Aloha all! Welcome from the land of the fortunately-very-small-tsunami. Most of these photos were taken yesterday off the leeward shore of Oahu. It is standard procedure that boats should be taken out to sea during tsunami warnings. A boat in a marina can easily be destroyed during a tsunami. I was on a boat riding out the warning.
Near Kaena Point
Spotted Dolphin
We came across a large pod of pantropical spotted dolphins. They are wildly acrobatic creatures that will make the highest leaps of any dolphins that I have seen.
They surf and jump in the boat wake.
Brown Booby
Oh... that kind? Did the old booby bait and switch bring you here? Well hold on, you still may not be disappointed.
Spotted Dolphin
Humpback Whale
There was a group of humpbacks that looked to be about six animals. It was a competition pod of males that were jousting with each other for dominance and access to a female.
Humpback Tail
Leeward Oahu
Red-Footed Booby
Bear with me.
Spotted Dolphin
We came across this small dolphin by itself. It was jumping repeatedly. I assume it was distressed and making noise to try and alert the larger pod to it location (I am totally guessing here). It started following our boat so we tried to lead it back to the area where we last saw the larger pod. We got it much closer before it peeled away. I hope it found its family.
You can see two partially healed and one fresh cookie cutter shark wounds on its side and a small remora on its pectoral fin.
Big Leap
Humpback & Oahu
Water
Some people didn't think it was safe to go out to sea during a tsunami warning. I has one friend say they were visualizing something like The Perfect Storm. They do not understand the nature of a tsunami wave. A regular ocean wave is generated by wind blowing in one direction of the surface of the water and has a wavelength of dozens to up to a few hundred feet. A large, long period, deep ocean wave might travel 35 mph and be 25 feet high. You would see this as a big rolling swell in the open ocean.
A tsunami is generated by displacement of the entire water column above seafloor during an earthquake or landslide. They are characterized by very long wavelengths of up to 60 miles and they travel at speeds around 500 mph. Due to the extremely long wavelength a tsunami is undetectable in deep water (and the water off the lee shore of Oahu is VERY deep, over a thousand feet less than a mile offshore). It is only when the wave gets to shallow water that it becomes noticeable and potentially damaging.
Masked Booby
Whale Tail
We did not approach this close, we were at idle and two whales swam right under the boat. Amazing.
Ok..If you came here looking for different boobies I will offer you this, an image taken at an old Honolulu kitchy landmark, La Mariana Restaurant.
Entry to La Mariana
Glass Balls
Evening at La Mariana
Thanks for visiting my post tsunami photo diary. As always feel free to use this space as a community photo diary and please be good humans.
If you have a problem with this diary I refer you to Terror Cat (a temporary fill-in for the regular Complaint Department)
Aloha
UPDATE
Recommended? The Complaint Department had to check this out. She is still unimpressed.
Mahalo