My neighbors frequently go pig hunting and most often they manage to get at least one. Fishing and hunting provide an important part of the local diet. There's sport involved too, of course, but he food is never wasted. This fellow is in freezers all over the neighborhood by now.



Dogs are used in the hunt, but not this one. I was afraid to approach him because I though the carcass might have gotten him overly excited, but his mistress assured me that this was not the case. Since he's not a hunting dog he had no "sport" context for the pig, so he was merely curious about the goings-on. He and I have now become pals.

Labels: animals, food, life in Hawaii, pig hunting, pork

I walked into my screened lanai last night (that's the room I showed under construction in my last post) and was overwhelmed with a cloying sweet fragrance. Within less than a minute my nose was running, my eyes were itching and I was sneezing. I did what I needed to do (the laundry is out there) and dashed back into the house, shutting the door between the house and the lanai. My allergy symptoms continued until bedtime. I know that benedryl will control this stuff, but I already have problems with extreme dry mouth from my tummy meds, so I decided to try to ride this one out. When I go up this morning I knew I'd made a mistake. My entire face was puffy, the area around my left eye disproportionately so. The sniffles and sneezeing started up again as soon as I walked into the front of the house. I've been taking benedryl all day. It makes me sleepy and saps my energy and there's the whole dry mouth thing also.




I've been assuming something was blooming in my neighbor's yard across the fence. I went outside a few minutes ago to see what it is that is making me so sick. Darn! Can't blame it on the neighbor. I usually trim the stalkes off of the top of my ti plants as soon as they appear. I found out my first year here that they attract massive quantities of bees. I'm allergic to bees, too, so I try to minimize the attraction. I hadn't been out in that yard in a while and the stalks had shot up and are covered with spikey purple balls. Little white blossoms open up when darkeness falls, which is why it was so strong last night. Unfortunately, darkness is falling now and it's a little late to start trimming. I'll have to take care of that when I finish work tomorrow.



While I was out there I realized I've been horribly neglecting my herb garden. The birds have planted wild tomato plants again, the sort that make little tiny, bitter tomatoes. My Dad liked them on his salad, but I don't at all. I guess I need to spend a few hours out there tomorrow. I pulled a few small ones the last time I was out there. Today I discovered one growing into my rosemary bush. It's large enough to already have little pea-sized green tomatoes showing. If I can just stop sneezing long enough & open my eyes fully behind the puffiness I'll take care of all that.

No, I didn't get a new camera yet. I have possession of the homeowner's association camera for a few days. Maybe I can sqeeze in some time tomorrow to stock up on fresh photos for my blog!

Labels: gardening, just stuff, life in Hawaii, photos

I would not have thought it possible to post anything on this site that combines the beauty and wonders of Hawaii with matters relelvant to my working life. Well, except silly anecdotes like my gecko-in-the-bra story. Today I feel privileged to share with you some news about a man-made wonder and how my industry came to her aid.

Hokulea has been called the pride of Hawaii. She is a double-hulled Polynesian voyaging canoe, built and navigated in the ancient ways. Her path is calculated by the stars; no modern navigational aids are used. Her accomodations are rudimentary; there are no luxurious cabins, no breakfast buffets and no bathroom facilities to speak of. Hokulea has traveled throughout the Pacific since 1974. Her story provides proof to the old oral traditions, handed down through many generations, of Hawaii being settled by Polynesians traveling in great canoes. Thor Heyerdahl proved in 1947 that such journeys were possible when he sailed Kon Tiki from Peru to Raroia atoll. Holulea continues to fill in the blanks in Polynesian history. She is currently out to sea. You can stay abreast of her progress via the Polynesian Voyaging Society weblog. Do go to there and look around. You can spend hours viewing photos, reading the crew's logs and tracking Hokulea's progress. Her journey is being used as an educational experience for school kids throughtout Hawaii, but in truth, almost every man, woman and child in the state is following along in facination. She is at the top of our headline news almost daily. I guess the broadcasters are wise enough to know that all of our hearts are with her.

