...OK, I'd only eaten there once back in the day when it was out in the Kaloko warehouse district, but it was interesting. A friend of mine said I needed to go there for breakfast (same guy that recommended the double meat hot pastrami at Bianelli's the other month). I went there and it was really pretty good, a bit unusual by mainland standards (this was back in '99 when I was still relatively new to the island) as it was a plate lunch place. I had some kind of stew filled omlette if I recall correctly, quite tasty. The only reason I never went back was because I live way south, and I don't do breakfast or plate lunch all that often. At any rate, they closed their Kaloko restaurant several years ago.



Sam's an accomplished chef and has gained a bit of celebrity over the years, came out with some cook books, I think he's had a cooking show or two, was picked to design the food for an airline's in-flight meals, etc. Along the way he'd openend a restaurant in Honolulu that I hear good comments about. I believe all of the plate lunch places are closed and his new Sam Choy's Kona restaurant looks as though it will be more upscale.





It's moving into the old Wendy's Keauhou location. It was a Wendy's for years, but closed down several years ago. It arguably had one of the best views of any restaurant on the west side of the Big Island (others being the Coffee Shack Deli down in Captain Cook, and a couple of oceanside places). It's a prime location and there was lots of speculation/hopes over the years that some place nice would come in. Apparently this new venture has been in the works for quite some time, a couple of years maybe, but it's just started to really get up to speed in the last few months. They've expanded the old building and enclosed the patio. I thought I saw some type of sattelite dish on the roof, so they probably are putting in a bar section if I guess right (edit a half day later: Duh, if I'd actually looked through the website I'd linked earlier I'd have noticed the mention of the bar).



Kona's ripe for another nice restaurant to come in. Sam Choy the person is kind of a local institution, everyone knows who is. Hopefully it'll be another nice place to try after a great day of scuba diving in Kona Hawaii. I'm looking forward to it's opening.



Later,



Steve

I had the morning off, kind of a lucky thing as there was an accident last night in Kealakekua that knocked over a telephone pole and the drive into town is taking forever. I took the liberty to drive a bit down the road to Ho'okena Beach Park for a bit of snorkeling, figured I'd try the camera.



I shot about 8 minutes of video while I in just for the heck of it. It's not spectacular, but it'll give you an idea of what the place is like. The color is much nicer through eyeballs, the video doesn't do it justice. I shot this video starting about 30 feet off the beach in 30 inches of water then swam to the right around the old pier. There's lots to look at right in close there.



Ho'okena is a small beach park in south Kona. It's got fairly nice facilities, camping by permit, some concessions run by a non-profit, and even handicap access to the facilities. The parking lot is sand, so be careful where you park it, AWD or 4WD might be handy if you're not watching where the tires are.



The beach is exposed to high surf in the stormy months, so the reef isn't as nice as some other places, but there's still lots of fish so there's plenty of decent snorkeling. There's some pretty nice shorediving there as well, but you'll probably need to do several dives there 'til you figure it out. My first shore dive there with my wife, Pat, was kind of lame. I decided to continue to explore it and found some pretty interesting diving over time.



I'm headed into the dive shop shortly. We have a manta dive going out with a couple of divers and snorkelers tonight.



Aloha,



Steve

I'm playing with the new Olympus ib software for the Pen e-pl1 and other recent cameras. I went down to the Painted Church down the road from where I live in Captain Cook. It's a local landmark. It's an older church, and the minister at the time, having a fair number of parishoners that weren't all that literate (written language was relatively new to Hawaii at the time), painted pictures to help illustrate his teachings. It's quite fabulous.

Anyways, I tried the panorama function that the Oly Pen camera has. You can set it in panorama mode, take pictures which have some lineup helps/prompters on the LCD, then go into the editing program and stitch it all together. This particualr image has three separate photos involved. One merging is pretty obvious, but really doesn't affect the image, the other is less obvious. I managed to merge RAW photos, but it doesn't allow a RAW editing afterwards, I'm hoping I can do a RAW editing then merge the photos... if this happens, then... YAHOO... I can go underwater and take panoramas that are color corrected. Give me a few days (possibly weeks, I've got a full schedule ahead starting Saturday for a couple weeks at least) to figure that one out.

