Keri's+First+Visit

Our group visited our site on Saturday, 10/11 at 1:30pm.

__**Free-Journal:**__ On Saturday, our group met at the Sandy Beach parking lot and then drove to Ka’iwi Beach. We then took a ten-minute hike down to the beach because the area is not accessible to vehicles. Our area is pretty big. We have both land and ocean environments. There are many tide pools and it’s very rocky and slippery. But there are some sandy parts. We saw many red and white crab parts scattered on the dry rocks since the black crabs molt and when their old shell is baked in the sun, it becomes red and white. When in the water, the depth is about 5-10 feet. It’s an inlet from the ocean into a protected cove. The inlet is about 100 feet wide. The water is clear and blue. When we went, it was very windy, but sunny and beautiful. It was also high tide so there were a lot of waves crashing on the rocks. The land area is dry and sandy, filled with mostly shrubs and ground-covered plants. Some are the sea grape bush, hale koa, keawe wood, ilima, and naupaka. Orange seaweed and green algae are the plant life in the tide pools. Hermit crabs, sea snails (pupu kolea and pipipi), a’ama (black) crabs, shingle (purple) urchins, gobies, blennies, and other various small fishes are some of the animal life we observed. Occasionally, a sea bird would fly overhead. The abiotic factors in our area are the lava rock, sand, dead coral, shells, saltwater (waves, current, tides), wind, and sunlight.

This will be a great place to study for the rest of the semester because there is a wide variety of different species of both plant and animal life. Also you can observe and study up close to most of the various organisms. Our area is like a secret and protected place where there are no people except for some fishermen who are on the other side of the inlet. So actually we are the only people studying the tide pools and land area. Ka’iwi beach is a great place for it has a lot of space to explore, observe, and it is mostly undisturbed by humans because of limited access to beachgoers so there's very few that go to Ka'iwi beach. On our next visit, we are going to swim and observe the organisms that live in the ocean.

The weather is usually sunny and clear. You don’t get too hot because it’s windy and there’s always a sea spray here and there. But if you’re hot, you can always cool off in the water. There's hardly any litter in our area either except maybe a few pieces of fishing line and bottle caps here and there.

__**Assigned Journal:**__ There is this interesting looking seaweed we observed. It is orange, soft, and fuzzy. This orange seaweed lives on the rocks in the tide pools. I think they get their food through photosynthesis, but I am not exactly sure how they receive their food because I have seen this seaweed in shady places where rocks blocked the sunlight. It seems like the orange seaweed can somehow thrive in both sun and shade.

Hermit crabs, pipipi, and pupu kolea live amongst each other. Pipipi or the black nerite snails are the snails that have a black, spiral shell. Pupu kolea are the snails that have a periwinkle-colored, pointy shell, thus they are also called Periwinkle snails. I inferred that they all share homes because most of the hermit crabs and snails have the same black, spiral shell or the same periwinkle-colored, pointy shell. The hermit crabs live in many of the tide pools. They have a black and white body with orange feelers and blue eyes. The crabs have one huge pincer that helps them to attack any intruders, but they are proficient at quickly hiding their whole body into their shell. Both pipipi and pupu kolea also protect themselves by hiding in their shells. They live on damp rocks, preferably right above the water. They can live out of the water for some time, but if too long, they dry up and die. Both snails depend on the tide of the ocean. When it’s high tide, they are in the water and they prepare themselves to be out of the water at low tide by filling up their shell with food and water. They have black bodies with a pair of little black feelers, like an ant’s antennae. Their movement is slow and steady. When you look at them far away, it looks like they are not moving. But if you look closely, the sea snails are actually moving. It’s just that their pace is very slow.

Blennies (or mudskippers) and gobies look very much alike. They both live in the tide pools and are relatively the same size. They have a slender type of body. To escape from predators, they both swim very fast and dart under rocks. They can both jump from tide pool to tide pool if they needed to. Both blennies and gobies have good camouflage, but they camouflage with different surroundings. Gobies camouflage with the sand and blennies camouflage with the black rocks. Blennies can stay out of the water for a few minutes or so, gobies can’t.

Shingle (purple) urchins like to live on the pink lava rocks right above the water where the waves constantly crash. They are suited for this environment because their outer body is like a suit of armor. It’s very hard and very strong to withstand rough waves. They also have strong feet to hold onto the rocks. Their pace, just like the pipipi and pupu kolea, is very slow and they move to eat the algae off the rocks.