Wow! First of all, thanks everyone for the kind words... this has been such a great trip in so many ways, and it's great to share it with you guys who could understand its significance... My coworkers out here in Hawaii just do not understand! My wife gets out here tomorrow for a little vacation to Molokai, Maui, and Lanai, and I have to somehow try and explain this trip, including the significance of this fish... I believe I'll just have her read this thread
The strokes of irony just keep coming... the owner of the store who got this fish in Japan I know, and he emailed me after reading this thread! He also pointed out that his shirt looks good on me, and I realized that I had his store's shirt on in the photo with Rich Pyle and John Earle that Frank Baensch took of us... just two days before catching this fish! I know him independently of Rufus, so this just shows what a small world this is!
I also just returned from dinner with Charles Delbeek of the Waikiki Aquarium (and co-author of the Reef Aquarium Series) who I've known for years... (edit: looks like he just posted!) he'll attest to how many personatus questions I nail him with each time we meet up. For those of you who don't know, the Waikiki Aquarium is working on a NWHI Exhibit featuring Genicanthus personatus. I took the idea of a coral raffle to benefit this exhibit to my local club and we ran with it with the hopes of raising $500 to get our name on the wall... we raised just under $2000! I encourage you guys to read more
here and donate if possible, or organize something like WAMAS did... The waikiki Aquarium is an aquarist's aquarium and Charles and company do a great job there... By the way, they were the first and only aquarium to successfully spawn and raise Genicanthus personatus in captivity by the way... if you want Shamu go to Sea World but if you want beautiful tanks with the rarest Pacific reef fish collection in the world go here!
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Originally posted by alikatoes
You were a key member to the crew! Without a boatman that dive would have been impossible or very risky. Your precision line dropping insured a proper deco for us and the fish. That was hands down the highlight of my dive career for so many reasons.
By the way I was indeed terrified to be the first guy to jump in the water with a school of sharks breaking the surface while feeding. Rufus' foot on my back, kicking me away from the saftey of the boat was really motivating though...
Big thanks to the whole crew (you too John) for a great dive day.
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Thanks Alika! While money can buy a personatus, no amount of money could buy a trip like we had, and that's pretty friggin cool! Memories never die like fish do!
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Originally posted by jmaneyapanda
In the pic with the bandit, whats the deal with the scribbled? I didnt think they were endemic to hawaii. Am I wrong?
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Jeremy, Hawaii is also used as a tranship point for fish south and west, like Christmas Island, the Marshalls, and more and more Australia where the scribbled is from... There are no Chaetodontoplus in Hawaii...
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Originally posted by freedive43
Aloha all,
That's quite a nice documentation you put together John. I am glad that you were able to join us on what was perhaps the best dive trip ever. As a follow-up, the personatus is doing superbly. I shipped it out a few hours ago to Japan. Hopefully Mr. Endo and the boys will be able to get a few high quality pictures of it.
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Rufus you're the man! This was all you... the first one you see and you catch it! What a day... and you even had time to help that fellow diver out! One story I forgot to add for you guys... after all of this craziness, right before going into port we came upon another fish collector's boat and realized one of the divers was bent pretty bad... Between the three rebreather divers they had some pure O2 and 50/50 O2/air to help this guy out... Rufus himself went down to about 20 feet with this guy and sat with him there for an hour as he offgased... all this with the personatus in the boat. The guy was an experienced collector but was very shaken up as he'd never been bent before like that... hopefully the efforts of the team saved this guy from a date with the deco chamber and a multiple thousand dollar bill as he didn't have insurance... I thought that was a cool story and it shows that these guys help out regardless of the $$$ they have in the livewells below...
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Originally posted by trottman
what if this was the only male left in the ocean? then i would say that you made the population extinct. why would you take a fish that is not only super rare in the hobby, but extremely rare in the wild?
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I really hope you are joking here... this wasn't a black rhino we collected...
The only other fish caught on this dive was Apolemichthys arcuatus... the Hawaiian bandit angelfish as I have pictured...