Kealekekua Bay: freedomʻs just another word

For a month or so now I have had a permit to paddle the historic Kealekekua Bay, the bay where Captain Cook met his end.

The permit has been burning a hole in my pocket. Kealekekua Bay is just about the furthest point on the island from Hale Mahina. No matter which way I drive it is sure to be more than 3 hours journey one way.

Finally I planned to paddle Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, the old salt had asked me where I was going to launch. They issued me a permit, I said. I will find the end of the road and launch, I said.

Oh yeah.

Plan A was to camp overnight at Whittington Beach State park at Naʻalehu, written up here. This would give me a few hours head start and allow a really nice dawn paddle.

Plan A was foiled. First a traffic accident blocking the road, saw me take 1.5 hours to get the first 8 miles. Then I tried to draw money and the bank computers were down. Then I tried to buy something and get cash back at the store and the storeʻs computers were down. At this stage I thought: signs and omens.

Plan B: Go back home. Go to bed early. Rest. Try start at 3 am.

That plan evolved into a night of terrible dreams. A yellow canoe carrying a whole lot of people sank. I went to rescue paddling my red kayak. I rescued one person then my kayak sank. Diving deep in murky water (my worst nightmare) I recovered a red kayak - but it was not mine.

I woke exhausted, unrested and unsettled from that dream. I had the red kayak loaded on the truck for the Kealekekua paddle. I would prefer the white one, but the red has better hatch and seals for a longer journey. I debated changing kayaks as the kettle boiled for my tea. The carport construction makes a real obstacle course for moving kayaks right now. In the daylight. This was 3 am.

The sky was velvet black with stars. Then I saw the crescent moon: it was hanging in the faint outline of the old full moon. The warning from the old sailors ballad came to me: not a time to go to sea.

I set off across the saddle with the red kayak in the dark, dark pre-dawn, in spite of the warning in the moon.

I drove and drove and drove up over the dark night saddle and down the other side into dawnʻs twilight. Heading down Napoʻopo Road for no reason whatsever, or because I had not yet had breakfast, I came out chickenskin, (gooseflesh) all over.

I get to the end of the road to discover the gate to the wharf is locked with a huge serious chain and padlock.

I drive to the end, planning to use the lua. An older Hawaiian gentleman on a moped, cup of cffee in hand,  tells me that one can no more launch at this spot. I need to go Manini Bay. But it is windy. I say, yes I came early to miss the wind. He says the wind came even earlier today.

I use the toilet facilities and walk a bit along the heiau walls, looking at the water. Sullen and dark. Not friendly or welcoming at all.

I drive around a bit looking for Manini Bay. I find Manini Beach Road. It is a single lane track with a lot of tarpaulin camp sites and handmade Kapu (Keep Out) signs. There is no place I could park my truck. No place that invites YES launch HERE.

I drive further to Honaunau, where a windswept bride is being photographed against the sunrise horizon and a Jeep tailgates me in a most irritating way. I am grumpy and feeling crowded and the dawn light is giving way to bright day.

I leave without putting paddle in Kealekekua Bay.  I did, however,  stand at the spot where the first Christian service was held in Hawaii - a funeral prayer for one of Captain Cookʻs men in January 1779.

Hosts of dis-ease: invasion biology part 2

Last month I wrote, here of finding the East African Land Snail in the garden.

I now have reason to believe that this other mollusc, with a vague shell and apparently having its origins in Thailand, is also a pretty strong candidate for hosting the parasite which causes rat lung disease, angiostrongylus cantonensis. This illness can manifest most uncomfortably in humans with compromised immune systems as a form of meningitis.

Fortunately I do not eat snails. This critter, however, does like to leave very slimey trails.

Mental note however to ensure that my visitors wash their hands after spending time with my plants, and wash all garden produce before eating.

Another day, another lizard

Speaking of poinsettias: thereʻs apparently good hunting to be had in all that brilliance.

Blooming amaryllis

I was so distracted by the construction chaos during November that I almost missed the first amaryllis bloom.

Arriving home one day, my eye caught something different under the banana trees. Closer inspection showed a tall orange amaryllis had sprung up quite unnoticed, to put forth a beautiful triumvirate: colonizing the shadows with salmon coloured sunshine. I had not seen that coming. It is a little early. My native conditioning is to expect these around late February/March. Not November. Immigration messes with all the internal clocks and calendars.

I stood a while in front of the amaryllis patch (in old car tyres). Thinking. Remembering. Connecting.

