Category Archives: Places

Opihi picker

An Opihi picker on the coast of Hawaii
An Opihi picker on the coast of Hawaii

I saw this man, down on the rocks below Upolu Airport, collecting Opihi. Opihi is the Hawaiian word for limpets, and they are a prized food for the locals. Gathering them though is not an easy task. For one thing, it takes place at the water line. Opihi pickers are guaranteed to get wet and have to take great care not to get washed out to sea. One or two seem to disappear every year.

The Opihi also have to be taken while they are feeding and relaxed. Otherwise they will be so firmly adhered to the rocks that no amount of prying will loosen them.

Stickers

Stickers on utility boxes at Kailua Kona airport in Hawaii
Stickers on utility pipes at Kailua Kona airport in Hawaii

The utility pipes and boxes in one of the waiting areas at Kailua Kona airport are covered in stickers. I don’t know why people started putting them there, but the authorities haven’t removed them so it continues to be a little guerrilla art show.

The Numbers Game #112

A juvenile black-crowned night heron in flight.
A Black-crowned Night Heron flies over the water.

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 234. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

A bee burrows into a Mamane flower
Riding in a bus in Hawaii
Riding the bus.
The Hi-Seas site for simulating living on the Moon and Mars.
Red-masked parakeets at Kohanaiki Beach Park.
Red-masked parakeets.
A Bluespotted Cornetfish up close.
A Painted Lady Butterfly on a Tree Heliotrope.

Tourists

A view of ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay in Hawaii

A couple walks the beach at ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay while a tour boat disembarks passengers into a glass bottom boat to be shuttled ashore. Tourism is down here this year, in part because many Canadians are avoiding the U.S.A due to less than friendly relations between the two countries at the current time. I won’t be surprised if other nationalities follow suit.

The old sugar railway

The old sugar railway line near Mahukona in Hawaii

North of Mahukona, there’s a trail that follows the old sugar railway for a couple of miles. This photo shows one of the railway’s embankments, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

This embankment is not the original line. That can be seen to the left of it, the flat dry grass area, following the contours of the land. Traveling this route was very slow, so its course was smoothed out with embankments and cuttings. The original line’s course is to the right of the cutting. These changes cut the time it took to travel the line though it was never a high speed trip!