
An early morning reflection in the pool behind Pelkane Beach in Kawaihae.

An early morning reflection in the pool behind Pelkane Beach in Kawaihae.

Keanuiomano Stream has been bone dry for weeks, but yesterday’s passage of Tropical Storm Calvin transformed it into a roaring river. There was a lot of rain up in the Kohala Mountain area, which is the source of the stream. It was interesting, though, that the gullies that carry water off the leeward side of that mountain were still dry, so all that rain must have fallen mostly on the windward side and the east end of the mountain.

This photo is from a while back but it could be right now as Tropical Storm Calvin approaches the Big Island. The storm was a hurricane while in the Eastern Pacific, but it weakened as it neared Hawaii. Yesterday afternoon, the storm strengthened again with winds up to 60 mph. Who knows what will happen to it overnight, but I’m scheduling this ahead of time in case the power goes out.
Hurricanes here have been a mixed bag. Hurricane Lane, which hit the island in 2018, stalled off the west coast of the island, bringing gray skies but little wind or rain to the west coast. The eastern part of the island had a different experience. They had 54 inches of rain in three days!

When the weather’s decent, Kohala Mountain Road offers some great views of the west side of the island. This one is of the South Kohala coast towards Hualalai. Kawaihae Harbor is on the right of the photo.

Recently, I was taking photos at Pelekane Beach in Kawaihae. It was a quiet morning with small wavelets running up on the beach. But, while the waves were little, the turbulence produced some great bubbles. Check out the one in the center of the photo!

These photos were taken at Lapakahi State Historical Park. This year, North Kohala was awash with Painted Lady Butterflies and the park was no exception. The butterflies were all over the Ma’o flowers and pretty much anything else that came into bloom.





I saw these at Spencer Beach Park and realized there are generations of people who will have no idea what these are, or indeed why such things ever existed. But it’s an historical fact that telephones (they were once called that) used to be connected by wires. Go ahead, Duck it (I won’t use Google) on your phone, that’s in your pocket, not connected to anything, except to everything.
I was going to return to the park to see if the phones worked, but it’s clear the one on the left doesn’t, and chances are the one on the right doesn’t either. Which is pretty much the way they were when that was the way everyone placed phone calls when they were out and about!


The Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge theme is ‘Blue.’ See more responses here. After sorting through some photos, I found a cluster of abstract blues that I like so here they are.



