Anini Beach 22 July 2017 : Caspar Institute

Our day started with a boisterous shower through which Chad and family returned from their early morning expedition to the beach.

Zoe ...Singin’ in the Rain

Anaâ€™ina Hou Organic Market

We drove up to the market in the same park we walked in yesterday. A beautiful, compact, all-local, all-organic market. As always, I only took pictures of produce; it takes me awhile to remember that Markets are People, and that I need as many pictures of vendors and buyers as fruits and veggies.

This island is particularly generous with its fruit-growing. Tropical natives from several continents thrive here.

So let's play a game: Name That Fruit! 15 points for the correct name of each of the fruits in the first column, and 5 points for each of the correctly named fruits in the second column.

90-100 :	Fruit Master
75-89 :	Fruit Monster
50-74 :	Fruit Eater
26-49 :	Fruit Voyeur
0-25 :	Seek help

( hint: mouse-over (be patient; big file!) for what I *think* the names are. )

The veggies include the staples – we could easily live here, if all the mattered was the fruit and veg – and the quality, given the confounds of growing organic in the tropics, is amazing. Bugs give beet tops a hard time, but here's perfect basil. And those amazing Hawaiian flowers, so plump and meaty they're almost vegetables.

A good cleansing high tide, and we decided to try the snorkel gear and the GoPro right out front. The first hundred meters or more of what was once in-shore reef is now an algae-covered desert. One suggestion of the cause: all the sunscreen that washes off tourist bodies out snorkelling!

I'm afraid that while that's undoubtedly contributory, the real cause is much more far-reaching and long-lasting: the acidification and eutrophication of in-shore waters wherever humans have taken hold.

Reassurance that the change on Anini reef is quantitative, not qualitative, came when the first Needlefish went swimming by. Almost the same color as the water, and often seen (if seen at all!) swimming near the surface. Their shadow reveals all. The dude on the right posed for me, having great faith in the efficacy of his camouflage.

I *think* this is a Convict Tang, usually pretty common, but this is the one I saw.

Very cagey fish. Even these little ones flee from humans. THAT is a big change in 17 years.

Can you name this fish?

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

I have known this name since I was ten.

You'll have noticed that most of the underwater pictures are decidedly green. I imagine that, too, is an effect of the eutrophication (nutrient overload) and the bloom of algae that causes.

Still, the underwater light is magical and hypnotizing. I felt easy in the water (even though my mask was steaming up ...more spit next time!) in these gentle waters.