So what does this have to do with my work? Well, way back in the '80s I took my first pest control licensing exam, and I have had the privilege of renewing about every four years since then. When I've transferred, first from Louisiana to California and later to Hawaii, I had to take the exams in my new home state. I've always worried to the point of making myself physically ill in the days leading up to exams. In California and Hawaii the test is mostly fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice, with a lot of math to keep me on my toes. In Louisiana, where I was first licensed, a good portion of the test was in the form of questions to be answered with essays. Having worked myself up into a frenzy in the days preceding that first exam, I was relieved to find that most of the answers rolled smoothly off of my pen. Then I got to the last question and drew a total blank. You see, while it is necessary for me to understand all of the available remedies for a given pest control problem, I have never carried the separate license required for fumigation. I know the basics, but the question posed a problem I'd never even heard of, much less performed corrections for. After excusing myself to upchuck my breakfast into a toilet, I returned to my seat and felt my doom descend upon me. The essay required that I describe every aspect of how one would fumigate a boat in water. Treatment materials to be used, procedures to be followed, safety equipment needed, precautions to be exercised ... everything. After much time spent in fruitless thought, an answer came to me. "To fumigate a boat in water, I would call the Department of Agriculture (licensing agency) and request that they provide advice and direct supervision." This was not, of course, the answer that was sought. It was, however, deemed appropriate in the end, with a few points subtracted for lack of detail. I should have rememberd that fumigant gasses, being lighter than air, will not penetrate water. No contamination can occur. The proper procedure requires that tarps be affixed to the structure (a ship or boat) to contain the gas, and that they extended into the water. Well, duh! Of course it does.

I got my most recent online edition of Pest Control Magazine today. Memories of that horrible first exam came flooding back when I saw that it featured an article entitled Historic Hawaiian Ship Rescued By Fumigation With Vikane. I was disappointed that I somehow had not known that Hokulea had had a drywood termite infestation (for what other ship could it be?) I would have known how to handle the problem, having had about twenty-five years to correct my past ignorance. Irrelevant, of course, since I still choose not to be involved in fumigations, but, by golly, why had no one shared this worthy news with me? Anyway, while the article makes me proud of my industry, it didn't actually relate all that well to my exam dilemma. Those wimps waited until she was in drydock to fumigate Hokulea. HA! If they'd only called me first ...

Still, it gave me a springboard to tell you a story that combines two of my passions, so I guess it's all good.

Labels: life in Hawaii, termites, work

This post has been submittd to the Postie Carnival for Monday, January 29, 2007.

The company that brought me to Hawaii twelve years ago provided quality assurance for DOD housing. Under the master DOD contract we inspected military housing for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. We were called in after subterranean termite ground treatments had been done by other pest control operators to evaluate their work. We looked for evidence that every area that should have been treated had been. We analyzed the treatment documents to make sure that the materials used had been appropriate to the job, and that the correct mixture of the chemical was applied. We measured the distance between holes drilled in slabs to ascertain whether the application complied with label requirements, and we noted whether holes had been properly filled after treatment. We applied **bio-technology** to determine whether the treatment had been effective. If work seemed dodgy, we took soil samples to send off for high-priced analysis that would prove definitively whether or not effective ground barriers were being applied. We evaluated fumigation efficacy also. The gases used leave no residues, so the only ways to determine if an effective kill had been obtained were to tear up the structures looking for live termites or to apply our bio-tech device. Our method was less costly and more aesthically pleasing. :0)

A lot of the local pest control operators resented us, understandably so. No one likes a competitor to be given the power to prove that they're doing lousy work. There were a few operators who took a different view. They realized that they could use our services to evaluate and improve the quality of their own work. One company signed a contract for us to provide quality-assurance monitoring for every job they performed. Others had us spot-check a few dozen jobs a month.

