Speed Trap

On a recent sunny Sunday, a rare break in this rainy month, we were headed to Poipu to find a beach. However, I got caught in a speed trap on the Koloa bypass road, also called Ala Kinoiki, which kinda ruined our day.

Map source: maps.google.com, annotations by the author. Note that the “Mahaulepu Rd” on this map does not go to Mahaulepu.

The Koloa bypass road has a single 25 mph (40 mk/h) speed limit sign and is perfect for catching unsuspecting speeders. From the north, drivers are lulled by the lack of houses into thinking it is not yet a 25 mph residential zone. From the south, the houses are behind walls and the intersection isn’t very apparent. And the place where the police park their cars to point the radar is hidden by curves from both directions. As in most other places in the United States, the police probably won’t stop you if you are going less than 10 mph (15 km/h) over the speed limit.

However, the fine for going 41 mph in a 25 zone is $137, so I suppose it is very profitable for the police. Looking at the ticket, you can see other fines. For example, it’s a good thing I had all my papers in the car and that the baby was properly attached in her car seat. As you can see, running a stop sign or illegal passing have a lower fine, even though they seem more dangerous to me. But alcohol violations are highly punished, including drinking at a scenic lookout. You’ve been warned:

I probably shouldn’t make a big deal about it, after all, even the Ultimate Kauai Guidebook says to watch out for speed traps on the bypass road. Another speed trap they don’t mention is on the main highway in Wailua, between the old Coco Palms hotel and the Wailua beach. Again, it’s a 25 mph zone with a wide road and no residences, so many people go much faster. It is actually a dangerous area because many people look at the beach or check out the surf but traffic can be stopped because of the lights. I’ve seen several rear-ended cars there.

Spring is in the Air

Another time for one of those change in season moments. A few days before the actual start of spring, the blue sky and warmer temperatures over the weekend made it seem as if spring had finally arrived. You could smell the exuberance of nature in the air, people were walking outside again. We didn’t go far, but Nounou, our neighborhood mountain looked beautiful in green under a blue sky:

But now it’s raining again.

Wetter Than Waialeale

After several days that each received more than 4 inches (10 cm) of rain last week, everyone was waiting for the sunshine to come back. Finally, the weather forecast called for a break in the clouds over the weekend. But before the storm was done, it had the final say: 7 inches (18 cm) of rain at my house from noon to 7 pm on Thursday (March 16th).

I looked up the rain gauge records online and found we received more than Waialeale that day, indeed all of Kapaa got drenched with more than 6 inches (15cm):

Source: National Weather Service Honolulu Forecast Office

Nounou once again had its temporary waterfalls, and with the clouds blowing over, looked like a misty Chinese mountain painting (well, not quite):

Wailapa Flood Photos

You may have heard about the flood tragedy on Kauai where a dam broke after heavy rains and washed an entire valley out to the ocean. Two people have been found dead and 5 more are missing, all from a house that was completely swept away by the wall of water and debris. Here’s one article about it in the newspaper.

I haven’t had time to blog about the circumstances of the dam break yet, but I went with a friend to take some pictures that I want to post ASAP (as soon as possible–for the non-English speakers). We took these photos about half a mile makai (towards the ocean) from where the flood crossed (and damaged) the main highway. The large versions of these photos are slightly larger and higher quality than usual.

Here is the property where we walked down to the Wailapa stream-bed. It’s at a bend in the stream near a reforested area, so the flood create a log-jam here and spread out onto several properties. The debris in the foreground is the high-water mark, the pile in the background is the log-jam:

Here is the log-jam made up of huge piles of broken tree trunks and branches. There were some pieces of housing material here and there. The further pile is about 30 feet (10 m) high. The house on the other side of the flooding was spared.

This is looking upstream, the flood-waters came directly towards this position. The reservoir is still draining, or they are pumping it out because normally this stream does not run. The main damage of the flood was that it uprooted trees which then caught on more trees, eventually ripping up small forests on its 3 mile run to the ocean.

This photo is looking downstream, where you can see the stream bends to the right, and the replanted forest straight ahead was leveled.

A Good Morning

This cloudy weather really makes for the occasional spectacular sunrise. This one last week was a double-feature. First, the sun lit up the high clouds with fiery orange colors which could be seen through breaks in the low clouds. Here are two photos glued together:

About 10 minutes later, the high clouds had turned white but the low clouds were lit up transparently with orange light.