After my more solitary exploration of the first pool, I walked over to Queen Emma’s bath where there was a rather large crowd of people and many were using the pool not for snorkeling, but to jump off the basalt rocks. I snorkeled briefly in the pool anyway, but it didn’t have the best water quality. I then found two smaller undisturbed pools further to the west in which to snorkel. The second of these two smaller pools had lush cover of Sargassum seaweeds and several species of soft corals/ zooanthids. The pools were just large enough for a snorkeler or two and just deep enough to make a bit of a dive under the surface.

One of my small snorkeling pools.

After briefly snorkeling, I explored the exposed intertidal too in this area. It did not disappoint either. There were helmet urchins, Colobocentrotus atratus, pressed to the more wave swept rocks, and underneath a ledge, a small population of tiny red sea grapes, which turned out to be a small species of Botryocladia, one of my favorite genera of red algae!

Botryocladia skotsbergii. 

Blue soft coral Sarcothelia and zoanthid Protopalythoa.

A blenny at the bottom of Queen Emma's Bath.

Wai'opae pools

Wai'opae pools among basalt bedrock and boulders.

The Big Island has about 6 Marine Life Conservation Districts, marine reserves established by the state of Hawaii that variously protect coastal marine organisms from harvest. A short stretch of coastline containing the Wai’opae pools is the only MLCD on the eastern end of the island. The site is southeast of Hilo, near the town of Kapoho, tucked behind a few coastal residences.

At Wai’opae the dark lava is spread in a wide flat bench that creates a broad area of pools between emergent rocks. Some of the pools are shallow and might be properly considered “tide pools”, but others are deeper and create permanent subtidal habitat. Partly isolated from each other, each pool is a small reef ecosystem.

Purple ember parrotfish, Scarus rubroviolaceus followed by an endemic saddle wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey among convict tangs.

Closeup of coral polyps.

 Saturday I spent several hours exploring five pools, ranging in size, depth and species composition. My son Ben located the first, a deep pool with a few corals and a moderate number of fish located far inshore from the breaking waves off shore.

Later I spent a little time in a round pool not wider than 5 or so few meters across, with black basalt enclosing a cozy aquarium. One side of the pool was shallow, the other deep, but each with a number of brown plate corals. The colonies of this species form rounded shelves against the rocks like shelf fungi that grow on trees or fallen logs in a temperate forest.

The last pool I explored was the largest and had the most obvious active connection to the ocean, indicated by a strong current present at the southeastern end. I was already cold at this point in the afternoon, but I probably ended up staying another hour in this pool. The axis of the pool was like a shallow V-shaped valley, along which I swam back and forth several times. Fish abundance in the pool was remarkable, and included wrasses, butterflyfish, large purple and greenish parrotfish, and a dense school of striped convict fish accompanied by several large black colored fish that swam with their smaller associates. Blue needle fish were common in the surface water, creating a ring around me, but keeping some distance.

Unidentified blenny perched in coral in a shallow pool.

The pools I observed did not have continuous coral cover. In fact, at some had just a few percent cover. Rather, corals appeared as discreet colonies, with bedrock, volcanic rubble, or fuzzy algal turfs occupying the rest of the space. They seemed absent from the shallowest areas, perhaps because these are exposed a low tides. Lobe (Porites sp.), lace, and plate corals were common. In the pools I found few species of larger macroalgae, but notable exceptions were a single siphonous green alga (?Caulerpa sp.) shaped not unlike an immature bunch of green grapes, and dichotomously branched thin blades of an attractive red foliose alga. Larger invertebrates included beautiful slate pencil urchins and two species of holothuroideans (sea cucumbers).

A school of convict fish.

Green siphonous macroalga, perhaps Caulerpa sp.

Plate coral.

Needlefishes swimming near the water surface.

Hawaiian whitespotted toby, Canthigaster jactator.

The common saddle wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey. Many wrasses change sex over
the course of life. This fish is an "early stage" male or female. "Supermales" have a
white vertical mark behind the reddish band.

References

Hoover JP. 2014. Hawai’i’s Fishes. A Guide for Snorkelers and Divers. 2^nd ed. Mutual Publishing, Honolulu.

Krupp D. 2010. Hawaiian Coral Index Page: http://krupp.wcc.hawaii.edu/BIOL200/hawcoral/corindex.htm

Mahaney C, Witte A. 1993. Hawaiian Reef Fish. Blue Kirio Publishing.

Honaunau Bay

Our first two full days on the Big Island provided a chance for beach exploration on the south Kona coast. To snorkel I originally wanted to visit Kealakekua Bay, a marine life conservation district (state marine reserve), but the only public road led to the southern part of the Bay where the swell was probably too significant for the kids to venture much into the water. Honaunau Bay to the south became an excellent alternate location, and I the reef were enjoyable enough to return for a second day.

Slate pencil urchins, Heterocentrutus mammillatus.

The Bay is located just north of a small National Historic Park and seems to be a popular tourist location. Many bobbing snorkelers notwithstanding, the fringing coral reef that hugs the shore was teeming with biological activity. Most human visitors stayed close to home base and it was easy to get away from the crowds by venturing a bit north just offshore. The reefs gradually descended offshore, to depths of probably at least 50 feet. Bright yellow tangs and many other species were abundant in shallow water, so it was easy to see quite a few fish species in only 10-20 feet deep.

Corals comprising the reefs came in various shapes, mostly as massive plates, and some were bleached. The most abundant motile invertebrates may have been urchins, or at least this was the taxonomic group that caught my eye. Pencil urchins with their brick red cumbersome spines were tucked into crevices in the complex reef, while large black urchins with full arrays of thin quill-like spines ventured out in the open, cognizant that no other reef creatures would be likely to interfere with their activities.

The fish were most impressive, occurring in abundance, busily tending to the business of reef life. Bright yellow tangs, in groups or large schools were probably most common. Other groups included butterfly fishes, flamboyant Moorish idols, triggerfish and parrotfishes. There was some chasing, but much of the activity involved feeding; many species were presumably herbivores grazing the sparse algae that happen to grow up on the reef. I enjoyed the solitary greenish blue parrotfish which tended to be shy when I tried to approach with a camera. Most species stayed close to the reef though a few ventured higher into the water column. Some thin blue fish in contrast, stayed just beneath the water’s surface, and since one tends to look down while snorkeling, it was a while before I noticed them.

A reef fish sampler. Top row, from left: moorish idol, Zanclus cornatus with orange band surgeonfish, Acanthurus olivaceus; unknown white and gold-colored butterfly fish; yellow trumpetfish.  Bottom row, from left: fourspot butterflyfish, Chaetodon quadrimaculatus; whitebar surgeonfish, Acanthurus leucopareius; unidentified parrotfish.

Thin, well camoflauged bluish fish hanging out near the water's surface.

A shallow coral escarpment with a pair of ornate butterfly fish, Chaetodon ornatissimus.

References

Mahaney C, Witte A. 1993. Hawaiian Reef Fish. Blue Kirio Publishing.