The day after I arrived in Hawaii I was provided with an employee from one of those companies to help me get acquainted with local ways. He greeted me wearing shorts and a company tee shirt. I thought that was very unprofessional, but soon discovered that it's not only considered appropriate in Hawaii, it's the only way to go if you're going to do physical labor in a tropical climate. His name was Clyde and I still remember that my first impression was also impaired by his bad breath. He was "local" and I had some difficulty understanding his speech, but he was patient with me and we were communicating well before the day was over (well, I thought we were.) He took me to several vacant houses that his company had recently treated. We discussed his treatment methods and he introduced me to a few structural features that I had not routinely seen in mainland buildings. One of these features was the shallow, pre-made trusses that form the roof support for most Hawaii homes. The attics don't have much space because of low overheads and are extremely hard to navigate.

At one location I preceded Clyde up the ladder to look at an attic. As I pushed up the hatch that provided entry, something fell down my shirt. To say that I was surpised when it began to crawl around in there is an understatement. I forced Clyde back down the ladder and proceeded to paw around in a very un-ladylike manner, trying to capture what I assumed would turn out to be a cockroach. When it managed to crawl inside my bra and contacted my skin, I knew it was something else. It was soft and warm, and managed to squeeze itself into a space at the band of my bra without the scratchiness that an insect with an exoskeleton is known for. I finally managed to get a grip on the intruder and pull it out. Clyde was by then stooped over in laughter, looking like he was about to pee himself. I opened my hand and my captive leapt to a nearby wall and scurried away, to Clyde's shout of "Wooaaah! Spahk 'em!" I collected the few shreds of dignity that I had left and we carried on with our workday.

A few days later I was in the warehouse of Clyde's employer, hanging out with several of "the guys." I pointed to some activity in a corner and said "I'm surprised all those 'spockums' can live in here where all the pesticides are stored." This seemed hilarious to all of the assembled workers and most of them laughed until they had tears in their eyes. I stood there feeling awkward and embarrassed, waiting for an explanation. That was the day I learned that spahk' em is another local way of saying "look a dat!" Geckos are just called geckos.

I rememberd Clyde when I saw him a few months ago at a pest control conference. He remembered me, too. Apparently the story of the day we met has remained as fresh in his mind as it has mine. He introduced me to a fellow he was standing with. "Hey, bra, dis dat spahk 'em girl wit da **bio-technology device** I tol you bout."

Sheesh! I worked with that man for two years. You'd think he would remember me for the fine service I provided!

**This bio-technology utilized each inspector's four-footed, wet-nosed, tail-wagging partner. I'm not using the more obvious words here because I don't want old boss to stumble across combinations of keywords that would let him find my blog. ;0)

Labels: language, life in Hawaii, termites, work

My friend called me last night to let me know that our tickets for the current production at Kumu Kahua Theatre were for today. I think her call must have come while I was at the far end of the house starting a load of laundry, because I never heard the phone ring. It was too late to call her back when I found the message, so we talked this morning as soon as I was sure she would be awake. I arranged to meet her after I finished some necessary shopping. She picked me up in front of the warehouse-like pet supply place and we enjoyed a leisurely drive into town in light weekend traffic.

Kumu Kahua Theatre stages its productions in the historic old Kamehameha V Post Office Building, on the boundary that separates Honolulu's modern high-rise business district from the pungent aromas and busyness of Chinatown. On days when scheduling is not so tight, we go early for our theatre dates. We wander around the quaint little shops and garish import emporiums, sometimes buying tea and trinkets and silk shoes. We sample the street foods or find a table in a noodle shop next to Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai families sharing a Sunday dinner. Today we arrived about thirty minutes before curtain time, so we lounged in the small park adjacent to the theatre waiting for the doors to open. A homeless man, his worldly goods in bags and boxes secured to his bicycle, sat nearby playing an ukulele.



