A Foot of Rain

Friday, Sep 16th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Maps, Weather

The storm that gave us a an inch of rain near the east shore dumped 11 inches (28 cm) at the summit of Waialeale, and slightly more in Wainiha, an inhabited valley on the North Shore. When it gets to be that much, I would start worrying about water leaking into the house because the drainage in our yard isn’t that good.

If you like to track such things, the NOAA provides the 24-hr hydrology map for Kauai, updated every 3 hours as far as I can tell.

Mount Waialeale is known as the wettest place on earth, but as with all such claims, it depends on how you count. I have heard of other places that had more rain in a year than Waialeale has ever had, but I think that it has the highest yearly average. Here are some of the best photos of the summit that I’ve seen.

Pile of Fruit

Thursday, Sep 15th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Flora, Food

We did our usual shopping at the Kapaa farmer’s market on Wednesday and bought a basket full of fruit. When laid out on the dining room hutch, this is what it looks like:

Top of hutch covered in fruit.

In the back, from left to right:

  • Large papaya from our tree, small papayas from our other tree (under the bananas)
  • Santol, a fruit from south-east Asia that we’d never seen before despite all our adventurous eating. Of course we had to try it, so we’re waiting for them to ripen.
  • Apple bananas on the stand
  • Star fruit also called carambola, under some mountain apples (not real apples)
  • Yellow passion fruit, also called maracuya, and delicious atemoya

Front row, left to right:

None of these fruits are native to Hawaii, but the Polynesians brought the breadfruit (ulu), mountain apple (‘ohi’a ‘ai), and bananas (mai’a) in their canoes. The mountain apple now grows wild in some canyons along the Na Pali coast. You can see bananas in the wild too, but they are probably the descendants of plants cultivated near a settlement, because bananas do not have seeds and only spread by sprouting from the root.

All of the links above are just from Google, but they give you a good overview of the many good tropical fruit web sites. It’s incredible how many different kinds of fruit there are in this world.

An Inch of Rain

Thursday, Sep 15th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Weather

We had a fairly dry summer on Kauai, and ended up using tons of water (literally) to keep the garden from dying. We would occasionally get a rain shower at night, but rarely more than a tenth of an inch. But now the weather is changing, it started out being muggy, and now were getting our first big rains. Last night there was a whole inch, more than the entire month of August:

Standard rain gauge attached to our back fence, with 1 inch of precipitation.

The rain gauge was here at the house when we bought it, and I’ve enjoyed keeping track of how much rain we get. Here’s the monthly rainfall so far this year:

Inches Centimeters
January 11.50 29.2
February 11.40 29.0
March 1.95 5.0
April 1.50 3.8
May 3.30 8.4
June 2.70 6.9
July 1.65 4.2
August 0.80 2.0
Sept to date 2.15 5.5
Year to date 36.95 93.9

According to this map, the annual average at our house is around 60 inches or 150 cm of rain.

Tropical Waffle

Sunday, Sep 11th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Food

There’s nothing like a special brunch on Sunday morning to start or finish the week off in style. For us that means waffles piled high with fresh fruit from the farmer’s market.

Waffle and fruit topping for brunch.

For the record, the fruit you see are apple bananas, starfruit, papaya, tangerine, and white pineapple, and there is passion fruit hidden at the bottom. Apple bananas are the small bananas grown locally, much more flavorful than the larger ones that we call mainland bananas. The papayas come from our yard, and the passion fruit we find along the roads and trails.

The waffles are from multi-grain organic waffle mix: just add milk, an egg, and some oil. They’re really quick to make and they taste great. One of the first things we bought here was a $2 electric waffle iron from a thrift store. It works fine, you just have to put the first waffles in the oven to stay warm until you’ve made them all.

Moloaa Beach

Saturday, Sep 10th, 2005 by Andy | Leave a Comment
Filed under: Beaches

Moloaa Bay is one of those hidden gems of the North Shore of Kauai. It is off the main highway and down the scenic old road, which also makes it less crowded. Nearly the entire bay is lined with a beautiful golden sand beach, although the waves are a bit rough in the center where you access the beach at this sign:

MoloaaBeach1

But if you walk to either side of the bay, there is a small reef that protects the beach for swimming and snorkeling. The next photo was taken on the left side as you face the ocean. I call it the ironwood side of the bay because of the trees. The other side is the coconut side.

MoloaaBeach2

Parking can be a problem because the end of the road has no space, and lots of No Parking signs. Park near the last intersection and walk the road to the beach. There were currents inside the reef on the ironwood side, but the coconut side was mostly still. Please observe the ocean, exercise caution and avoid the water if you’re unsure you can handle the conditions.

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