Kapaa Stream Kayaking

It’s so hard to start blogging again, I got in the habit of just reading other people’s blogs. The lack of posts hasn’t been for lack of hikes, sunrises, events, or news-worthy items, I have lots of drafts to publish. However, I’m going on a real vacation starting next week, so I thought I’d post today’s outing before it fades away in my mind.

The Kapaa Stream is sometimes called the Kealia stream because it ends at the south end of Kealia Beach, just north of Kapaa. You can see it from the road bridge, and I’ve always wanted to explore it by kayak.

The best place to put the boat in the water is on the southern (right) bank, between the road and the stream. Down a little dirt road, you can park right next to the bridge at the stream. There’s a little makeshift ramp there for launching, even a little home-made pier. The following picture also shows the new bike path bridge being built in place of the plantation train bridge that had nearly rusted away.

It looks like that center piling was half-sunk at one point, I wonder if it was from the tsunamis of 1946 or 1957. It looks like it was reused and topped off level, but I think the new bridge does not rest on it (those are wooden spacers in the picture above).

But what about the kayaking? Well, this is one of the prettiest rivers I’ve kayaked on Kauai. It’s doesn’t have the size or waterfall hiking of the Wailua River, nor the mountain backdrop of the Hanalei River, but it’s a charming stream through Kauai’s rural landscape.

The first leg is a wide lagoon, although several patches of pretty water hyacinth are trying to reduce it. The tradewinds blow straight up this part, so save some energy to paddle against them on the way back. The stream then winds back in a big S curve (so you paddle against the wind, both ways), past some cows and horses to the prettiest part inland.

As the stream straightens out, it ducks under some large monkeypod trees for some shade. There’s a big logjam that you can fortunately get by on the right, and then you just admire the bananas and coconut trees lining the bank until you reach the swinging bridge.

After going under the bridge, you reach shallower water, but it is possible to scrape by until you see the road crossing the stream on a small dam. Total distance measured in Google Earth is almost exactly 2 miles each way.

You can also reach the swinging bridge by car: take Hauaala Rd. from the main highway up across Kawaihau Rd and back down into the stream valley. As it turns into a one-lane road, it parallels the stream and almost a mile further you’ll see the bridge.

I’m fascinated by the swinging bridges on Kauai. In my mind they’re associated with more adventurous crossings in the jungles of South America or the gorges of the Himalayas. I know of 5 on Kauai (2 in Waimea—3 actually but the uppermost one is private and in very bad shape, Hanapepe, Kapaia—between Lihue and Hanamaulu, and this one). Up until only 25 years ago, swinging bridges probably still outnumbered stop-lights on Kauai.

Most of these pedestrian bridges still serve residents in the river valleys, either as shortcuts to the fields or sometimes the main access to some houses. This one in Kapaa serves a half-dozen houses as an easier alternative to vehicle access on a long dirt road. In the photo above, there is actually one of the residents on the bridge near the right-hand cable support (click the photo to see it in higher resolution).

Blogroll Finally

A blogroll is a list of links from one blog to other blogs. It usually represents the blogs that inspire or inform the writer of the blog in question. It is usuall presented as a list of links and sometimes images to the side of the main content, as you can see in the right column on this blog.

Ever since I’ve started blogging, I’ve been on the lookout for other blogs about Kaua’i, and while I have mentioned them sometimes, I never had time to set up my blogroll. This evening, my wife who designed the layout of this website created the little image and got my blogroll … ahem, rolling.

I’m happy to reserve the inaugural top spot on my blogroll for IslandBreath.org edited by Juan Wilson. Juan is an architect who lives in Hanapepe on the west side, and who is concerned about the future of Kauai. He covers environmental and political issues that threaten this island, this country, and the world in general. He knows a lot of insiders from whom he publishes information, added to his own knowledgeable observations and recommendations for saving the character and beauty of Kauai. In addition, he has a knack for illustrating each article with a thought-provoking graphic.

IslandBreath.org is the local website that I read most frequently, at least once a week. It is actually not a blog in the sense that articles are gouped primarily by topic instead of by time, and there is no comment mechanism. I acutally like the grouping by topic because it gives you more depth to each article. If you like reading about Kauai, you should definitely check it out.

Mahalo

As you may have noticed, this blog got a makeover and now looks all neat and pretty. Nothing fancy or outlandish, just enough green to match the content. Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) to my wife Sonja for figuring out how to change things in WordPress and for creating a good layout that hopefully displays the photos well in all browsers.

If you do see any layout quirks, just leave a comment on this post. Thank you.

For those of you who want to know more, the power behind a blog is that writing a post is as simple as visiting a website and typing in a box. The blog software or the blog service turns your text into a dated and categorized blog entry and presents it nicely to the world. As Sonja did for me, you can then change the masthead and the page layout to suit your needs or your fancy. Readers then access a single URL to see your latest entries or to navigate and find older entries. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is another feature of most blogs, but I’ll cover that in another post.

You have the choice of installing blogging software on your own website or using a blog service to manage your blog for you. A blog service is the simplest and quickest way to blog if you don’t want or need your own personal website. There are many easy-to-use blog services such as LiveJournal, Blogger, and WordPress.com. It’s as simple as creating an account on their website and then just start blogging on the personal page they give you.

For my Kaua‘i Blog, I preferred the flexibility and control of managing my blog configuration on my own website. After registering a domain name with Network Solutions and paying to have it hosted at 1&1 *, I download the free WordPress.org software, easily modified some files, and uploaded them to my hosting provider. To run WordPress, you need access to a MySQL database, which most hosting providers include. After that, you can blog with the default layout until you have time to personalize your page, or until your wife takes pity on you and does it for you.

(*) Note that most domain name services provide hosting and vice versa, I have separate ones as a result of promotions. It might be easier and not much more expensive nowadays to go with only one for both services.

Kung Hee Fat Choy

Since I missed wishing you a Happy New Year 2006, let me at least wish you a Lucky Year of the Dog in 4703 (or 4704 depending on who you ask). Kung Hee Fat Choy is the phonetic spelling of “congratulations and be prosperous” though I’m sure it’s mispronounced. I don’t remember hearing it at the Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s Chinatown before, and Google confirms it is mostly a greeting in Hawaii, or at least on Hawaiian blogs. Kauai has an ethnic Chinese minority and I think there were some celebrations on the island, though not nearly as prominent as at the Chinatown in Honolulu.

So this is a fortuitous time to return from a two-month blog “vacation” for the birth of my first daughter (OK, I’ll post a photo later). I have some stories from the end of last year, but it has been impossible to find the time to write. However, this morning’s sunrise convinced me it’s time for a new beginning:

Tuesday Must Be Blog Day

It seems like I don’t get around to posting the weekend’s stories on Monday, so I tell myself I really have to do it on Tuesday. Then anything noteworthy that happens all week gets put off ’til the weekend, and on the weekend I’m too busy to blog. So here is the old standby, the weekly sunrise photo. This is from last week, because it’s been rainy in the mornings yesterday and today.