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), we had met Dean Burnell, 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 (that's Dean & Jojo in photo above at left), and suddenly, here he was in Kona, where he now resides! What an amazing coincidence! Masa, Dean & Wyland are in the photo below right.
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, so we headed north. If you come to Big Island, Hawaii during whale season, which is December to March, you'll usually find humpbacks north of the Kona airport, especially up in the Kohala 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 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 spinner dolphins 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. Wyland got in the water and videotaped the net. He said he got some great footage, though I doubt we'll be seeing it on any of his music DVDs!
After Wyland got back in the boat, I spotted a whale breaching. Wyland was eager to go see if we could get some photos of it, but Masa was thinking he wanted to get in the water and photograph the net. 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, 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!
Finally, we spotted it and Masa dropped a line 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 thought Wyland should get in and photograph the mahi mahi on the lines, but he was reluctant to do so, as his brand is built around live animals and preserving the environment. We convinced hims that someday he'd need visual reference of fish like this on a line, perhaps for an overfishing campaign or the like, and he went in for some photos. But I could see his heart wasn't into it.
Wyland was back on the boat pretty quickly after that. We caught two more mahi mahi and packed it in for the day. We headed south to try Turtle Pinnacle one more time. 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!
Kona Sue
http://www/seapics.com
Wyland photos at SeaPics.com
Wyland links:
Wyland.com – official site
The Wyland Foundation – a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, protecting, and preserving the world's oceans, waterways, and marine life
Wyland Galleries, Big Island, Hawaii
Wyland bio on Wikipedia
Links to stock photos of species mentioned in this blog. Please be patient! 10 seconds to load:
humpback whale
spinner dolphin
mahi mahi
yellow tang
First, let me give you an introduction to Wyland. His name is Robert Wyland, but he goes by the name of Wyland, the Artist. You know, kind of like how I'm famous as Kona Sue, the Blogger. Only Wyland is known throughout the world for his murals and paintings of marine life, especially of whales. His series of 100 "Whaling Walls" is nearing completion, after which he will tackle a series of 100 monumental sculptures.
The "Whaling Walls" were what made Wyland a household name, as they are iconic artworks for the cities in which they're located. They can be found in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. His 100th wall in the series will be painted in Beijing, China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The walls are enormous and decorated with all kinds of marine life, with whales as their main focus. Wyland has featured gray whales, blue whales, humpbacks, orcas and others in an effort to raise environmental awareness and foster affection for whales. The Beijing installment will feature life-size images of the great (balleen) whales, and children from around the world are going to be invited to paint along with Wyland. To see more photos of Wyland's Whaling Walls, go to the 
Large marine mammals are protected in Hawaii, so we're not allowed to approach them too closely, but the pilot whales seemed drawn to Wyland, and they circled him for some great footage. One of the keys to Wyland's success is that he always seems to be where the animals are, and if he's not, they come to him! I'm looking forward to seeing those shots on the 
We finished our boating excursion about 6:00 p.m. Wyland is amazing, because after a full day of swimming, snorkeling and videography from Masa's boat, he still had the energy to take on a full night's work at the Wyland Gallery. He was there by 7:30 p.m. and stayed all evening, painting a whale on canvas in oils, and using a Japanese ink brush to make line drawings of humpback whales for friends and gallery patrons.
The gallery was pretty packed with Wyland fans, gallery clients and quite a few passers-by who just wanted to see what all the noise was about. Wyland would work on the canvas for a while, then put down the brushes to talk to the guests and sign memorabilia. He took photos with anyone who asked and delighted everyone with his friendly personality and casual style.
We took some pix 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, such as MaHaLo 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 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 spinner dolphins 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.
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!
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! 
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. 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 & a silky shark! We'll catch the pilot whales and the whale sharks another day!
Steve Drogin is first and foremost, a fantastic photographer, and 
Steve was in town after a visit to Easter Island. Before that, he had been in Costa Rica at Cocos Island, where he actually has a submarine that can take passengers to depths of 1,500 feet. Now many of us dream of having a nice boat to cruise the world, but Steve has his own submarine! Of course, it's a commercial operation, so he doesn't really have unlimited use of it, but still… What undersea photographer wouldn't love to have their own submarine? Anyway, if you are ever interested in going 457 meters deep off the coast of Cocos Island, and you've got about $2,500 to spare for a ticket, then consider the Deep See excursion. Prices actually start at about US $600 for a 100-meter dive. Check out the 
Besides Bob Talbot (center) in this photo, there are some other people of note. Masa, the 
Today was the day after the green sea turtle tagging (see 11/28 blog), an event which ended in a cataclysmic rainstorm. Because of the storm, the surf was particularly high today. Big Island is not the top surfing destination of the Hawaii chain, but on this day, the surfers were out taking advantage of the swells.
