Honokohau Harbor, just north of Kailua Kona, is the main small boat harbor on the west side of the Big Island. In addition to private pleasure craft, a lot of charter boats operate out of the harbor, taking guests out to fish, snorkel, dive, and whale watch.
While it looks placid in this photo, once outside this harbor entrance, boaters are in the Pacific Ocean and conditions can change dramatically in a very short time.
A green anole keeps watch from the leaf of a ti plant. I like the reptilian look of anoles, the details of their scales, and the colors around their eyes.
Guzmania ‘Limones’ is a colorful bromeliad with an interesting form. It’s native to Central and South America. Guzmanias only flower once and then die, but the bloom lasts a long time, and before they die, they usually produce pups.
This one was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
This big-eye emperor fish gave me the big eye, which is very unusual. Big-eye emperors are the kings of hanging in the water and imperceptibly drifting away. It’s an act of extreme futility to try and get close. The more you try, the farther away they get.
The winds were blowing here last week, 30+ mph on a consistent basis. But one afternoon the winds picked up even more and triggered dirt storms off the hills above Kawaihae.
The wind whistled down the slope from Kohala Mountain and dry dirt was gathered up, whirled around, and blasted down the slope toward the ocean. This happened for an hour or so. Sometimes, white sand from the beach in Kawaihae harbor was similarly stirred up.
The unfortunate aspect of this display was that it visibly demonstrated the problems with erosion when the ground is dry. If it’s not the wind, then any rainfall washes the soil down gullies and into the ocean. All this dirt being deposited in the relatively shallow waters off the coast degrades the water quality and can have a seriously adverse effect on corals in the area.
Reflections in the windows of a helicopter over the ʻAlenuihāhā Channel, between the Big Island and Maui.
This is the lobby of the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort on the Kohala coast. Each of the Kohala resort hotels has a version of this look at this time of year.
To be honest, the tree decorations are a little over the top for my taste, not surprising considering I don’t have any decorations or a tree. However, these are minor details. Quibbling about festive decorations misses the point when there’s such a killer view, through the palm trees, over the white sand beach, to the blue Pacific.
Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Festive.’ See more offerings here.
This gold dust day gecko lives in this Pepsi machine and several times a day it emerges from the coin return slot to check out its surroundings. Sometimes it ventures farther afield on the machine.
The gecko seems to be doing fine in this environment. I just hope it’s not down there when someone hits the coin return button.
