Category Archives: Activities

Mooring buoy

At the northern end of Kealakekua Bay, near Captain Cook’s monument, is an area that has good snorkeling. People can hike down to the place or take a boat trip there with one of several companies.

Many of the tour boats are small runabouts. The skipper can just drift with the boat in the bay while the clients snorkel. The largest boat is Fair Wind II, a catamaran that features has two 15-ft waterslides and a high-jump platform! This is not a boat suited to drifting around a bay lined with shallow, coral rich waters and crowded with snorkelers. So they have a mooring buoy in the bay.

Mooring buoys are basically floating balls with a length of chain tethering them to something heavy, usually a large concrete block. The chain is long enough to allow for the ebb and flow of the tides so that the buoy is always available for use. The idea is that a boat ties a line to the buoy, which holds it in a relatively restricted area so that it doesn’t crash into underwater obstructions, land, or other boats.

The Fair Wind II buoy in Kealakekua Bay is different in that its length of chain keeps it permanently below the water, regardless of the state of the tide, as the photo shows. The idea is that when the boat arrives in the bay, a crew person jumps overboard with a mooring line and attaches it, not to the buoy, but to the length of chain hanging below the buoy. The line is then hauled in and the boat is secure and held in place. I think that the reason for this slightly different arrangement is that there’s no buoy floating on the water day in, day out, regardless of whether it’s being used or not. In this historically important bay, this might be regarded as an unwelcome sight.

The last time I was there, the eerie appearance of the buoy was augmented by movement of the water causing the loose length of chain to clank, loudly, against the fixed length. It was a scene straight out of scary movie where the ominous quiet is shattered by the terrifying … well, you get the idea.

Posted in response to this week’s Friendly Friday challenge on the theme of ‘Ebb and flow.’ See more responses here.

For more information about Fair Wind II, go to fair-wind.com/.

Kilauea Iki Trail

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Paths.’ (See more offerings here.)

Kilauea Iki Trail is one of the more popular trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. But last year’s volcanic activity, with numerous earthquakes, resulted in the park being closed for several months. Even after it reopened in September 2018, many parts of the park remained closed because the areas were too unstable to be opened to the public.

The Kilauea Iki Trail was one of those areas along with Thurston Lava Tube and Jaggar Museum. The latter two locations are still closed and Jagger Museum may never be reopened, but the Kilauea Iki Trail is currently listed as mostly open. Given that this is a loop trail, it would be wise to check ahead and find out what ‘mostly open’ means.

These photos were taken during a hike I took a couple of years back. The top photo shows the view from the part of the trail that follows the rim of the crater before it descends to the crater floor. The second photo shows two hikers heading out across the crater floor. The dark hill in the background is Pu‘u Pua‘i where a 1959 eruption poured lava out into the crater. The third photo shows hikers near the center of the crater where the path winds through broken areas of the crater floor. Below, cairns mark the trail across a flat area of the crater that leads to the switchback trail which takes hikers back up to the crater rim.

For more information about Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, go to nps.gov/havo/.

Greater amberjack

A greater amberjack swims by

Nearing the end of a long swim, I noticed these two fish swimming towards me. At first I thought they might be bluefin trevallies, but I could see the coloration was wrong. The other thing I noticed is that the two fish never deviated in their course, which took them right by me. Most fish, when they see someone coming their way, will zip away or at least cautiously ease around the interloper. Because they passed so close to me, I was caught by surprise and only managed to get these two shots before they were gone.

The fish are greater amberjacks, which spend most of their time in deeper waters, but occasionally venture in shallower waters as these two did. The fish are easily identified by the dark diagonal bar through the eye and the yellow stripe along the sides, though that isn’t always visible.

A greater amberjack swims by

A walk through downtown Honolulu

The Mission Memorial Building was built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Protestant missionaries in Hawaii, something of a mixed blessing for the locals.
The lovely red brick Hawaiian Brewing Company building.

This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Photo Walk.’ (See more responses here.) I thought of a few options, but my visit to Honolulu last year seemed to fit the bill. After I’d conducted my business there, I spent the rest of my time on a photo walk through downtown.

I’ve posted some photos from this walk before. To see them just scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Honolulu’ in the tags.

The Sky Gate sculpture was built to celebrate the celestial event known as “Lahaina Noon,” which is when the sun is directly overhead and vertical objects cast no shadow. This occurs twice a year in Hawaii, usually in May and July. In the case of this sculpture, the wavy top casts a perfectly round shadow on the ground.
The art deco entrance to the Honolulu Fire Department headquarters complex.
These water fountains at the Hawaii State Capitol building are shaped like hibiscus blooms, which are the state flower.
Two contrasting tower buildings with a plane flying overhead.
A woman in red enters an elevator at the Hawaii State Capitol building.
Little Bo Peep has sheered her sheep apparently.
Huge banyan trees in the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace.
‘Iolani Barracks housed the Royal Household Guard.
‘Iolani Palace was the home of Hawaiian royalty until they were overthrown by American businessmen backed by the U.S. military.
This was something of a mixed blessing for the locals.

A green turtle says hello

Green turtle says hello

During a recent snorkeling trip, I happened to turn around and saw this turtle heading toward me. Usually they will head off in a different direction when they see something as strange as me, but this one came up quite close before sliding off to the side and gliding away again.

As you can see, there’s nothing green in the appearance of green turtles. The name comes from the color of their fat, found between their organs and carapace.

Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Green.’ See more offerings here.

Green turtle swimming