I saw this ship moored in Kawaihae Harbor recently. It looked unlike anything I’d seen there before, so I stopped by to take a look. I found the ship’s name on the stern, between the twin hulls.
According to Wikipedia, the City of Bismark is a Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport, operated by the United States Navy’s Military Sealift Command. It was built in 2017 and entered service at the end of that year. Ironically, when I first saw the ship, I thought it looked a bit beaten up and wondered if it was an older ship that someone had bought and was planning on fixing up!
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fences.’ See more responses here.
Here on the Big Island, fences tend to be of two kinds – chainlink and painted wood. Walls and hedges are possibly more popular. Walls don’t need as much maintenance and hedges fill in easily all by themselves, though they do require trimming if they’re not to take over.
These fences are ones that have seen hard times. The top photo is the chainlink fence around Upolu Airport. Someone managed to take out a section of this recently. Not sure whether they got distracted or were going too fast and lost control, but several sections of fence got destroyed. Judging from the trail of damage, the vehicle can’t have fared well either.
The other two photos are of fences around Kohala Ranch, a subdivision in Kawaihae. These photos were taken after August’s big brush fire. The tidy white fences surrounding the property have been rather battered. Fixing the damage will be a significant task, though I think most of the folks living there were probably happy to have been spared more than this largely aesthetical issue.
Since the big windstorm of a few weeks ago, I’ve seen a number of Kiawe trees looking like this, on their sides with a disc of roots and dirt exposed. They’ll get cut up and probably used for smoke meat, but it will take a while to clear all of them. This one was below the trail at Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site in Kawaihae.
Yesterday morning, around 4:30, I got a text alerting me to a brush fire burning alongside the road I take to work. It said the road would be closed for two to three hours. This was not a good way to start the day! It meant I’d have to take the road over Kohala Mountain.
When I headed out, the wind was howling and the mountain road was strewn with tree debris, including some sizable branches. Farther along, I noticed a cloud of smoke ahead of me in the vicinity of Waimea. For a few moments, I thought this new fire was burning around the alternate route I was taking, but I saw it was a bit farther away than that. This fire was quickly contained, but the first one is still going strong as I write, with people living in the area being evacuated for safety.
The fires were a byproduct of the passage of Hurricane Dora, well to the south of Hawaii, but still a major hurricane. Its passage caused very strong, but dry trade winds over the island, which exacerbated conditions in some already drought-hit areas. It was no surprise that fires broke out and that, once they did, they quickly got out of hand.
The top photo looks up the coast toward the fire, later in the day. The burning area is in the distance with smoke billowing out over the water. In front of that is a cloud of brown dirt being blown from the dry gullies of the hillside on the right. In the foreground is a smaller, pale cloud of sand being blown from the beach in Kawaihae Harbor.
The bottom photo is a view of the fire near Waimea. When I stopped the car to take photos, the wind was blowing so hard I could barely open the door. That same wind buffeted me around so that, despite propping myself against a rail, I couldn’t keep the camera still enough to get a sharp photo!
The beach at Anaeho’omalu Bay is very popular. This was taken in the late afternoon when the crowds had thinned out.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer.’ See more responses here. Beach scenes seemed appropriate for this, even if some of these photos were taken in the winter! Captions on the photos.
Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park is also popular, but not many walk the length of it, so there are often empty stretches of sand.No wonder Hapuna beach often appears on lists of best beaches.Kohanaiki is popular with surfers, but the beach is good too, even if it is close to the airport.The beach in Kawaihae Harbor is popular with locals, especially on weekends. It’s a great spot for families with the water protected by a long breakwater.Another beach that’s popular with families is at Spencer Beach Park. Smooth sand, calm water, shade trees, and good facilities are the reasons why.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Double Trouble.’ See more responses here.
A pair of juvenile Black-crowned Night Herons spell trouble for small fish living in the pool behind Pelekane Beach in Kawaihae.
Giant Porcupinefish can inflate themselves into a ball. When they do so, long spines along the back become raised and stick out, making them an extremely unpleasant proposition for any predator. Oh, and they’re poisonous, too. Trouble, indeed.
Spotted Eagle Rays hunt for molluscs and other creatures hiding in the sand. They root out prey with their duck-like bills.
Wild pigs can dig up a garden in no time, searching for worms and the like, but they go bananas over fallen fruit. These two were slurping down fallen mangoes.
This cow looked very suspicious of these cattle egrets, especially the one on its back. But they weren’t up to any trouble, just waiting for the cow to start grazing again and stir up some insects for them.
The Gold Dust Day Gecko on the left isn’t licking the paint. He’s sticking out his tongue and leaning to make his body look bigger in a challenge to the other gecko. The other one was singularly unimpressed and chased off his adversary.
Graham's Island 