Kalihi

Thursday, Sep 22nd, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Fauna

It turns out that Sonja wants to keep the orphaned kitten she saved from the pound. We ended up naming him Kalihi, since we found him at Kalihiwai beach. One meaning of “ka lihi” is “the speck” or “the crumb” which I guess is fitting while he’s small.

He is very cute and playful, but sometimes he just has too much energy. We usually keep him around us when we’re home, and I take him down to the office to “baby-sit” during the day. So he’s been very good practice for our own baby due in November, but I wonder if he won’t be too much by then. I’d like to find him a nice home.

Here he is climbing the screen door of the office. Fortunately, he is light enough he doesn’t tear the screen (yet!) and he still hasn’t figured out how to use the door handle.

Kitten climbing inside the screen, seen from outside

Tree Fern

Thursday, Sep 22nd, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Flora

While the rainforests of Kauai are often called jungles, I don’t know if they qualify in a scientific sense because they tend to lack biodiversity. Being as isolated as the island is, there are relatively few species here, both plants and especially animals. However, to the lay person, there are plenty of unknown and unusual plants to make the rainforests here appear exotic. One of my favorites is the tree fern that can be found in up in the wet forests and is sometimes used in landscaping lower down.

Called “hapu’u” (PDF link) in Hawaiian, the most common native tree fern is Cibotium glaucum. It seems like there is also a species endemic to Kaua’i (found nowhere else naturally) called Cibotium nealiae. Sadly, Australian tree ferns grow better in the drier climate around the coast, so they have been imported for landscaping.

Here is a picture of one, probably Cibotium glaucum, seen from near the top of the Powerline Trail. The other trails where I know you can see tree ferns are the Alakai Swamp Boardwalk and the Mohihi-Waialae trail.

Large green tree fern canopy seen from above

Powerline Trail

Monday, Sep 19th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Hiking

There was a lot of Weather and Food posts last week, so I needed to get out and go hiking over the weekend. I led a Sierra Club hike on the Powerline trail, from the Arboratum at the southern end up to the crest and back. It’s 9.2 miles (15 km) round-trip with 1500 feet (500 meters) of elevation gain.

The view from the crest is one of the most expansive on the island. You can see from Kapaa to Lihue and south to where the tree tunnel is at the Knudsen Gap. Looking north, you can see Princeville and the mountains that hide Hanalei. Straight east are the Makaleha mountains seen in the following picture:

Hikers heading back down the Powerline trail

The picture also shows some white orchids that grow wild up there, along with other more native plants.

The trail is an old dirt road built to install and service the powerline in the early 1900’s and there are only a few steep spots. You can see one of modern pylons in the picture above. However, there is a fair amount of erosion due to poor drainage, and the clay underneath can get slippery. It is also very colorful:

Crumbly red clay layer on top of smooth grey clay

As you can see, the weather was still a bit unsettled from the storm. We got a few showers, but we were fortunate to stay mostly dry. One advantage to the rain is that there were many more waterfalls on the mountains, but not close enough to get a good picture with my camera.

Mahalo Robin

Monday, Sep 19th, 2005 by Andy | 4 Comments
Filed under: Activism, Beaches

The big storm that gave us so much rain last week caused a lot of runoff and washed lots of old wood down the rivers. Lydgate park and its popular protected rock pool was full of branches and tree trunks that came from the large Wailua River. The newspaper reported on it, and we had a chance to see it firsthand on Sunday.

We found Robin at the beach who didn’t think the county was going to clean up anytime soon and started removing the wood that had already washed up on the sand. I think he just wanted to build a huge bonfire, but I also really appreciate the initiative of making the pool usable again. Unfortunately, we were guests at a nearby wedding and couldn’t help out in our nice clothes.

Robin carrying driftwood away from the beach

You often hear that the people of Kauai are generous volunteers who step up and make things happen. Maybe it’s because on a small island, you really see the difference that volunteering makes. Thanks, Robin, for reminding us and setting the example.

Update: I scooped The Garden Island newspaper!

Our Own Kayak

Monday, Sep 19th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Kayaking

After wanting one for so long, we finally bought a kayak for ourselves. It’s a two person, self-bailing, sit-on-top, Cobra II kayak that we bought used. It’s wide and stable which also means slow, but good enough for us. We didn’t get a chance to try it out over the weekend, so we went today after work:

Sonja learns to steer a rudderless kayak

This is taken on the Opaekaa Stream, near where it meets the Wailua River. We’re fortunate to live only 5 minutes away from some great kayaking on the largest river in Hawaii. There are lots of other rivers to explore this winter and bays next summer when the ocean is calmer again. I’m also proud of the rope and pulley system I installed to hang the kayak right over the car in the carport for easy loading and unloading.

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