Anyways, for a first panorama, and about 5 minutes in front of the computer, I'm happy.

Later,

Steve

Quality's not real good on this, I haven't figured out how to successfully upload a full size file to Youtube yet. I took a drive down Alli Drive some time in July and set the camera on the dash. Here's a little video from about the Royal Kona Resort to the King Kamehameha Hotel, that's pretty much the main business sector tourist-wise in Kailua. Hopefully it'll give you somewhat of an idea of what it's like here, it's a cute/quaint seaside town.

I've been real busy doing charters, not much time for anything else the last two weeks. Water conditions have been terriffic except for an occasional unexpected south breeze popping up.

I should be getting back to posting new fish photos again soon. Took advantage of the busy weeks and paid off my camera, the housing's on order... I may have to get it wet this weekend.

Later,

Steve

This morning I decided to check out the trail at the Honokohau harbor parking lot that leads to the Kaloko Honokohau National Park. It's a trail back by the Kona sailing club lot,it's clearly marked. I checked it out the first month or two I first moved here and really haven't done it since. It runs from the back lot and winds it's way through the National Park. A short way in to the trail you"ll come across a split in the trail. One directions goes to a large tidepool and canoe house and the beach and the other leads to the trail going to the visitor center you access from the highway, and to the beach and Ai makapa fish pond.

I passed on walking to the visitor center, just checked out the beach and the pond. The beach here is one of the longest on the west side of the Big Island. It's probably at least a half mile long, maybe longer. The photo doesn't do the sand justice, there's a fair amount of black sand mixed in with the off-white/brown sand typical of sandy beaches here so it looks a bit "dirtier" in the photo than it is. This was taken at 9:45 on a Sunday morning... it's just 2 guys fishing, a dog, and me. Not a heck of a lot of decent sandy beaches in Hawaii see that kind of lack of activity on a weekend. I suspect it picks up over the course of the day, but considering it's just 2-3 miles from a major tourist center it seems quite uncrowded. It's not a frolic in the water kind of beach, but it's a good sunning beach. Back when I moved here they were working on eliminating the nudity, there's a sign reminding people of that as you enter the park. I think they've done it, was kind of news in the area back around the turn of the century (now I really feel old.... one of my grandfathers was a kid "back around the turn of the century" last time that phrase came up).

Back when I checked out the beach years ago, I just walked along the water and had no idea the fish pond was just the other side of the small dunes of the beach. I've checked out the more accessible Kaloko ponds below Costo several times, but wasn't aware of this one 'til I was training someone to scuba dive that had a pool at their house above Costco. You can clearly see it from up there and it's much larger than Kaloko pond. I'd like to catch it for photos on a clear quiet morning. There's some water foul around, and some kind of fish jumped in the distance when I was there. The Hawaiian's used to catch or trap fish and keep them in the ponds along the coast for food.

I didn't walk the entire park. think you can make it all the way to the Kaloko end from there if you want. It's a nice little cultural walk.

Whoohoo!!! I've been waiting for this restaurant for almost a year. I'd never wandered into the Hard Rock Cafe the first several years I lived here, then finally did and kind of liked it... then it went out of business and there's been a big hole in the middle of the shopping/restaurant area of Kailua for a couple of years. It was announced that Humpy's Alehouse of Anchorage Alaska was going to put in a restaurant here and it sounded quite interesting. I talked to several of my Alaskan customers and friends and they'd mentioned it was as pretty good place up there that seemed quite busy... sounded like a good addition to Kailua village to me.

