Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
March 22, 2010
My column on March 8 about the marine insects called sea skaters (also sea striders) brought me two e-mails worth sharing. The first came from a local marine biologist who wrote that these little beauties, about a quarter-inch long, can be seen on Hawaii’s windward beaches on windy days. I say beauties because he tells me they’re bright blue.
John wrote, “When the trades are really blowing, often the insects blow ashore and tend to get caught up in footprints/depressions in the sand. You can see them flitting around trying to get out.”
One of John’s best memories, he wrote, is walking on Laysan with another biologist who constantly dived down to the sand with a mouth-suction insect collector. He was gathering sea striders.
Now that I know they’re blue, I too will be diving to the sand on windy days looking for bugs.
The other e-mail of interest, titled “Water bugs,” came from a cell phone: “Nice OWatch. I saw these guys when we were becalmed heading in to Hilo along with some of the other cool surface guys.”
That note came from Craig, and the “we” was the two of us. (To answer another reader’s question, yes, Craig is my husband, and he is indeed a great companion on lots of my outings.)
When I called Craig about his message, he said that as he watched the insects skate on the surface, he wondered how water striders got there since we were hundreds of miles offshore. Now he knows.
“Why didn’t I see them?” I said.
“You did,” he said.
Oh.
In my defense that voyage was 24 years ago. We were bringing our sailboat, Honu, from Connecticut where we’d stored her, to Honolulu, where we lived.
After transiting the Panama Canal and loading up with food and water in Costa Rica, we started the 4,000-mile crossing to Hilo. The voyage started slow, but when the northeast tradewinds finally touched us, the boat began to fly. (For a 37-foot sailboat, flying is 6 to 7 mph, or about 150 miles per day.)
For several weeks we sailed in steady 25-knot trades, then, as if someone threw a switch, the wind stopped and the ocean turned as glassy and flat as a woodland pond.
When the seas had been running high, those deep blue tropical waters, topped with riots of white breakers, seemed devoid of life. But that was only because the ocean was so rowdy and the animals so small. As soon as we were becalmed, the wildlife appeared, as stranded without wind as Honu.
My vivid memory of that day is one of the other cool surface guys Craig mentioned. The boat was adrift in the midst of thousands of Portuguese man-of-wars floating on the surface like tiny blue balloons. But these were no toys. The water was so clear we could see the creature’s stinging tentacles hanging straight down in the water column.
Portuguese man-of-wars sail around the open ocean, raising and lowering their pink-tipped “sails” located at the tops of their floats. Usually these animals live separate from one another, but sometimes the wind overpowers their little sails and herds them together in loose groups, sometimes blowing them to our bays and beaches.
That man-of-war flotilla sparkled in the sun, and in my memory as well. The creatures were so big and blue and remarkable, I forgot that skating around between them were equally remarkable little sea striders.
I won’t forget them again.