Meeting the Cousins & Late Summer Fun

We had a family lunch and Cayman got to meet his new cousin Hugo.

Cayman also has been having fun playing with the hose outside and visiting with Mimi & Grandpa.

 

Here's how the whole in our screen door got bigger.

 
Cayman also loves when Uncle Ben reads him stories.

Backyard Birds

I thought it would be fun to keep an ongoing list of which species of birds visit our backyard. I am only counting birds I get an image of on our property and if the birds are sexually dimorphic I will count each sex as a different bird. Here are the first four. 

1. Lesser Goldfinch Carduelis psaltria

 2. Spotted Towhee Pipilo maculatus

3. Western Scrub-Jay Aphelocoma californica

4. Band-tailed Pigeon Columba fascicata 

Tree Fails to Ruin Our Stuff

At 1:30, on a windless afternoon, one of our large birch trees fell. It fell in the perfect spot stopping short of damaging our light, weather-vein, and roof. This is the second time we have gotten lucky with a tree (see the first time here). The day after the tree fell, I bought a cheap chainsaw and Spencer came over to help me take care of it.

 As you can see. The tree just missed the light.

 We first lifted the tree off the roof using a large 6x6 (right in photo). Then chopped the tree into small pieces.

Once it had cleared the roof. We tied a rope to it and Spencer pulled it away from the house. Above is Spencer's Panorama photo of the aftermath.

Special Thanks to MaryAnn for watching Cayman (and prying for us) throughout this process.

Now we have a ton of birch which I plan to make stuff from and sell.

An Underwater Camera Experiment

Last year I won an underwater photography contest in Maui. The top prize was a gift card that I was able to buy an underwater GoPro type camera. The last few days I have been sinking it, then retrieving it to see what swam by. The first three videos below were shot at a depth of 70'. The reef is actually quite colorful, but at that depth there is not enough sunlight for many of the colors to be visible.

In this video, I identified 40 different fish (as well as boat noise and dolphin squeaks):
0:02 Agile Chromis
0:05 Juvenile Bird Wrass
0:06 Goldring Surgeonfish
0:46 Yellow Tang
0:49 Whitebar Surgeonfish
1:24 Blue-Eye Damselfish
(2:10 Boat Noise)
3:18 Hawaiian Cleaner Wrass
3:37 Peacock Grouper
4:23 Female Yellowtail Coris
4:28 Hawaiian Sergeant
4:48 Chocolate Dip Chromis
5:17 Saddle Wrass
7:19 Multiband Butterflyfish
9:10 Threespot Chromis
9:32 Square-Spot Goatfish
9:56 Thompsons Butterflyfish
10:05 Lei Triggerfish
10:33 Blackside Hawkfish
11:13 Ornate Wrass (I think)
11:23 Blue Stripe Snapper
13:01 Fourline Wrass
13:19 Indo-Pacific Sergeant
13:50 Female Bird Wrass
14:00 Arc-Eye Hawkfish
16:32 Pink-Tail Triggerfish
18:30 Ornate Butterflyfish
19:46 Juvenile Yellowtail Coris 
20:42 Hawaiian Dascyllus
27:42 Brown Sugeonfish
32:01 Potters Angelfish
32:20 Palenose Parrotfish
32:45 Lined Butterflyfish
35:40 Convict Tangs
36:50 Bullethead Parrotfish
37:56 Male Bird Wrass
(38:30 Dolphins Noise)
39:07 Longnose Buterflyfish
39:19 Eightline Wrass
42:02 Blue Goatfish
42:40 Ornate Wrass

Here are a few more videos:

This video is of a different location and a depth of about 110 feet. The camera is facing down a slope and the rocks in the bottom of the shot are resting in about 150 feet depth. At 29:40 you can see me retrieving the camera.

Dad Visit & Favorite Fish

My dad was on the islands for business and got to come visit us. We hiked down to snorkel at Captain Cook Monument and found a pair of one of my favorite fish, the Saddleback Butterflyfish. I have not seen any of these fish since the last time I snorkeled at Captain Cook two years ago (it is probably the same pair). What a treat!

 Dad

Dad takes great photos and makes videos. Here is a video he made of Cayman:

Cayman Thinks Mom is Super Funny

Why I Dive

Even with hundreds of Hawaiian dives under my belt. I frequently see things that scare me and other things that surprise me. Here are two of those things that happened while diving today.

A surprise...

A bit scary (this thing was huge and are known to be very curious and completely unafraid of divers)