Spouting Horn - when you are lucky

Kauai's Spouting Horn results from waves crashing into the beach and forcing water through a tube left as lava cooled. The larger the wave, the higher the water spouts. Tourists show up to take photos and the impressiveness of what they get depends on the waves that happen to be rolling that day. This take your chance seems to apply to several natural phenomena. For example, the trip to view the beautiful Waimea Valley and the distant coastline is available only when the fog and clouds allow. Predicting when the view will be available is difficult and we are 1/3 in making the trip. The element of chance makes saying you have witnessed the view more rewarding.

Waimea Valley (when visible)

Bridge bandits don’t have the Aloha Spirit

Some of the roads we drive on in Kauai have one lane bridges. These roads are heavily traveled so traffic piles up, sometimes for a great distance, on each side of the bridge. There are no traffic lights and not even stop signs. I wrote about the solution last year. A simple sign on each side of the bridge explains that the convention is to take turns with 5-7 cars going across during each turn. I remember wondering how tourists would understand this,  it it seemed to work.

Part way through our visit this year, I saw a change. Some hooligan had spray painted out the original sign and created a crude sign suggesting 20-30 cars could go across. The next time we crossed the bridge the original sign and civility had returned.

Tonight, there was another change. The original sign was still there, but another sign painted carefully to resemble the original offered an alternative rule. I am pleased to report that the anarchy recommended by the self-proclaimed Bridge Bandits had not prevailed. Aloha.

Malasadas

Nearly every culture I encounter has some form of a deep fried dough sprinkled with sugar. On multiple occasions, I have consumed fry bread with Native American colleagues and enjoyed beignets in Louisiana. There must be some universal truth that explains our willingness to create and consume such delights.

While in Honolulu, we were strongly encouraged to visit Leonard’s - home of the Portuguese donut. The fried treat is called a Malasada. It comes sprinkled with sugar or sprinkled and filled. One of these is pretty much all you can handle. We brought a dozen back to Kauai and refrigerated them to control the messy fillings that emerge as you eat. I am thinking a chocolate Malasada and coffee will make a perfect breakfast.

Pearl Harbor Memorial

We made the trip to Honolulu to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial and see some of the other sights. The center piece of the memorial is the submerged Arizona which serves as the tomb for hundreds of sailors and marines. Some of the remaining survivors are still being buried with their comrades. The preview movie from U.S. AND Japanese sources provides a sobering description of the events leading to the U.S. entry into WWII.

Rain

When it decides to really rain in Kauai, it can be quite a show. You have to differentiate the daily misting from serious rains. We had a day last week with more than a foot and today looks similar although the period today when I took this picture was more extreme.

Atkinson’s Photocard

This is as much a tech recommendation as anything. If you are an iPad user, take a look at Bill Atkinson’s PhotoCard. This app allows you to take an image from your photo collection, have it printed, and then mailed. The cost per card is inferior $2 and the results are spectacular. If you are cheap, you can send the cards by email, but this kind of subverts Atkinson’s mission which was to create more images in a physical form. Atkinson is concerned we are losing these physical artifacts and postcards are one way to preserve images with a message.
For those who may be unfamiliar, Atkinson is a legend in the Apple community working on MacPaint and HyperCard. Both were key products in the young personal computer industry.

Monk seal

Monk seals are unique to Hawaii and endangered. This seal with transmitter. The radio sends signal when out of the water. This one was injured and not doing well and this was the reason for the transmitter. A volunteer made the trip to this beach in response to the signal because the seal had not been spotted in some time. Green on skin indicates seal is molting.

Easing the pain

I spend many afternoons at a local coffee shop while the rest of the group heads to the beach. As I have explained before, I am not a beach person. The shop is two miles from the condo where we stay and I walk home for the exercise. I would not describe the walk as a pleasant experience. The temps are always in the low 80s and the humidity is very high.

I decided today that I would try to distract myself by taking pictures of my surroundings and post then when I reached home. The sidewalk/trail runs along a golf course and through a residential neighborhood. The homeowners have separated themselves from the trail with some type of hedge. Hibiscus seems to be a popular choice.

McBride and Allerton Gardens

We have become fans of botanical gardens and visit them when we travel. We belong to the Minnesota Arboretum supposedly one of the best in the country. I have yet to find a place that matches the Minnesota Arboretum, but each location has features.

I like gardens that combine a research function, education, and beautiful plants. The association of the Minnesota Arboretum with the University of Minnesota meets these expectations. You can see plants you never see in the wild and learn what is wrong with a tree of yours that has yellow spots on the leaves.

The McBride and Allerton Gardens in Kauai have similar functions. Started by sugar barons (they don’t grow sugar cane here anymore) the gardens do research and maintain endangered indigenous plants and show off all of the tropical flowers so common here.




Here is an image from the research facility. Some of these plants can no longer be found in the wild.


Of course, there were also the beautiful plants and other you find in such places.

Cliff rescue

This is a first for me. We are located on the edge of a golf course and a cliff that overlooks the ocean. This afternoon I saw a helicopter circle the hole on the course we view a couple of times and then landed. Two individuals stepped out of the helicopter one with a harness of some type. The helicopter took off again with the man in the harness connected to a tether. This man was lowered over the side of the cliff out of sight and the helicopter raised up again. A few minutes later the helicopter returned, lowered the tether, and the raised back up.

This is the full-size image of the two individuals linked from the tether from the image I compressed above. The individual brought up was dressed in a t-shirt and shorts (the yellow and orange is part of a chair like device).

I don't think this was a training exercise. The man "rescued" was standing, but taken to an ambulance. I was using a telephoto so you don't see the perspective of the golf course and cliff, but this image was what I was able to capture at maximum magnification. It appeared the individual was part way down the cliff (not in the water) and either was hurt or could not get back up without assistance.

Tall bamboo

 

Hawaii, Hawaii, that’s where the tall bamboo grows.

I like this picture and you will have to excuse the weird comment which likely makes sense only to those with a bit of Iowa background.

Strange fruit

Kauai offers the opportunity to purchase a wide variety of fruits at multiple farmers’ markets. I have now tried quite a few. Beyond the novelty, few have made my “go to” list. I like white pineapples and this strange banana called the apple banana. It seems to have much more taste than the bananas you buy in a state-side grocery store. We purchase these bananas when they are green so it is not the harvesting methods applied to the large bananas we purchase in the Midwest.

Beaches

Kauai beaches have an interesting characteristic. All beaches are considered public. It does not matter what homes, hotels or eating establishments are located on the beach, the beach itself is public. This is a partial view from the St. Regis. This hotel is very expensive and very luxurious. The beach area features multiple pools, several bars. cabanas, employees with towels, chairs, etc. If you look carefully, you will see that all of this ends at a certain point and the area directly by the water is public (sand only).

The condo we rent is about 1/3 mile up the road. Cindy likes to walk to the St Regis and then take the stairs down to the beach and then return. 

I am not a fan of stairs. The hotel allows anyone to use the elevators to reach the beach so I ride down and walk up. The may sound strange to some, but I have some difficulty walking down stairs. My feet are large (14). I am a toe walker (meaning the front of my foot is typically past the front of the step and my weight is too far forward) and I have trouble lowering myself step to step. Going up raises my heart rate, but I have no issue with balance. My typical walk targets a coffee shop. Two miles away, but no steps.