New Profile Pic!

Here's a new profile pic of yours truly!                                                                                                 

Try to contain your enthusiasm.

Golden Slug

In addition to finding that shark last weekend, I also found this gold lace nudibranch (Halgerda terramtuentis) sliding on the wall of a lava tube.

Photos Copyright 2013 by Barry Fackler

It's always a nice surprise to find one of these colorful cousins of terrestrial slugs as they're not that common.

Macho Diving Spectacular!!!

Following that shark post, I thought I'd share more vintage artwork showing the manly sport of SCUBA diving and its many dangers!

OO7 and a few close friends take on SPECTRE

Hand-to-tentacle combat!

Slaughtering Commies SCUBA-style!

Carnivorous clams and Murderous Mantas!

So be careful out there everybody!!!

Spotted Pufferfish

The fish du jour for today is the spotted pufferfish (Arothron meleagris), a fairly common species here in Hawai'i. Like all puffers, when alarmed it swallows big gulps of water to make itself too large for a predator to swallow.

Copyright 2013 by Barry Fackler

The Hawaiian name for this fish is o'opu hue or simply keke. It is also known as the guineafowl puffer or the velcro puffer on account of its bristly skin. Interestingly, the skin of this cute fish secretes a toxic mucus and should not be handled.

Spotfin Squirrelfish

Photo Copyright 2013 by Barry Fackler

I took this photo of a spotfin squirrelfish (Neoniphron sammara) this past weekend at Honaunau and wanted to share it with you. While not perfect, this is, by far, the best shot I've ever gotten of this common species. They are almost always facing the reef, ready to hide before you can get close. The titular dorsal fin is often laid down and the silvery scales usually reflect back a lot of the strobe. This was just a "throwaway" attempt that turned out being my best picture of the day.

SCUBA in Men's Literature

When I was a wee lad, my Dad would take me to Chandu's Barber Shop to get my regulation  "flattop" haircut. This usually involved a bit of a wait in an environment fairly devoid of things of interest to a small boy. But I liked to read and Chandu kept a wealth of reading material of the variety politely referred to as "men's adventure magazines". These tomes had names like Stag, Argosy, and Saga and contained fantastically absurd stories of macho derring-do in situations of combat, survival against the elements, and the newly popular secret agent genre. They were luridly illustrated with scenes of rugged, often scarred, heroes battling evil-doers (Nazis & Reds usually) while a gorgeous well-endowed woman stood by trying in vain not to spill out of her underwear/bikini/lingerie. It was in these pages that I learned that WWII was essentially won by half-naked women.

But, I digress...

Often these testosterone tales would revolve around SCUBA diving and provided me with something interesting to think about aside from the obvious. Here is some artwork from these thrilling stories of yesteryear. Enjoy!

Beautiful, blonde, nude SCUBA women. Happens every day

The Buddy System: You fight the two bad guys. I'll rescue the babe.

No kidding. This actually happened!

Photo Mashup

Betty & I spent last weekend at the volcano celebrating our wedding anniversary so there was no diving. However, there were TWO state holidays that week (Prince Kuhio Day & Good Friday) which afforded some wonderful photo ops. Here's a smattering...    

Longnose Butterflyfish (Forcipiger flavissimus)

Day Octopus (Octopus cyanea)

Haig's Hermit Crab (Calcinus haigae)

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

That's all for now! Aloha!