A day out in the water!

 Hello everybody, happy July 4th!  Just like here in the US, 4th of July is a big holiday in Tonga.  It is the birthday of King Taufa'ahau Tupou the 4th who passed away in 2006.  He was the King of Tonga for over 40 years.  My guys sent greetings as they spent the day on the beach roasting a pig and having a pic-nic.

And for today's topic, me and the boys go collecting corals!

                       

The day was perfect!  The ocean was calm and the sky blue.  Here is my right hand man Teau (driving the boat) and his sidekick Tau.  They are originally from my neck of woods, the San Francisco Bay Area.  Destiny has it that they ended up on a South Pacific Island diving for corals, a long way from East Palo Alto!

 

This beautiful little island is surrounded by beautiful corals!  This was our first stop.  I have close up pictures of this picturesque get-away island that I will share on another thread.  We made a promise to ourselves on this day that we would come and roast a pig and have a pic-nic on this island before I left - and we did - going to be an awesome write up!  
                       
We anchored and Teau and Tau getting ready to go look for the goods!  The guy manning the engine is our boat man Sione.  His main job is to secure the boat, help with diving gear, and putting away the corals into those bins you see.  Sometimes he will pull the anchor and follow the guys, watching the bubbles.                                    

My favorite thing to do (if not snorkeling goofing off) while waiting for the guys to collect the corals, is to do some fishing!  I was shocked when I hooked into this clown trigger, gave me a good fight for a little fella.  I love this fish to death and it brought good old memories when I first got into the hobby.  Like many others, I got hooked on keep saltwater aquariums starting with triggers - and the clown trigger was my favorite!

                        
My excitement turned into concern when I noticed the belly was bloated.  Due to rapid rise to the surface, the fish was unable to decompress!

                        
Quick thinking on my part, I grabbed a fly and bent down the barb and stuck it into the bottom of the trigger.  
After the hook broke the bloated air bladder, I was able to squeeze out the excess air.  He swam down as soon as I put him back into the water, think he will be ok.  Well that was an experience, catching and releasing a clown trigger with a hook and line - never a dull moment when you are out in the water!
                        
The first to come up was Teau.  Along with corals, he had found a highly prized sea cucumber.  This species of pech de mer is the most sought after of the holothurians in Tonga.  It is found relatively deep so difficult to obtain.  In the recent years, the Tongan Fisheries has allowed export of these highly sought after delicacies.  They are gutted, cooked, and dried before being packed for export.  Most of these end up in the Asian market, so it is not surprising that most people doing this business are Asians.  A special license is required and when it is in season, the whole island fisher folks are busy collecting and selling to the processors/exporters.  I remember once, the price of local lobsters had sky rocketed due to the scarcity, simply because everyone was looking for sea cucumbers instead!

                         
The local name of this sea cucumber translates to eight teats or nipples.  There are four of these nipples on each side of the giant hard slug.  This particular specimen would fetch around $50 US when sold to an exporter.  So as a diver, if you can find ten of these in a day, well you are doing very good!

Some corals that were collected.  Red or even pink gonioporas are not common, but the divers do find them from time to time.

Sorry for the blurred picture, but at least you can make out the nice stylophoras!

This big turbo snail makes a nice snack!  I have looked all over the place for small ones to export, but can't find none.  All of them are near this size, like I said before, everything is big in Tonga!

So here is the turbo snail without the shell, ready to be eaten raw.  Some tobasco sauce on this baby would be delicious!

A bin full of acros just collected.  The sun makes it difficult for any colors to show up.  This small acropora I'm holding is a green sarmentosa with orange tips!  The acros from this collection bin will be transferred to other holding containers, each wrapped in plastic to minimize damage.

Tongan xenias are hard to ship.  These are not the same weed like growing ones in our aquariums that refuse to die.  Generally we can only ship small pieces in big bags of water and oxygen, thus making the landed cost very high.  Still customers do order them and they are beautiful when fully opened!

A bin full of xenias.  Half of them will melt within a few days and only the super healthy ones will be exported. Normally I try to avoid these sensitive soft corals but some customers really want them and willing to take the risk!

With all of our bins filled with corals, it is time to head back in!

The sun was setting as we pushed toward home!

Right when we got to the wharf this guy was on a kayak tossing out lures.  We stopped to talk to him for a minute as I was very curious to see what he was after!

He was using this topwater popper near the wharf where street lights were shining onto the water.  He explained that the small baitfish would get attracted to the light and the bigger fish come looking for them -wow!

And dang, he already had two GT's (giant trevallies)!  I learned that monster fish lurk in the area and love top water plugs.  The only thing I can think of was to make sure to bring my striped bass surf plugging gear next time!  Got my blood pumping as fishing is my number one hobby, then comes corals - ha! ha!

Conclusion

Ok guys that is it for today.  As I type this, I can hear fireworks still outside.  As promised I will be updating with more adventures in the coming days, so please stay tuned.

Oh and I forgot to mention that during my last trip to Tonga, I worked on a secret project that is going to positively shake up the industry!  I will share this with you when the time is right:)

Cheers,
Eddie

Tonga Corals 2012

Hi everyone, it has been a long time since I last posted.  Lots of things have happened since November of last year, especially in my personal life.  I became a dad!  People said things will change once I become a parent, and that has been totally true.  My priorities have changed and now it is no longer chasing corals, but to spend time with my son and family.  But it is only a matter of time, that my little "frag"  gets old enough to join me in my adventures.  Before we get into today's topic, here are some pictures of my "little man"!

