Theresa's thoughts on Jenny's musings were quite poignant. 'Blind
dates' in shell collecting can produce some unpleasant experiences.
 
The worst of these, in my instance, was one Dana Threadgall -- who
hopefully quit diving years ago. His 'excuse' for trashing the
bottom and leaving slabs wrong side up was "to remember where I've
been." He did it at Fort Kamehameha reef and I spent much of my dive
turning the slabs back over. He did it at Makua and I never dove
with him again. He wasn't receptive to the 'why' of restoring the
bottom. Collectors like these are why I ended up diving alone, even
at night!
 
However, to keep this in prespective, how many have witnessed what
one day of 15 foot-high swells (25 to 30 foot high surf) can do to
the bottom? In the early '80s, Hurricane Iwa (EEE-va) roared up the
Waianae coast of O'ahu, ruining shelling there for almost half a
decade. The combination of swirlling, sand-filled water (scouring
food sources from the substrate) and monstrous storm surge (pulling
virtually all the viable coral-rubble habitat out onto the sand
bottom -- where it was quickly suffocated in sand and silt) was the
'Kiss of Death' for the area. Not only did the remaining cowries
(my main concern, of course!) starve to death for lack of food, their
veligers were washed out to sea, where those who survived fell to
the abyssal plain on achieving metamorphosis.
 
Be thankful that the greedy can't command the power of a hurricane
or shell collecting would be a thing of the past by now.
 
Aloha,
 
Bob Dayle (a.k.a. makuabob)