Scuba Diving Vacations

Aloha,

Went out for a walk around a subdivision down the hill from us. When we moved here you could buy an acre down there for about 85 grand and it was basically empty, now it's sky high (we've had a huge property value appreciation in the last 6-7 years) and gradually filling up. I took the liberty of taking a couple shots of plants we see. The first one is the flower of a costus. They are a lot like gingers in appearance, in fact I think one of the common names is Ginger Lilly. They're a pretty neat flower that we don't have on our own property.
The second flower is a bouganvillea. Every time I hear that name I think of McHale's Navy... I think they mentioned Bouganville a lot on that show. It'd be curious if that's where this plant originated. Anyway, the leaves on this plant turn bright colors and they can look quite spectacular. Bouganvillea is planted along much of the highway around Kailua-Kona and makes for a brightly colored border - tourists love it. It's great stuff... 'til you own it.... It's a lot like blackberries, it grows like a weed and takes over things and it has nasty thorns. We had a 40 foot high cascade of white and purple next to our house that I decided to cut back one day because it took up half of our immediate front yard - turned out to be just 2 plants. It took me 2 weeks to get it cut back and I was quite cut up by the end of it.


I thouhgt I'd give it a break from the scuba posts for the most part, although I did see this facinating article about the recent Soloman Island earthquake lifting an entire island 10 feet, exposing and likely killing the local reefs. It's amazing what a force nature can be.

Happy Easter to all!

Steve