Believe it or not, this is my boy Daniel born on January 21st 2012 smiling after drinking some milk - on his second day of being born!

And here is Daniel at three months - cute little guy, looks like me ha! ha!

At four months old with my wife Anne.  That is my elderly Aunt who raised me since I was 8 in the background.  We went on a pic-nic and set up a small tent for the day at a park.

And this picture was taken a few days ago.  My boy is a happy little man - always smiling and laughing!

So let's get into today's topic.  I have many stories to tell but let's start off with what I know best - corals!  Please keep in mind that all the pictures were taken with flash under natural light.  Of course these would look really nice under our aquarium lights.  So if the corals look good under natural light, just imagine under some 20K halides!

                                      

So this gorgeous little piece is the famous highly sought after Tongan Micromussa amakuensis.  Metallic orange with "steel" markings.  Always in tiny to small pieces, these precious corals are only found on reef tops where there is a strong current.  When I say strong current, like where the waves crash over the rocks!

This micromussa has more of the "steel" colored rings, very rare and really cool!

Not so rare is the Tongan pink and green favia.  This picture truly does no justice, it is a super nice piece.  Can't see it but the pink centers are really bright!

Kind of unusual coral.  At a glance it looks like a plating montipora of some sort.  But check out the grooves and the super hard skeleton tells me that this little gem is a psammocora.  Also comes in orange green!

Again a bad picture of a truly super coral.  This is a gorgeous orange green lobophyllia, found in deeper waters.  The shallow water versions tend to be red!

If you guessed ultra green and white leptastrea, you are correct!  Super piece that deserves super attention.  This piece, along with all the corals on this post have been exported already.  Chances are that this rare colored coral has been fragged into million pieces!

Once in a while we will find a favia that resembles the "Christmas" favias out of Indonesia.  These morphs are rare in Tonga, just like the pink and green ones are rare out of Indo.

Don't let the dull colors from the flash fool you, this nice acanthastrea subechinata glows under aquarium lights!  Note the whitish markings, many acans will come with these markings and the colors can range from white to pink to sky blue!

This sexy orange green lobo sports pink mouths and a pink rim - wow!!

Montipora danea!  Purple with yellow green "bumps", oh and purple polyps too - nice!

 One of the most popular corals these days are the platygyra/goniastrea type.  The species are hard to tell apart, and some appear to be a convoluted favia.  The color range from green to bluish color.  My divers swear that they are blue in the ocean!

Everything in Tonga is big, the fungias can get huge!  These are the size of heliofungias out of Indonesia.  Normal colors are metallic green and purple.  Super nice under aquarium lights!

Not so common are the orange morphs of the fungias.  This metallic orange monster was "glowing" on the ocean bottom, according to my diver who found it!

Check out this little gem of an acanthastrea!  I definitely see three colors on this gorgeous little coral!

Echinophyllia chalices are always high in demand.  Good thing we have unlimited permits to export this coral out of Tonga.  One of the reasons why this coral has such a high price tag on the retail market in the US, is that it is relatively rare (compared to other corals).  It is rare or hard to find because there are virtually no wild Cites for this coral from Indonesia.   So all of chalices you see running out there in the market from Indo have been smuggled in.  The above piece has a grayish bluish marbled base with red eyes - very nice!

Nice shaped merulinas are hard to find, this one is purple and green!

Another one of those nice convoluted favid type of corals!

Scolymia vitiensis!  This one is metallic orange with pink marbles!  Sure would look awesome under some 20ks!

Nice plating psammocora!  This one is orange with green hi-lights.  It appeared to be solid orange under natural lighting, but when taken with flash, you can see some of the green!

This coral is known as a "worm brain" in Tonga.  Definitely a platygyra species.  Note the little white mark on the coral.  Many of these type of corals host a tiny shrimp or a crab living in a hole.  Really cute when they stick their heads out!

This is a euphyllia glabrescense, also known as the torch coral.  We have two species, the other one is the cristata species which has shorter polyps when extended.  Our Tongan euphyllias are not as nice as the Indo cousins but still the demand for them are high.  Why?  Simply because we can ship as many as the customer wants with proper permits.  Out of Indo, the Cites permit for these corals definitely are not enough to meet the demand.

Pink stylophoras are nice out of Tonga.  Sometimes we find the nicer pink ones with green polyps!

Montipora peltiformis, always popular due to their bright yellow base with purple polyps!

Cute pink seriotopora hystrix with yellow green tips!

Wow!  This orange green lobophyllia is crazy!  Indonesia has some nice ones, but this one can go toe to toe with any of the super nice ones from the Coral Triangle!  It is sitting in someone's tank right now, probably in the dealer's show tank - ha! ha!

The most unique coral from the South Pacific, the famous Tongan Pavona maldivensis!  They come in both green and orange.  This perfect shaped specimen is a gem mint 10!

Killer metallic orange three headed scolymia vitiensis!

Nice red lobo with green white center.  Small but definitely a gem!

And finally can't have a coral list without an acropora - my specialty!  This nice medium sized colony is a tri color, Acropora secale.  We also have the other tri color, validas but the branches tend to be thinner and longer.  Again this picture does no justice.  Take a picture of your favorite acro in the water with a flash, then you will know what I am talking about.

Conclusion

Ok guys that is it for today's post.  Stayed tuned as I will be posting regularly from now on (really honest this time ha! ha!).  If you are a dealer and would be interested in my Tongan corals, please don't hesitate to contact me at joylucktp2000@yahoo.com.

Cheers,
Eddie