Nonou Sunrise

For today’s sunrise, I hiked up the Nonou East trail behind my house, on what is commonly known as the Sleeping Giant mountain. I had been hoping for the perfectly clear sky we had yesterday morning, but there were clouds blocking the actual sunrise. Still, there were some nice rays of light on the ocean a few colorful clouds:

I’m not quite sure what the smooth lines are in the ocean, either currents or wakes from fishing boats I assume. You can also see some waves breaking near shore, they were about 4 feet (1.2 m) high today (height of the face, or double the amplitude, as they measure them here).

Change of Seasons

For practical purposes, seasons are tied to the equinoxes and solstices, but nature is never that precise. Sometimes it feels like winter comes sooner or summer comes late, it all depends on the place and the person.

For me the Hawaiian chilly season arrived yesterday. Stepping out the door at 7am to watch the sunrise, my body felt cold in my t-shirt, shorts and slippas (pidgin for flip-flops). So I went back inside and had to put on a long-sleeve over-shirt. I checked the outside thermometer, and it read 62 °F (16.5 °C).

It doesn’t mean I was never cold all summer, that can happen easily if there is any wind blowing when you get out of the water after sunset. Nor does it mean my wife will now turn off the air-conditioner during the day. It was just that personal moment when I felt the passing of a longer time period, the passing of a warm summer season.

I’m sure I will pay for this post with a karmic snowstorm the next time I visit the mainland.

Catching Up

Here’s a moonrise from the full moon almost two weeks ago:

And a sunrise from last week:

At the End of Kealia

Kealia is a long beach just north of Kapaa on Kauai’s east side. The Kapaa stream begins in the Makaleha mountains and reaches the ocean here. The bay is fairly large and has good swells for surfing. At the far north end of the beach is a rocky point that shelters a calm and usually safe swimming area. I’m not sure whether this rocky point is natural or a sort of man-made jetty (update: I now know it is man-made, probably as a sort of breakwater to provide somewhat sheltered anchoring long ago–but I can’t remember where I read about it) . Here is a quickly stitched panorama looking south and inland from those rocks. It would look better in the morning light:

It was also at this end of the beach that I met Kyle, who has a talent for balancing rocks. He also has an eye for picking out the interestingly shaped ones and making temporary sculptures out of them. He doesn’t use any sand between the rocks, just adjusts them until they stand up on their own:

Update: Similarly, I once saw dozens of balanced rocks further up the Kapaa stream, on the Hoopii hike. It’s a mesmerizing scene to walk through the forest and see such subtle man-made “art” in an otherwise natural setting.

Happy Thanksgiving

I’m a bit late with the post, but at least it’s still the Thanksgiving weekend.

While Thanksgiving might be associated with cold weather and leaf raking in North America, I have no qualms about celebrating Thanksgiving in Hawaii, as I do Halloween. Thanksgiving was brought to Hawaii by the missionaries, probably more as a cultural memory of home than as a religious celebration. However, it was originally a harvest festival, and Hawaiians historically celebrated the Makahiki festival starting around this time. Although food plants grow year-round in Hawaii, the winter rains and shorter days weren’t ideal for the taro Hawaiian taro farming and the last major harvest was in November. Makahiki was a 4-month season of peace, feasting, games, and praying for the next year’s crops.

While Thanksgiving has become a football and shopping blitz here as well, I like to think of the good side of Thanksgiving, where pilgrims created a new holiday for the New World, outside of the religious calendar but religious in their own persaonl way, where families get together, and where each and every one looks inside themselves to ponder what they should be grateful for. One seasonal event we can be thankful for here in Hawaii is the end of the hurricane season (June 1-November 30). And a feast is a good way to start eating all the canned food we’ve been stockpiling:

Actually, that is only half of what we have, nor does it show the 12 gallons (45 liters) of drinking water in jugs. We start buying lots of cans and soy milk as they go on sale all spring and summer, and we’ll eat them all winter and spring so we can get new ones next year. Not having lived through a hurricane and its aftermath, I have no idea if this is the right amount of food. We can at least avoid the stress of shortages when a hurricane gets near, and I think we could live 2 weeks with what we have.