I took this photo on the way to work when I realized that the sun was about to crest the ridge in the background. I like these substations for their orderly arrangement of equipment, poles, and lines.
Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Lines.’ See more responses here.
I took the top photo on my way to work one early morning. It’s a tranquil scene (the reason I go down there) shot from the beach below Pu’ukohala Heiau in Kawaihae. The second photo was shot on my way home in mid-afternoon. It was taken from the same beach in roughly the same place and looking in roughly the same direction.
Astute observers will see past the similarities in the photos and notice something is missing. Hualalai Volcano has disappeared. Now, it’s not unreasonable to think that those puffy white clouds in the second photo have something to do with this, but that’s not really the case. True, they might mask the upper reaches of the volcano, but the whole thing? No, the culprit is the fuzzy band between the clouds and the land – vog!
The latest eruption of Kilauea Volcano, which began on September 29th, is churning out vog, which forms when volcanic gases interact with sunlight, air, moisture, and dust. Two days later, when these photos were taken, it was having a visible effect. I’d noticed the vog drifting up the west side of the island during the morning and by afternoon visibility was greatly reduced. But it’s not just visibility that’s affected. Vog is especially troublesome for people with breathing difficulties, but can also irritate the eyes and skin of just about anyone.
Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Time.’ See more responses here.
There’s nothing like spending some time on the beach at Kohanaiki Beach Park. Even when it’s busy it never seems crowded. All a person needs is a chair and a beach umbrella for shade and then you can sit back, relax, and read a book or watch surfers trying to catch a wave.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Signs of Autumn.’ See more responses here.
We’re a little short on autumnal changes here. I tend to mark seasonal changes in terms of wildlife, such as the return of humpback whales in winter. For autumn, the return of Pacific golden plovers from their summer breeding grounds in Alaska is probably the most notable.
Outside of wildlife, the shortening of the days does register here. It’s not as dramatic as when I lived in Washington State, with summer sunsets around 9 p.m. and winter darkness setting in a little after 4 p.m.. In Hawaii, the equivalent times are 7 p.m. and 6 p.m., not such a big difference.
But it does make a difference for my morning commute, and autumn signals the time when I usually leave home when it’s mostly dark and arrive at work when it’s mostly light. I also try and give myself a little extra commuting time so I can pull over and take photographs when the sunrise merits it, such as this streaky red sunrise over Kohala mountain.
A few days ago, I posted about a heron encounter (here) when I didn’t have enough time to walk along the coast before going to work. I took this photo when I did have that time.
This is a view from Spencer Beach Park towards Kawaihae Harbor. The footprints are mine. There were no others. As a start to the day, it doesn’t get much better.
I took this photo earlier this month, a couple of days before the new moon. When I was processing it, I thought it had more impact as a black and white.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Going Back….’ See more responses here.
I was thinking about posting photos going back to my first visit to Hawaii, but in looking at them, I realized that I’d never posted photos from my tour of the Subaru Telescope, which I took a few months after moving here. At the time, the Subaru Telescope was the only one on the summit of Mauna Kea that offered tours to the general public, though the tours have been shut down by the current Covid situation.
I particularly remember the fabulous views from the walkway around the exterior of the telescope. The interior of the telescope was also interesting, though in the abstract way of a giant piece of equipment. This is not a telescope where one gets to put an eye to the lens to see what’s going on, though I was charmed to learn that when Princess Sayako of Japan dedicated the telescope in 1999, she was able to do just that because a special eyepiece had been constructed for that purpose!
The Subaru Telescope is a Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope. It has a large field of view which makes it ideal for wide-field sky surveys. For more information about the Subaru Telescope, visit https://subarutelescope.org/en/. The telescope’s live camera stream captured a cool video of last month’s Perseid Meteor Shower which can be seen here.
I was driving home late one afternoon, when I saw a rainbow forming in front of the gloom enveloping Hawi. I thought about stopping, but at that point, getting a photo would have likely involved the camera getting wet and the results being not that great. I kept going.
But as I neared Hawi, the rainbow strengthened and the precipitation diminished and I was compelled to turn onto the road to Upolu Airport, pull over, and snap some photos of what was a lovely, bright rainbow, with a faint but definite echo just above it.
Graham's Island 