Right at the mouth of Keauhou Harbor, there were some nice sets coming in. This is kind of unusual for this location – or at least I've never seen it like this. We stopped our boat at the point where the waves were coming in to take some shots of the surfers. There was a guy and a girl out there, and we had a nice angle on them. The guy managed to stand up 5 or 6 times, while the girl, who was probably a novice, just got up once while we were watching. I wanted to get some shots of the girl, because in the 
We passed a fishing boat that was using a green stick, which is a technique used in Hawaii, though apparently it originated in Japan. The reason it's "green" is because that's the original color of the equipment used in this technique. One long pole sticks straight up from the boat with a line trailing from the very top of it. It drags along a floating object called a "bird," the purpose of which is to keep the line taut. Attached to the line are other lines hanging straight down with lures dangling into the water, just barely skimming the surface. The lures appear like squirming squid on the water, which is irresistible to tuna and marlin. We didn't stick around to watch if they caught anything, but I took a shot of the boat so I could describe the fishing technique on my SeaPics blog!
A mahi mahi swam past us and 
On this day, Masa caught one small yellowfin tuna – about a 15 pounder. We took a few pics of the waves crashing off the rock cliffs near Kealakekua Bay, and called it a day. Today wasn't exciting for wildlife, but we got a few photos of the surfers, which we don't usually get. Soon the humpback whales will be here, and we'll really have something to write about! Check back for that!
Down at the beach at Kaloko-Honokohau National Park, near the Honokohau Marina, a large tent was set up for the all-day tagging event. George Balazs, a prominent sea turtle researcher with the National Marine Fisheries Service (he was largely responsible for getting the green sea turtle listed as an endangered species), and Marc Rice, a teacher at Hawaii Preparatory Academy were in charge. They were being assisted by students from HPA, and by a few specially chosen volunteers, including Christine and Lynn, my two SeaPics.com employees. Christine and Lynn were able to participate because of their work with ReefTeach, a volunteer group on the Big Island. It is due to their efforts that the Reef Teachers were educated on sea turtles and now pass that information on to visitors at Kahulu'u Beach Park.
The procedure was for a group of researchers and student volunteers to go out with nets and large inner tubes to find sea turtles on the beach and in the shallows. Once found, the turtles are carefully placed into the inner tube, which has an attached bottom, then transferred to a crate on the beach for weighing. 
After weighing, each turtle is placed on a table for examination by George Balazs. The turtles are examined for injuries, disease and parasites, and they are all scanned for microchips which may have been inserted into the turtle's flipper at a previous tagging event. If no microchip is found, one is inserted. If they have a sonic transmitter attached to the shell, this is also scanned. George then measures and records the turtle's length, width and girth. The purpose of all of this is to help researchers understand the general condition of the turtles, and to see whether they are growing well and getting enough food.
I have lived in Kona, Hawaii for 12 years, and seen hundreds of sea turtles. To see them up close like this, and to learn about the turtle tagging effort, was a unique and valuable experience. Sea turtles are one of the symbols of Hawaii, and it's important for this type of research to take place. Sea turtles are endangered the world over (you can see the IUCN status on our 
We left the boat launch at 10:45 and headed out to the FADs (Fish Aggregation Devices), as we usually do, but we hadn't even left Keauhou Bay when we came across a huge baitball of akule (bigeye scad). 
At one point, two large mahi mahi circled our boat and investigated Masa's lure. One of them grabbed it just underneath the boat, and leaped 15 feet out of the water! It's always exciting when a mahi mahi takes your lure and leaps so high up - the very behavior that led them to be called dolphin fish! That long, green fish ended up breaking off the hook, and making a clean get-away. It's odd that he managed to break off the hook, as it was on a 60lb wire leader, so we speculated on what other toothy fish (wahoo, barracuda or shark) was down there that may have done the job before him. We hung there for a while, but came up empty.
About two weeks ago, we came across a large plastic bag trailing a long monofilament line in the ocean. I had so much to write about that day (see Oct. 25 blog!), that I couldn't make room to discuss it. Near South Point on the Big Island, where a strong wind blows almost everyday, many shore fishermen use plastic garbage bags in a fishing technique called "kite fishing." They blow the bag up with air, tie it closed, and attach their fishing line to it. They then launch the improvised "kite" in a windy area and let the wind and water currents pull their fishing lines out to sea. In this way, they can get their fishing lines out to much deeper water where they have a chance of catching some offshore species like ahi (yellowfin or bigeye tunas), aku, ono (wahoo), mahi mahi and even marlin. For people who can't afford a boat, this may be their best chance of landing those excellent eating fish. On the other hand, predictably enough, plastic bags end up getting lost at sea. It's deplorable, but it happens.
By the end of the day, we had managed to catch a couple of good sized aku for our dinner out at UU buoy, and we headed home. It wasn't a great day for photography, so I'll just post a nice sunset, which is what we saw as we ended our day on the water off the Kona coast! Mahalo for checking out the blog!
