I saw this plane when I was out walking one day, near the northern tip of the Big Island. It was flying quite low, unusually so for a big plane, as it headed south toward Kailua Kona.
The plane is a Boeing 747-400, formerly owned by Japan Airlines, but now used by GE to test jet engines. Apparently, it was operating out of Kona Airport for a week, performing warm weather engine tests.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Old.’ See more offerings here.
This is the original statue of Kamehameha 1, the king who first united the Hawaiian Islands. The statue was commissioned in 1878, but was lost off the Falkland Islands. A new statue was made, but in the meantime, the original one was salvaged. The new statue was put up in Honolulu and the original shipped to Kapaau.
Not long after I took this photo, the trees in the background were badly damaged during a windstorm and had to be cut down, so this scene looks quite different today.
Find more information about the statue here. For more information about King Kamehameha’s history, go to nps.gov/puhe/learn/historyculture/kamehameha.htm.
This laelia rubescens (aurea x alba) orchid was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
Yesterday, in certain parts of the island, the wind was honking. 20 miles south, there was a fresh breeze, but up around Kawaihae it blew a steady 40 knots with many higher gusts. Walking into the wind I had to lean forward at the kind of jaunty angle that would have seen me fall on my face on a calm day.
In the late afternoon, I made my way to Kawaihae harbor to see the waves and get a free skin treatment in the form of sandblasting. The very sheltered harbor was roiled with whitecaps from the whipping offshore wind. Most of the boats were bouncing up and down on the choppy waves, but I noticed something amiss. One of the boats wasn’t bouncing because it was mostly underwater. The outboard engine was the most prominent part to be seen.
I suspect that when the wind drops, the boat will still be barely afloat. But it should be able to be salvaged, pumped out, and ready to go again in fairly short order, so long as it doesn’t get taken out on a day like yesterday.
Kohanaiki Beach Park, north of Kailua Kona, is a favorite spot for surfers. But at the south end of the park, the focus switches to history.
There’s a hālau, Ka Hale Waʽa, which is used for teaching Hawaiian crafts and culture. There’s a garden which grows the same kind of plants brought over by the first Polynesian settlers. And there’s a Hawaiian star compass, a 17-foot diameter recreation showing how the Polynesians used to navigate the vast open spaces of the Pacific Ocean.
The top photo show shows the compass. The middle photo shows a plaque, which explains the basics of how it works, using the points of the compass, the sun, nighttime celestial bodies and the ocean swells. I won’t go into detail here, but more information can be found here, here, and here. Below, the setting of the compass, with a Pacific golden plover walking on it. I like this shot because the plover is said to be the reason Polynesians discovered Hawaii. Each year, plovers summer in Alaska and then fly south as far as New Zealand. It is said that the Polynesians noted this small bird’s annual journey back and forth and figured there must be land somewhere to the north, so they set out in their canoes to find it.
Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Round.’ See more offerings here.
This is the molted shell of an a’ama crab, seen on the North Kohala shore. A’ama crabs are numerous around the Big Island and they scuttle away when disturbed. But while these crabs are black, their molted shells turn red in the sun, as this one has.
Seasons greetings to all. I’ve swung by the Hilton at Waikoloa a couple of times in the early morning to see the collection of lights creating a festive display. Fronting the display is a large sleigh being pulled by a quartet of little deer (they’re not gonna make it down the block let alone around the world). But what makes it stand out is that the trees on the roundabout behind the sleigh, and all the way up the drive to the hotel, are wrapped with lights. It looks like a candy cane forest.
I used a tripod for the top and bottom shots, but for some the camera was handheld. Most of the shots were shaky, but I liked the one in the middle, in part because it caught a barrier rising making it look like a large red fan.
It’s Christmas Eve, so what better time for a post about Hawi’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church. These photos were taken on a Wednesday evening and I’m not sure what the activity was inside the church. My goal was to take photos of the exterior without disturbing anyone.
When I got there, I was a bit surprised to see someone sitting on the steps outside the church, but they were absorbed in their phone and didn’t see me. I’d taken a few photos, when I realized that the figure on the steps had got up and was walking up the path to the church. That’s the person in clerical robes standing in the doorway in the lower photo. Shortly afterwards, he entered the church and I didn’t see him again.
While I’m not religious, I always enjoyed visiting churches in my native England and elsewhere. The interiors are usually cool and calm and conducive to reflection, and each church invariably has some feature of note. In this case, I liked the stained glass windows illuminated by the lights within.
Graham's Island 