The doors opened a little late today and we joined other patrons already lined up on the broad lanai waiting to enter. It was only then that I saw the posters for today's production. Living Pidgin by Lee Tonouchi! I know that y'all know that I've recently re-read this wonderful book by Da Pidgin Guerrilla. The play was comprised of a collection of Lee's stories. His writings are personal and he was portrayed in each act. The actors, both male and female, swapped off his role so that each played him several times throughout the production. This might have been confusing had not each actor worn his trademark mustache and backwards baseball cap while speaking for Lee. Sometimes they walked into the scene prepared to play him. Sometimes they pulled a marker from their pockets and became Lee by sketching his identification on their upper lip while speaking their lines.

Audience participation is a frequent feature at Kumu Kahua, and was well-utilized today. Shortly after the play opens a videographer wanders round filming actors and audience. He asks for volunteers to provide local input for his film about living pidgin in Hawaii. I was the last of about six or eight to raise my hand. He gave me a hostile look and then addressed all of us, telling us that "hey, dey got actors to do dat. Put you ego away." In one sequence the cast wound its way through several narrow rows between seats, bumping knees and interacting with the patrons as they searched for the hidden entrance to a rumored all-pidgin world. A group of students explores what might be different in an all-pidgin world and envisions pidgin dancing. Audience members were chosen to serve as partners. Some were embarrassed and reticent. An older man sitting in front of me brought the house down with his enthusiasm. Spontaneous applause and laughter were the primary audience contribution to todays wonderful presentation. I've been going to Kumu Kahua for three or four years and always look forward to enjoying "Plays about life in Hawaii. Plays by Hawaii's playwrights. Plays for Hawaii's people." Today's production of Living Pidgin by Lee Tonouchi was da bes evah! That last link will take you to a viewer's guide and cast photos.

I spotted Lee Tonouchi on the lanai while we were waiting to enter, and he stayed for the entire play. I wanted to approach him and tell him what a fan I am. I wanted to mention my recent posts about Hawaiian pidgin, and that he is mentioned in them. Common sense prevailed. I can relate local stories, but I'm by no means an expert. He is. He's Da Pidgin Guerrilla! I don't think I want to invite him to critique my efforts! Besides, I got him to sign all of his books for me when I attended Kumu Kahua's production of Gone Feeshing a few years back!

Labels: Kumu Kahua Theatre, Lee Tonouchi, life in Hawaii, pidgin

I drove up the coast highway a little while ago to run some errands. This entailed passing numerous encampments of homeless folks. The same high wind that damaged my roof recently has knocked down or even destroyed quite a few of the tents. I'm pretty sure that most of those folks are going to have a hard time finding new shelter before the rainy season starts getting serious with us. We've had a few heavy rains just recently, but that will turn to monsoon-like downpours soon, sometimes lasting for days or weeks.

Some folks think that Hawaii is a pretty good place to be homeless. We don't have snow or even terribly cold weather, though it can be pretty chilly at night when you're in a tent right next to the ocean.

The wind is still blowing.

Labels: homelessness, life in Hawaii

I've had some emails about my New Year's greeting pictures, so here you go:

1. Yes, that's me. I was just learning to snorkel, so about twelve years ago. That is not a deformed third boob. I strap on a fanny pack when I swim because I collect shells. When it's empty it balloons up.

2. The yellow hibicus is about the size of my hand if I spread my fingers as far as they will go.

3. The lei stands at the airport. They start at about $5.00, but the fancy ones can be quite pricey.

4. Dear friends' daughter. She's three now and sometimes calls me Tutu, Hawaiian for "grandmother."

5. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, aka Bruddah Iz. Yes, that version of Over The Rainbow.



Iz is gone, but his music continues to gain new friends around the world. He lived near here and the bust is in front of Waianae Satellite City Hall on this coast. There is another version with videos of Iz on the same YouTube page. Lousy sound, but worth a watch.

