I saw this floating bag while out snorkeling. It looks like flotsam, but people fishing use such bags to get their hook and line out far enough to where it won’t get snagged on rocks and coral. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to see such bags, deflated and abandoned, left behind in the water. That’s because they do sometimes get caught on rocks or because the line broke leaving them to drift, just one more bit of drifting garbage.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Meaningful Memories.’ See more responses here.
This seemed like an opportune time to revisit my first visit to Hawaii, back in 2010. My wife and I stayed in a vacation rental near Captain Cook, overlooking Kealakekua Bay. The sky was hazy with vog from Kilauea Volcano, but the place was awash with colorful flowers. Just down the road was the Painted Church and at the foot of the hill, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park celebrates Hawaiian culture and history with its wooden ki’i and towering palms.
We traveled the whole island from the black sand beach at Pololu (even if we had to pass the carcass of a dead whale twice) to the black sand beach at Punalu’u, dotted with resting green turtles, and rocky surrounds. There were waterfalls big and small, and roads lined with tropical foliage leading to the active lava flow at that time.
There, signs warned that flowing lava is dangerous (who knew?), but we were still able to get within 10 feet of oozing tongues of red, and saw small fires still burning in nearby brush.
There was even a house for sale: ‘Buy now before it burns!’ We didn’t, though that house still stands while others, much farther from that scene, have since been consumed by subsequent flows.
It was this visit that prompted us to return permanently two years later. Hawaii isn’t paradise – it has its pros and cons like any place – but we haven’t regretted the move and are looking forward to the next 10 years.
I took a photo of Hualalai while swimming one day and this was the result. Gotta be a UFO, right?
Posted in response to this month’s Becky’s Squares challenge theme of ‘Odd.’ See more responses here.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘2021 in Your Rear-View Mirror.’ See more responses here. I’ve gone with a favorite photo from each month of 2021, with a caption and link to the post the photo first appeared in.
The sun rises behind Mauna Kea, coloring the sky, and backlighting the telescopes at the summit.
We had a weird weather system settle on the island recently, which provided a week of cloudy, wet weather. It also deposited a decent snowfall on the top of Mauna Kea, which stuck around for a fair while. Maybe it will be a white Christmas after all!
A view of Maui from the water off North Kohala. On a clear day like this, Maui looks fairly close, but it’s actually 30 or so miles away from where this photo was taken.
Kiawe Trees, and the telescopes at the top of Mauna Kea, are silhouetted against the early morning sky.
Graham's Island 