Surfing looks easy

Surfers returning to shore at Pine Trees in Hawaii
Surfers returning to shore at Pine Trees in Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Sports and Hobbies.’ See more responses here.

Hawaii is the home of surfing, a sport that accommodates everyone from the casual weekender to fixtures on the professional circuit. On this day, Pine Trees surf break at Kohanaiki Beach Park was thronged with surfers in the water, but not many catching waves. Those that did tended to be far away from where I was. But I liked watching these two surfers casually glide back to shore on white-topped blue-green water, under a blue sky.

Also posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Blue.’ See more responses here.

The Bali House at Kiholo Bay

The roofline of the Bali house at Kiholo, Hawaii

A look at the roofline of the Bali House at Kiholo Bay shows some of the intricate details. A couple more photos and more information about the house can be found here.

Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Roofs.’ See more responses here.

Manta ray maneuvers

A manta ray approaching
A manta ray approaching

Becky’s October Squares challenge theme is ‘Past Squares,’ which is to say one can use any of the themes previously used during the challenge’s four year run. I’m going to run photos for earlier themes, before I started doing this challenge. So this is for the challenge theme of ‘Past Squares – Blue.’ (See more responses here.)

I’m starting with a manta ray encounter from a couple of months ago. This was a very playful manta, which seemed to take great pleasure from its underwater ballet of swoops and loops. In these photos, it carves a turn through somewhat cloudy blue water. I posted a couple of other photos of this encounter a while back, which can be seen here.

Kilauea erupts again

Activity at Kilauea in April 2018

Yesterday afternoon, around 3:20 p.m., Kilauea Volcano began a new eruption. Like the previous one, from December 2020 to May 2021, the eruption is in Halemaʻumaʻu crater, at the summit of the volcano. That eruption created a lava lake in an area that collapsed in 2018 when the main activity moved down the east rift zone to the Leilani Estates Subdivision. This new eruption has reactivated the lake in the crater.

These photos are from the 2018 activity in Halemaʻumaʻu crater shortly before the level of the lava lake dropped and the crater floor collapsed.

Activity at Kilauea in April 2018

Bananas

A banana plant with flower and fruit

I’d always thought that the large reddish purple mass hanging below these bananas was the flower. But I learned that these are bracts surrounding the flower, which is a male flower. Female flowers are the first to appear on the plant and these are the ones that turn into the fruit seen in this photo.

Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.

The current Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Close ups and Macros.’ See more responses here. Here’s a selection of some little creatures up close and personal.

  • A Bee on a clover flower
    A bee on a clover flower.
  • A Wandering glider dragonfly resting
    A wandering glider dragonfly rests on a stalk.
  • A female Hawaiian garden spider in her web
    A female Hawaiian garden spider on her web.
  • A grasshopper in Hawaii
    A grasshopper (Schistocerca nitens) sunning itself.
  • A Giant African Land Snail in Hawaii
    Run for your life, it’s a giant African land snail!
  • A praying mantis eyes two flies
    Guess who’s coming to dinner?

Sunrise over Kohala Mountain

Sunrise over the Kohala mountains

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.