Edit: Yeah, I blew it. I embedded the video, so there was no link for you to follow. So, go here to find a catalogue of user created Iz tributes and also other videos that have nothing to do with him except that they use his music. The video that shows some local reactions to his music ends with the scattering of his ashes as the throngs sound out their final aloha to the gentle giant.

6. Statue in front of the Hawaii Convention Center. I've forgotten it's name - something Hawaiian about water being the gift of life.



He's not naked. He's wearing a malo.



7. Last February. Beagle underfoot, boiling noodles being removed from stove. Large second degree burn. Debridement with lots of morphine. Interesting scar.

8. Irwin building my new addition. Complete photolog on Flikr.

9. Duh! Easter eggs. The plate was my mom's. She collected chickens.

10. Peacocks and chickens. I rented in this condo complex up in Makaha Valley before I bought the house. My son and I called the area "Peacock Corners." I do a lot of inspections there.

11. Stocking stuffers from my son and his girlfriend in 2005. The skinny yellow guy is a keyboard duster.

12. Flat Stanley is a paper doll who visted us a few years back. I compiled a photolog of his visit and sent him home to the girl in Sis's special ed class who made him. Lance the beagle was a little suspicious of him.

13. I helped a friend clean out a warehouse owned by a guy who also owned a pawnshop. The jewelry was part of my payment. The friend was drunk the day he took it in for me so it could be appraised. He forgot his mission and sold it for a ridiculously low price. Guess it's a good thing I've forsaken glitz, huh?

14. Taken at the Waianae Boat Harbor while. Ahi or aku, I forget which.

15. Serenity - Wahiawa Botanical Gardens.

16. Another Flat Stanley (lower left) visits a little grass shack outside of a North Shore surf shop.


There ya go. I knew there were quite a few pictures, but didn't count them until now. Wow! I'm surprised that blogger could handle this many.

As an aside: When I was taking pictures during the fire yesterday, one of them included the roof of the new addition. If you look at the picture of my neighbor on his roof, you'll see my roof in the foreground. Click to enlarge. A portion of the roof blew off during recent high winds. I didn't even notice it until I uploaded the pictures. Ooooooooooops! Irwin will be here in the morning for repairs.

Labels: life in Hawaii, photos

Because our population is such a mixture of cultures I sometimes hear snatches of a half-dozen different languages in a single day. My next-door neighbors on one side speak Samoan at home. On the other side is a Japanese family. They are an older couple and at least second-generation here in Hawaii. They speak English to each other and their kids & grandkids, but I sometimes hear them switch smoothly to Japanese with guests. I have Filipino, Portugese and Tahitian neighbors here on my block. The family directly across the street from me is Hawaiian. They all speak English when out and about, though many speak their national languages at home. English is the language of business and school and strangers who cross ones path. It is the thread that binds our polyglot society into a cohesive whole, but it is the local pidgin that defines “local.” I love its lyrical expressiveness. It soars and surges and captures the imagination. It is the language of complete candor and familiarity. It finds it’s most magical completeness in the children, those young enough to have not yet been told by some authoritarian figure that they should abandon pidgin and speak “correct English.” I contend, along with many others, that pidgin is a vital part of their cultural heritage and it is shameful to try to quash it. Like the “old school” teachers who used to punish left-handedness, there are those who would try to humiliate children into giving up this important part of who they are.

What follows is the closest I can come to sharing an overheard conversation. I’ve probably got spellings wrong and may have selected the wrong words in a few place.

A young boy passes an older woman who is raking up leaves in her yard.