For the first time in twelve years I have these home country natives growing outside.  Normally, around about now, one finds these bulbs for sale in all the stores. To be sprouted in pots indoors then tossed in the garbage when the season changes. ʻTis the season and all that.

We used to grow them at the reference desk at one of my first libraries in the USA. Along with those sad potted poinsettias which always withered so sadly from neglect and distaste at climate controlled interior environment.

No more. The decorative pieces are liberated to the great island outdoors.

I cannot help thinking, however, that much of what I found in the garden when I arrived to take up custodianship at Hale Mahina, came from end of season sales. The half off bargains: poinsettias and amaryllis running amuck.

Banyan Drive and Queen Liliukalani gardens

Passing time in Hilo, I stroll along Banyan Drive and through Queen Liliukalani Gardens.

Flowers, cascades of palm fruit just like cascades of braided, beaded, ornamented hair, people exercising or just appreciating the space and place, views of water and a bridge across to Moku Ola - Coconut Island.

It was strange to see it all from land, since my normal vistas are from the water.

Constructing shelter: itʻs just a kiss away (for all you rolling stones)

The Carport Construction Project monopolized most of Novemberʻs home attention and disrupted all energies around Hale Mahina. Short term chaos for long term improvement.

My architect/construction foreman had sourced ohia house posts for me from a nearby plot owned by the local fire chief. Appropriately, the three Hale O Puamahina logs were delivered on All Souls day.

Native to the Hawaiian islands, Ohia (Metrosideros polymorpha) is a very hard, heavy, reddish coloured wood and not the easiest of construction materials. It has traditionally been used for house and heiau (temple) construction purposes. Ohia is a pioneer species, one of the first to populate lava flows and associated with fiery goddess Pele of the wind, lightning and volcanoes. 

When they arrived, the logs were shaggy with rough, silvery, flakey bark not unlike cedar bark. The bark does not pull away easily, however, and has to be removed by a process of beating (with another piece of ohia, or a baseball bat) then hand stripping to reveal the smooth red underneath. The wood sung with beautiful voice when pounded. Fortunately rhythm is my instrument. Making bark strips was quite an undertaking.

Raising the posts was another challenge which required that we bring more muscle onto the property to help with the sheer weight of ohia posts. 

 Then the rafters. A lot of up and down, measuring, calculating and cutting. The aim is to have a peaked roof which mimics the roof of the house. Harmony. This will also increase my water catchment area significantly.

There is a three week pause, now,  while I wait for the corrugated iron tin roofing sheets to be delivered. I begin to prime and paint. And continue to pick and pull at the remnants of bark on the posts. Eventually a glossy wood sealer will go on them to discourage bumblebees.

I am loving the skeletal beauty of this upside down boat stage: doesnʻt keep the rain or sun off the vehicles but makes beautiful patterns against earth and sky

Ghost Dancer: Black Friday bargain

Feral cats have been  a feature of my life in Paradise. Usually they are skanky looking and annoy me in that they insist on using the drier, slightly sandy places under the eves of my tiny house as litter box. Cat spray also perfumes my nights at times - testament to the territorial activities of a Marmelade mancat.

This morning I found this Black Friday bargain making cosy on my front porch. As if it belonged and was to the manor born.

As soon as this little ghost dancer became aware of me, however, it became as feral as feral can be. Disappeared into the jungle alongside, but not before this exquisite smoke and ash coloured, ice blue-eyed visitor had made sure that we met eye to eye.

Paddles with pirates, moon and a coconut: a treatise on discovering levity and lunatic love

I was not going to paddle today. The quotidian is snapping at my heels. There is a carport construction project asking for attention, not to mention laundry and a myriad other minor domestic chores.

But somehow that 3 am, just-beginning-to-wane moon beckoned me out. I found myself moonlit loading the kayak in the soft twilight of a warm tropical night.

I launched at the pirate ship, with the moon still the brightest thing, the drowned sister dancing in front of my prow, becoming whole again as soon as the paddle had rent its reflection.

 Slowly the rose stain spread.

I followed a coconut on the waves for a while.

When it tried to lead me out to the open ocean, beyond the breakwater, I captured it.

Speaking of generosity and gifts from the salt water. Coconuts. Just what the doctor ordered. And so was the paddle.

 I launched with the question: how to heal the heart chakra. The answer, it seems could be a coconut.

Or thatʻs what the salt water said.

Ha! (that too)

PS: My dearest salt water coconut: I do love you too. So there!