I found this picnic table at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach Park and thought it gave a wonderful view out over the ocean. If you swim out from shore here, your next stop is Tahiti, some 2,700 miles away!
Punalu’u bench
Category Archives: Scenes
Rattlesnake plant
Rattlesnake plant (Calathea Crotalifera) is native to Central and South America. This one was at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, but it also grows in the wild in some places here.
For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.
View of Kau coast
A view of the Kau coast looking down towards Whittington Beach Park and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park beyond.
Better Days: Shade tree and bench
The high winds of a few weeks ago caused a fair amount of damage around the island. At Lapakahi State Historical Park, this tree was toppled and took out a bench that had been set up in its shade. The bench will have to be fixed and set up somewhere else because that shade isn’t coming back anytime soon.
Old horse-drawn carriage
I saw this old carriage on the way home from Hilo yesterday, parked in a grassy area of one of the ranches along Old Saddle Road. These days it’s being used as a planter it seems.
The top photo is posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card challenge. (See more responses here.) The bottom photo is one I took a few moments earlier. I like it better because the carriage is framed better, the photo is crisper, and a few minimal photo edits give it more pop.
A blushing bromeliad
Neoregelia carolinae is known as the blushing bromeliad because, when it’s going to flower, the center turns red, as this one has done.
Up, up, and away
On Monday, an early-morning glance up at the sky showed this unusual sight. It’s a balloon designed to fly at an altitude between 70,000 and 90,000 feet. The balloon, which is about 400-feet tall, is part of Project Aether, which seeks to demonstrate the stratospheric communication capabilities of unmanned balloons.
The balloon was launched from the airport in Waimea and in the photos was at an altitude of around 5,000 feet, but climbing steady. I followed it’s progress on Flightradar24 and later it had drifted out over the ocean and reached 78,000 feet. The next day, it disappeared. Not sure if that’s because its tracking failed or because something else happened to it.
The intention was for it to fly across the ocean and the U.S. mainland before being retrieved on the east coast. A second balloon was supposed to be launched a couple of days after this one, but I haven’t seen any sign of it yet, though that might simply be down to unsuitable weather conditions.
More information can be found here.
What a lot of bull …
… And my response was, “You’re absolutely right. I’ll put my camera away and just keep walking.”
Graham's Island 