Fish Fish Fish

Yellow Tangs (Zebrasoma flavescens)
Note the white "tang" or prong by caudal keel.

May 2011. Big Island of Hawaii.

Gills. I want gills, webbed fingers, and toes. I want to see the watery world with naked clear eyes.  I want to glide, dive, dart in pellucid waters and pulse with the surge.  I want to sleek through the water and ride a monster wave toward the rocks, peer out of the crystalline face of the wave, twirl out, avoiding the looming coral heads. Where is Merlin when you need him?

Wishful, fantasy thinking aside, I relax in the warm waters, enjoying the surge, spread-eagle on the surface, breathing through my snorkel and peering down through my mask into the wonder of the Big Island’s Two Step snorkeling site on Honaunau Bay. 

Schools, herds of Yellow Tangs snap into focus, 
grazing the wall of the underwater cliff and the coral prairies.

Orangespine unicornfish (Naso lituratus)

I float, a voyeur in a world of saltwater.  Only a membrane of skin separates me from the surrounding water – we share the same salinity – water and blood.

Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus)

Arc-eye hawkfish (Paracirrhites arcatus)

Whitebar surgeonfish (Acanthurus leucoparieus)

Redfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon trifasciatus)

A new underwater casing for J.P.’s Sony camera allowed him to take these images of fish.   Some disappeared in the flick of a tail.

Photos by Julian Donahue.