“Auntie, can have one mango?
“Come, boy. Help rake da leaves, I give you five mango.”
“I help, yeah.”
“Whose boy you? I know your mama?”
“Don’t know, auntie. She Lani.”
“Lani works at Tamura?’
“No, not dat one. She work da Rec Centa.”
“Ah, dat Lani. Kauka your Dad.”
“Yeah, yeah, auntie.”
“He still *da kine?
“Yeah, fo evah, I tink.”
“Got two big buddahs?”
“Tree, auntie.”
“Tree? Kimo, Lino … oh, oh, oh … Keo dat oddah one!”
“Him, yeah. Got him one hapa girl, she hapai. Make me uncle.”
“Fo real?”
“Fo real, auntie.”
“Heah, boy. One bag fo you carry mango.”
“Got five Auntie. Das good?”
“Going going. Tree big buddahs, one hapai wahine. Need plenny.”
“Ho! Tanks, auntie.”
“Tell your mama come see Auntie Laika.”
“Can auntie.”
“Boy, what dey call you?”
“I Ekeka.”
“You one good boy Ekeka. Akamai”
“Tanks auntie. I go. Get lickens come home late.”
“Go, boy. Come back bumbye.”


*Da kine can mean almost anything that all parties in a conversation know and understand. In this case it might mean that he’s still singing in nightclubs, or driving a truck or teaching at the high school. Ekeka and Laika both know what it means, so da kine is effective conversational shorthand.

hapai = pregnant
hapa = mixed race
akamai = clever, smart
bumbye = by and by, some later time

Labels: life in Hawaii, linguistics, pidgin

I went to Yokohama Bay Beach yesterday afternoon. That's on the western end of the island, right before the place where the old highway was closed when it became unsafe. At one time you could go from our Leeward Coast to the North Shore via that route, but now you have to drive towards town and traverse the island through the mountains to get there. Yokohama Bay is the "end of the world" from this side, unless you're on foot. I've taken the hike a few times from Yokohama Bay to Kaena Point, which is the extreme western tip of Oahu. I need to do that again sometime, to see the albatross that nest there. But that's for another day. Yeterday I stopped short so I could meet friends for their annual Christmas visit to Yokohama Bay.


It was a beautiful, sunshiny day with stiff breezes coming in off of the ocean. Quite a few people had come out to play.




The ocean is very changeable this time of year. In the hour or so we were there it went from flat ...




... to frilly ...



... to booming!




That didn't bother the sun worshippers ...




... or keep the kids from trying out their new boogie boards ...



I took some photos of my friend and her son, because they don't often have the opportunity to have their picture taken together. I also took pictures of the mountains, and more pictures of the scenes at the beach. A total of eighty-three pictures were on my camera card when I got home. I could look at each in the viewer of my camera. I wanted to select a nice mother and son photo to frame for my friends and, of course, to share the best with you. Alas, something is wrong with my camera, or maybe the card or my software. Each time I've tried to correct it I've lost photos. I've ended up with no mountain pictures & no photos of my friends. I did manage to save the last photo of the day, one I took impulsively as I was coming home. Here's a little local color for you.

Labels: Christmas, life in Hawaii

I attended a Neighborhood Board meeting on Tuesday night. Neighborhood Board meetings are the equivalent of Town Hall Meetings that some communities have. Various officials share information with the community and then open up the floor for feedback. There were three items on Tuesday’s agenda. I’ve already forgotten what the first two were. They were dealt with in less than five minutes. The third item was what brought out a crowd. It was a discussion about the transitional housing community that is to be built abutting my own neighborhood, and the affordable housing that will be the next phase of the same development. The topic was guaranteed to bring out the NIMBYs, and it did.

I’m proud of my neighborhood and of most of the people who took advantage of this forum to educate themselves and to discuss their concerns. The NIMBYs were given little notice as we discussed the very real problems that this development will present. The main street leading to the development is in poor repair, too narrow and unsafe. The utilities (especially water and sewage) are in need of major upgrades. The elementary school is already overcrowded and its old buildings are deteriorating.

