Some recent high surf made a breach in the breakwater of the northern small boat harbor at Kawaihae. Besides punching this hole in the rock barrier, the wooden mooring floats were also badly damaged and boats using the harbor were ordered to relocate since it was no longer safe.
Repairing the damage being estimated to cost around $8 million. Usually these kinds of thing overrun the estimates by a generous margin.
The top photo shows the extent of the damage as a tug and barge approach the harbor. Below, the picnic tables are deserted as the wind whips up whitecaps and a blast of sand across the area.
Incidentally, the tug and barge were unable to get into harbor because of the strong crosswinds and spent the night out at sea. They were still there next morning when I saw them, but were able to finally get into the harbor a few hours later.
I saw this interesting-looking vessel tied up alongside the wharf at Kawaihae harbor for a week or more in the first half of January. When I searched for information about the boat, I learned that it’s the Sailing Vessel Kwai, a cargo vessel operating between Hawaii and Kiribati and the Cook Islands in the Pacific.
I’m not sure what it was doing in Kawaihae. The boat had been in Honolulu earlier in the month, on completion of its 51st voyage. Their 52nd voyage left Honolulu on January 24. Perhaps they were picking up cargo or doing maintenance in between these dates.
According to the first blog from Voyage 52 (here), the boat returned to the west side of the Big Island to search for a ghost net. A ghost net is a large clump of fishing nets that can be very destructive to ocean life and that will eventually wash up on shore somewhere being equally problematic when it does so. This net was estimated to be 50 feet long and deep by 70 feet wide.
A tracker had been attached to the ghost net so that it could be retrieved by a larger boat but, according to the blog post, when SV Kwai reached the area, only the tracker was found and retrieved. I haven’t heard or seen anything else about the net, so it is either still floating in the ocean or has washed up somewhere.
For more information about Sailing Vessel Kwai, go to svkwai.com. For more information about the ghost net, go here.
Yesterday, in certain parts of the island, the wind was honking. 20 miles south, there was a fresh breeze, but up around Kawaihae it blew a steady 40 knots with many higher gusts. Walking into the wind I had to lean forward at the kind of jaunty angle that would have seen me fall on my face on a calm day.
In the late afternoon, I made my way to Kawaihae harbor to see the waves and get a free skin treatment in the form of sandblasting. The very sheltered harbor was roiled with whitecaps from the whipping offshore wind. Most of the boats were bouncing up and down on the choppy waves, but I noticed something amiss. One of the boats wasn’t bouncing because it was mostly underwater. The outboard engine was the most prominent part to be seen.
I suspect that when the wind drops, the boat will still be barely afloat. But it should be able to be salvaged, pumped out, and ready to go again in fairly short order, so long as it doesn’t get taken out on a day like yesterday.
Abandoned vehicles are something of a problem in Hawaii. The root of the problem is that it’s expensive to responsibly get rid of an old car. So people leave them by the side of the road or on undeveloped property by the highway. I’ve posted before about one such vehicle here.
This latest one was sitting alongside the road just north of Kawaihae. At first, it looked like an older car that had perhaps broken down and was awaiting a tow or for the owner to return and fix it. But after a few days, it was clear that wasn’t happening.
If a vehicle sits unattended for a few days, people move in. Wheels are often the first to go. Then the hood goes up and anything useful in the engine compartment gets removed. There’s also a good chance that someone will tag the vehicle with graffiti.
What else can they do? Why not set it on fire. That’s what happened to this one. When I took these photos, the car had been sitting there two or three weeks.
About a week later I saw a police car parked behind it. The policeman wrote out a notice warning that the car will be towed at the owner’s expense if it was still there the next day. It should not come as a surprise that no one reacted to this notice, but neither was the car removed.
Another week passed and some traffic cones were placed around the burned-out hulk. There was good reason for this. The car was low to the ground and, with all the color burned off, it blended into the road. Someone could easily not have seen it, especially at night, and run into it.
Another week passed and then, one day, the car was gone. Only the traffic cones remained surrounding a small mound of ashes. Another week later, the cones and ash mounds area still there, but one day those too will disappear and that stretch of road will be ready to accommodate the next abandoned vehicle.
I saw this Coast Guard ship outside Kawaihae harbor. Here, it was hauling out one of the buoys marking the entrance to the harbor for inspection and maintenance. Buoys like this are commonly seen in coastal areas, in the vicinity of ports. They help guide ships into harbor, marking safe, deep channels or shoals to be avoided.
From shore, these buoys look like little green and red floats, but anyone who has ever been in a small boat being swept toward a buoy by a surging current knows better. Up close, they’re a big chunk of metal that you run into at your peril. In the photo to the right, the figure next to the buoy being hauled aboard gives some idea of the scale.
This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Construction.’ See more responses here.
This is a photo of some construction work at the Kawaihae small boat harbor. They’re putting in a boat launch ramp and have been for some time. A crane has been there for weeks and is seen here hooked onto some kind of small receptacle while two guys in waders shovel dirt into it.
I don’t expect the ramp to be finished any time soon, but that’s not surprising. The small boat harbor took nigh on 30 years between initial planning and actual construction.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Calm.’ (See more offerings here.)
Seeing the sun going down after work, I headed down to Kawaihae harbor. After the sun dipped below the horizon, the sky turned peachy and I watched this sailboat slipping over the gently rippling water. It struck me as a very calm, relaxing scene.
When people think about Hawaii, one of the things that comes to mind is wonderful sunsets and sunrises, such as this one, with the sun rising over the cement tanks. Well, maybe not that last bit, but that’s what’s happening here, the cement tanks in question being at the port in Kawaihae. And it was still a lovely sunrise.
Graham's Island 