Ocean Watch

Monday, August 4, 1997

A few risks can’t spoil
beachcombing pleasures

Last week I took one of my favorite walks on the island -- I strolled the long, white beach of Kailua.

Here, the wind usually blows from sea to land, often pushing floating stuff from the ocean into the bay and onto the beach.

Oh, the treasures I've found here. Once I spotted a piece of black comblike material ahead of me on the beach. At first I thought it was indeed a large comb, chewed up by sun and surf. When I picked it up, however, I discovered it was a special find: baleen from the mouth of a whale.

Baleen allows humpbacks (and several other species) to hold planktonic food in their mouths while pushing out excess water that came in with it.

Because baleen is part of the animals' bodies, like teeth, the whale had probably died.

Not everything I find on Kailua Beach is dead, however; nor is it so safe to pick up. About 15 years ago, a month or so after I moved to Hawaii, I picked up a lovely blue bubble on Kailua Beach. "Look," I said as I showed it to my marine-savvy friend. "Isn't this interesting?"

"Not a good thing to carry around," he said. Then he explained what it was.

It's how I learned it's safe to touch the float of a Portuguese man-of-war as long as you keep its trailing tentacles, the stinging end of the animal, from blowing onto your skin.

I still like to pick up Portuguese man-of-wars on the beach, not to examine, but to find mole crabs.

Ever notice that a day after a man-of-war invasion, lots of blue floats are still lying on the beach, but they're all missing their tentacles? I wondered about this until one day I picked one up that seemed stuck to the sand.

At first, I thought the tentacle had simply been buried in the sand by the surf action. But no. As I dug to investigate, I found a mole crab (sometimes called sand turtles in Hawaii) winding that tentacle around its legs like a ball of yarn.

These little one-inch crabs live buried in the sand near the shore break. When a morsel of food, such as a tasty man-of-war tentacle, drifts past, the mole crab grabs it and starts reeling it in. It doesn't take long for the entire tentacle to be gone, a good thing for us humans, since stinging cells on the tentacles can fire even after the creature is dead.

More dangerous, though, are bees. Honey bees cause more deaths in the United States every year than snakes, sharks or jellyfish. Most people have only minor discomfort from bee stings, but a few are allergic. In these cases, a sting can quickly kill a person.

It's common to see honey bees tumbling in the Kailua surf or staggering near the waterline, especially in the summer when bee activity is high. Entomologist Michael Kliks of the Manoa Honey Co. said these bees are probably senile foragers that got confused about where they were going.

Yes, honey bees get senile. As they near the end of their busy lives, 6 to 8 weeks long, worker bees get mixed up and sometimes wander out to sea, where wind and spray bring them down.

This probably happens on all island shores, but we see them at Kailua and other windward beaches for the same reason we see other creatures on these shores: The tradewinds push them there.

Although Portuguese man-of-war can sting even after they're dead, bees cannot. Bee stings are active acts of defense, with the bee thrusting its stinger into a victim. It's rare to get stung by stepping on a dead bee, but those yet moving may still have enough oomph.

It you do get stung, remove the stinger as quickly as possible. Even after it's detached from the bee, the stinger's poison sac continues to pulsate and inject poison.

Stinging creatures don't spoil the walking at Kailua Beach -- it's always a good experience. Every time I go, dozens of others are there, getting exercise, enjoying Hawaii's beauty and looking for those special gifts from the sea.