Category Archives: Places

View towards Maui and the coast

A view from the slopes of Kohala Mountain towards Maui

I was up at a ranch on Kohala Mountain Road and the place boasted an impressive 180° view, from Maui to Hualalai. This is the northern part of that view.

The downside of the location is that the wind can blow like crazy. During the big windstorm of a few months ago, they registered a wind speed of 83 mph!

Yachts at anchor

Recently, these two yachts were anchored off Mauna Kea Resort. I couldn’t make out the name of the blue boat but the other one is the Anawa, a Dutch built superyacht owned by a Brazilian billionaire. I confess my first thought on seeing this yacht was that it might be the ugliest boat I’d ever seen. Perhaps it was the angle. Perhaps not.

A super yacht at anchor off the Big Island, Hawaii
A super yacht at anchor off the Big Island, Hawaii

Clouds in the Saddle

Clouds in the saddle on the Big Island, Hawaii

The Big Island’s weather is greatly influenced by northeast trade winds blowing up against Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and dumping generous quantities of rain on the wet east side. Not much of this moisture reaches the much drier west side.

On a recent hiking trip to the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, I saw a visual example of what goes on. Cresting a hill, I saw a bank of cloud rolling in from the east. My hike was somewhere under that cloud. When I got closer to that wall of cloud, I could see it fading as it pushed to the west.

My hike started under gray skies, with some light rain, but on this day, the clouds did not keep building. Instead, they burned off somewhat so that it was dry and quite hot by the time I returned to my car, such is the fickle nature of Big Island weather.

Clouds in the saddle on the Big Island, Hawaii