Sunday Stills challenge theme this week and last week is ‘Your 2024 Year-in-Review.’ See more responses here. As before, I’m going with a favorite photo from each month of 2024, with a caption and link to the post the photo first appeared in. Last week, I posted favorites from January through June (here). This week, it’s July through December.
Spiders know a thing or two about geometry, getting their lines and angles and circles perfectly organized to produce webs that are both practical and beautiful.
Posted for Becky’s Squares: Geometric. See more responses here.
I’ve always thought this would be a great place to see a flash flood, or at least a little to one side of here. This is a culvert through an embankment of the old Kohala railway. Most of the time, it’s dry as a bone, but when it rains a good deal of water would be funneled through this spot.
These days, round pipes, made of steel or heavy duty plastic, are often used for culverts. This square concrete one looks built to last.
Posted for Becky’s Squares: Geometric. See more responses here.
A new business has opened in Hawi, though at a spot that has not been a great location of late. However, the sign is a winner in my book and I liked all the rectangles and lines going on. Perfect for Squares!
Posted for Becky’s Squares: Geometric. See more responses here. Also posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card. See more responses here.
Yesterday, driving into Lapakahi Historical Park to go snorkeling, my wife and I saw a Humpback Whale, close offshore, doing multiple tail slaps. After we parked the car and headed towards down to the shore, the whale was still slapping its tail. By the time we had our gear on and ready to swim, it looked like the whale was done and heading south.
But, as we got in the water, I saw the whale heading north. We swam out, without any thought of seeing the whale. Chances were it would dive and disappear, or move on, or turn around again. But once out toward the edge of the reef, we realized the whale was hanging around and even nudging towards the shore. By this time it was doing fin slaps.
We had never been this close to a whale in the water and the sight of the huge fin reaching up and then slapping the water with a loud thwack was impressive. As we watched, the fins got larger. I dipped my head underwater and could make out the hazy shape of the whale, the first time I’ve ever seen one in the water. Eventually, the whale came into full view and paralleled our course for a few minutes before it eased away, though it remained quite close to shore.
The whole encounter was deeply moving, an end of year gift for us and another swimmer who was there. During that swim, we also saw three reef sharks and later, a pod of dolphins. It says something that those encounters, normally the highlight of any swim, felt anticlimactic!
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 175. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
The top photo shows a view of Hualalai under cloudy skies, taken from the water yesterday morning.
The second photo shows pretty much the same view, taken on Christmas Day morning. What do you mean, where did it go? It was actually a less cloudy day. The big difference was that the wind was blowing from the southeast, driving vog from the latest eruption of Kilauea in this direction. Vog is volcanic smog and when it’s this thick, it can be quite acrid and you can taste it! It makes life miserable, especially for those with any kind of respiratory ailments.
The vog was bad for two days before the trade winds returned and blew the vog away from this part of the island, allowing the view in the top photo.
Sunday Stills challenge theme this week and next week is ‘Your 2024 Year-in-Review.’ See more responses here. As usual, I’m going with a favorite photo from each month of 2024, with a caption and link to the post the photo first appeared in. This week’s post is for January through June. See the rest of the year next week.
Graham's Island 