Diving the kelp reefs of Moku tini

Journey to the reef

When you journey to the sea floor of moku limurapa for the first time. You’ll want to pick a friend to accompany you in case something happens. Afterwards, as you set sail for the kelp reefs, you may feel the power of the of the wind pull your canoe up and through the waves. All the while you enjoy the expansive blue ocean, no land in sight except for your home.

After an hour or so, you’ll notice small disturbances in the waves and maybe a rocky atoll in the distance. Then as you sail closer to what you now can see as kelp floating on the surface, it hits you! That subtle, yet distinctly earthy brine unique to the kelp forest.

At the reef preparing to dive

When You finally approach the edge of the forest, you tell your friend to help furl the sail.  So then as your canoe glides to a halt, you fasten your lau’hala belt before then attaching your pohaku inoa weights. Then, climbing out to the end of your iako or outrigger, you sit down, steeling your nerves and preparing yourself for the coming shock of the COLD water.

You jump in!

“AUĒ! ANUANU!” you sputter with a shivering voice. You knew it would be cold- colder than the surf side of home, but it’s still startling. Your dive buddy, trying to be a little more cautious, is sitting on the iako netting, trying to slowly lower himself in. While you wait, you begin securing your boat. You grab some kelp stipes and use them as rope to tie knots on the ama or out-rigger float. Finally your friend slips all the way into the water. SPLUSH!!

You would ask if going slow was any better, but you already know the answer.

Setting out to just relax for a bit, you start floating around. Watching the rhythmic flow of the alien kelp below, you try taking a guess at how deep it is. “Mmn maybe 45 to 50 feet.” It’s not the deepest you’ve seen but it’s deep enough. As you continue to float there on the surface, relaxing, slowing your heart rate, you see it. There on the sea floor, is your target - The reason for your journey, the pi’ai fish! It was your school assignment to go to the Moku Limurapa and take count of the pi’ai fish population, as well as take photos to document your first time here, and then turn those in. (And if there’s enough, it also means you can spear a few for dinner) So with that, you signal your dive buddy that you’re about to dive.

The descent

So then, preparing for your decent, tring to get as much oxygen into your bloodstream as you can, you begin hyperventilating. Then you kick your feet and start building momentum, faster and faster, until you dive. Redirecting all your built energy into one graceful motion, you descend farther downward you feel the water around you begin to cool further. Going deeper, you leave the sparse surface canopy of the bull kelp. Then entering the mid canopy of dense giant kelp, the chilling temperature continues drop. But then, you unexpectedly feel a warming sensation on your face as you descend into the Wela Kai thermal layer, now only 10 feet from the tallest points of the stony reef. The water changes, thicker, like the difference between fresh water and salt water. The warmth comes from the regular and steady volcanic activity common around these islands.

Undersea world

Then Finally at the bottom. You grab the tip of a jagged bolder to slow your downward movement.. Then, using the bolder as leverage you reorient yourself parallel to the sea floor, searching once again. You push yourself into a powerful forward movement. You glide above the sea floor, weaving  through the volume of vine-like kelp.

As your scanning, you see the same pi’ai fish from before. So you look to your wrist, a small box strapped on with a pen next to it. You grab the pen from beside the box, and then lift the lid that covers the top of the box to reveal some small thick woven paper. With a thick sludge like ink, you write, “pi’ai fish population: I” before closing the lid and pressing tightly to set the ink in place. Continuing on, you look for more and swim forward once again through the alien forest. The You see another one, so you look again to the box and mark two more tallies “II” down on your wrist before moving on. You repeat this cycle for awhile, search, see, mark, move on. Only once every 5 minutes or so, you surface for air, and check with your buddy, before heading back down to continue. Until finally, you’re finished.

  Now, back at the canoe, you count up all the  tally marks, whispering under your breath, “. . . 79, 80, 81, 82!”

“82 pi’ai fish!” You tell your buddy, who’s sitting on the aft of the canoe carving something. “82 Pī’ai fish. Which means we can take 4.” Your friend razes his eye brows enthusiastically and immediately begins switching gears. He quickly puts away his project and begins preparing for spear fishing. You, however, have a different goal in mind. So you unfasten the writing box on your wrist, placing it back in a storage bin in the hull, and pull out something else. Strapping this new larger box to your hip, you jump into the cool water again. You tread water for just a little bit and make sure to get clear of the canoe’s ama. You then reposition yourself to float on your back. Now just drifting on the surface, you relax, slowing your heart rate. When you decide that you’re sufficiently calm, you start to repeat the process that you’ve done hundreds of times before. You begin building momentum on the surface before duck-diving and pushing that momentum into a new downward movement.

Once more, you plunge past the chilling water of the top and mid kelp canopies, Until you breach into the inviting warmth that hugs the bottom. Here, you slow your movements. However, this time since you have no specific reason to be down here, you play it by ear. You playfully dolphin kick over to some coral ridges, hoping to find something. “There they are!” You think to yourself. You swim over and grab some sea urchins that were grazing on kelp stipes and put them in your bag. You continue like this for a bit, gazing at the fascinating details scattered across the many crevices and holes found all over the rocks and corals.

Before finishing your dive, you come to a clearing in the the coral; a bright white sand alcove hidden in the reef, laying just few feet below the surrounding coral. You decide to swim to the center, where you look up to see a shimmering panoramic window to the surface above you. There, you let yourself sink to the bottom, no longer hovering over the sea floor, you rest on the soft sand to admire the view. You can see everything you’ve come across today. At the surface, your canoe is floating amongst the kelp blades. Your dive buddy finally diving down with his spear gun. A small school of 3 or four Pī’ai fish. The golden rays gently glimmering through the forest on your left and right. And lastly, the vibrantly decorated coral beds lining the sea floor. This! . . . This is the scene you’ve come to capture!

  With a sense of aww for the seascape before you. You try your best to capture its beauty. you take the large boxy camera from your hip, that you swapped with your writing block, you position the camera (one of a few in Motu Tini) and CLICK! You take your photo.