Ocean Art

Kenji's Note #3 - about Driftwood

Driftwood, to me  are nature's way of creating its own art.  This huge driftwood is Kiawe wood.  It was found close to Black Point, in shore.  This driftwood reminds me of the huge sperm whale that I used to see infrequently, in the early 1940's.  Once while on the main highway near Kapaau (at that period of time, the main highway was farther up than where it is today).  We saw a huge, black object far out in the ocean.  When it started to dive, this huge sperm whale was not unlike a sea serpent depicted in fiction stories.  The huge mighty fin was the last part of its body on the surface.  A huge area of white water was seen before the fin too was underwater.  It most probably was hunting for giant squid, its favorite food.  Today this species of whale is hardly seen in our waters, having been hunted extensively in Hawaii during the whaling years.

​

The Cassis Cornuta supporting this huge driftwood was found at Mahukona, Hawaii in July 1986, washed up on shore by huge waves.  If you saw this huge amount of rocks and corals tossed up to shore by waves generated by Hurricane Ignacio in 1985, you whould have seen a natural law of order created by nature.  I still have a hard time believing what I witnessed.  Cassis Cornata is a sand dweller.  It is a predator, preferring sea urchins.  When this mollusc is resting, it usually buries itself in the sand, leaving only the top knobs exposed.  To get this shell out of the sand is a challenge especially if one's breath is just about gone.  To me, Cassis Cornuta and Charonia Tritonis are the nobility of the shell world here in Kohala waters. Cassis Cornuta roams the sands areas while Charonia Tritonis roams the coral reef.  The triton shell prefers starfishes and sea cucumbers as their food.

- Kenji Yokoyama