My neighbors want the city, county and state to complete corrections on all of the above before construction begins. That’s not an unreasonable stance to take, but it is not my view. Completion will take a lot of time. Meanwhile, we have hundreds of people living on the beaches, waiting for the slow wheels of government to grind. I believe that the various agencies involved can all work together to just get the job done. They can open up another entrance on the back side of the development for the heavy construction traffic, while detouring us to other available roads so that the main entry road can be repaired. Road maintenance can work with the utility departments to coordinate their upgrades. There are unused temporary buildings all over the island that can be brought in for the school to use until permanent new buildings can be built. I think they can do all of this, if they will. The gentleman who spoke to us at the meeting is the head of a special task force formed by the governor. The agencies who will be involved in the work have been ordered to coordinate with him, to give this task top priority. He is competent, and he is passionate about making this happen. Call me naïve, but I believe it can be done, if they all want it to. I don't think getting the work done is the biggest part of the problem. I think community aceptance is. We have it in our power to throw up roadblocks, or to help this dream become a reality.

After the meeting I spoke with Alice, one of the audience members who had spoken quite eloquently to the problems we are facing. Alice has lived on this coast for many years, and she's raised her family here. She’s still doing that, but can’t afford a house anymore. She and her family live in tents on the beach. She has graciously agreed to sit down and talk with me soon, and to introduce me to some of her neighbors on the beach. Alice does not describe herself as homeless. She has a place to stay, and family and friends around her. She describes herself as houseless. It’s a fine distinction, but it tells me that her current circumstances have not beaten her down or warped her priorities.

This is the introduction to what I hope will be a series of posts about the houseless people who are my neighbors. I think it’s important for folks to meet them and get to know them. I hope that by introducing them to others I can help win support for the changes that my community needs to face. We can live with a little inconvenience while this project is being developed. We must, for the good of our community. I don’t have a production schedule. I will continue to do other posts about other things. I still deal with depression and social anxiety disorder, so bear with me when I have bad days and can’t work on this project. But do come back. I want you to meet my neighbors.

Labels: homelessness, houseless, life in Hawaii, social responsibility

Honu - the green sea turtle




Puhi - the moray eel

These are older photos, made with one of those throw-away cameras, so they're not terrific.

Labels: honu, life in Hawaii, puhi

I inspected a condo yesterday on the slopes below Diamond Head. Even urban areas in my tropical paradise offer unique beauty.




After I finished my fieldwork, I stopped at the beach to take some more pictures to satisfy the special request of Imran MD. I live somewhere between a quarter and a half-mile inland. As I pull onto the highway I'm facing Maile Beach Park, so I've been there many times to snorkel or fish. It was a little choppy yesterday, so there weren't many folks in the water, though I could see that others had been there before me.



There's a stone breakwater protecting against erosion where Mailiilii Stream dumps into the ocean. Nice fishing, though I've never caught anything but bait. I "fish," but can't seem to get a handle on the "catching" part of it.




Yesterday it was pretty choppy. That means any line tossed in will almost immediately get washed back and tangled on the rocks.




I sat on the breakwater for a while, enjoying the breeze and the taste of salt. Just as I was getting ready to leave a car pulled up. This fellow got out and unloaded his gear, then the car left. I talked with the man as he was putting his poles together and getting bait ready. I asked why he was planning to fish here, where the conditions were less than ideal. He said he's always lived here on this coast, but was leaving tomorrow (now today) for Maui because the work was better there. He wanted one last shot at fishing his favorite spot before he left. We joked about there not being any fish around Maui, or that there might be "alien" fish there not worthy of the table.



For those of you who always want to know how the weather is, note his wardrobe. I was still in my work uniform of cargo shorts and golf shirt. I can assure you that he was much more appropriately dressed for the balmy afternoon!




I don't know the end of the story. I had to go to my home office and get started on my reports for yesterday's work. I hope he had a nice catch to remember his last day on the coast by. I hope he finds good fishing around his new home.

Labels: fishing, life in Hawaii, making memories, scenery

I lost a lot of my older pictures when my old computer died. Here's a few and I'll dig out some more scenery for you in the next few days ... or take some fresh pictures. Enjoy!




A quiet beach




Banyan tree




Pink hibiscus




Honu - Green Sea Turtle




Treasures from snorkeling at my favorite beach

Labels: life in Hawaii