Original plans, if I recall correctly, were to open around October/November of last year. Well, things go slow here, especially permitting, and they were finally checked off just recently and apparently opened in the last couple of days. Pat was headed to the airport tonight to go to a friend's wedding on the mainland and we figured we'd do a quick visit for a meal. I'm not kidding about quick, we had a 50-55 minute window and I wasn't sure we'd be able to get it in. The restaurant was pretty busy, and I've got to commend them for their service. We've been to other places when they first opened where things didn't go smoothly the few nights.

A bit about Humpy's. Humpy's is a whole lot of BEER... and more. The upstairs is much the same configuration as the old Hard Rock, the downstairs retail space has largely been replaced by a bar and seating. When I mentioned "a whole lot of BEER", I wasn't kidding... 36 beers on tap according to their list. That's a lot for a small town.... they should start a club and offer a T shirt and a spot on a plaque to anyone who can finish the list (oh, at least 2 sittings of course). They also feature sandwiches, burgers, stone oven pizzas, seafoods (from King Crab legs to salmon burgers), a Hawaiian plate menu and more. It's gonna take me a few visits to navigate the menu and get a handle on the place. I had the Paniolo burger off their 10 oz burger listings with a Big Island feel... big burger, pretty good, but when it comes right down to it their "Humpy's Burger" and other 6 oz burger listings sounded a little more interesting, I'll try them next (I was hungry today). Pat had the calimari strips, I'd say they're more like calimari fries, cut like french fries and breaded with a spicy breading. They were cooked right... tender, not rubbery, but Pat's not into the style as much as I am, guess who got to finish the last few... yum, yum. I forgot to mention the fries that came with the burger... yay, fresh cut fries, happy to see them.

Anyway, the seating was immediate (seat yourself once checking in), the service prompt, drink and food orders were taken quickly and delivered quickly. No long waits through anything, but we weren't rushed in the least. Come desert time I mentioned we were timing things for a plane and the check was delivered right away. Service was good. We were treated to a pretty good sunset too....

It's located smack dab in the middle of the Coconut Marketplace shops next to the volleyball court on Alii drive. I'm happy to see new businesses in town. There's a few other spots right nearby that have opened recently too, haven't had a chance to give them a try. I'll be back to Humpy's.

Oooh, gotta mention the new camera again. I took these shots with my Olympus Pen, no flash and not trying to be particularly motionless. Not sure if I could get the interior bar or exterior shot with my old point and shoots that well exposed without paying attention to what I was doing in the lighting we had. It's fun having a bit higher end camera to play with.

Later,

Steve

It was nice and sunny the other morning and I was in the area so I stopped at Kahalu'u beach and took a short video. I need to learn the Olympus Pen camera still, next time I'll try manual focus, the automatic focus in video mode tends to drift.

Kahalu'u is a little public park on the south end of Alii drive in the Keauhou area.
It's technically outside of the town of Kailua, but I consider it all to be Kailua - there's ancient family names for all sorts of villages here. Kailua is now the business hub of Kona (which extends from the south end of Anaehoomalu Beach up north to the south end of Manuka Bay to the south). It wasn't all that long ago that Captain Cook, up in coffee country, was the center of commercial and governmental activity on the west side of the island. I went to a traffic meeting back in about '04 or so and the Mayor said many of the problems here stem from the fact that in 1970, Kailua had a population of 291 (under 300, I may be off by 6 or so in either direction) and there's been not all that much time to effect major changes to keep up with the population boom. I came here with family as a kid back in 1972' or so... the town pretty much ended at Hualalai road, the Hilton (now the Royal Kona) was practically out of town, the King Kamehameha hotel was a grocery, and there was a long barely 2 lane road from town that, from what I can remember as a kid, ended at the little blue church on north end of what is now Kahalu'u park. We went down there nearly every day to body surf next to the church - I had no idea how good the snorkeling was here at that time.

Back to the beach... it's got a bit of a beach for sunning, but you kind of need to get there early to find space. The highlight here is snorkeling. Resident turtles, lots of fish, some reef (please do not stand on it, try to stand only on sand, best not to stand at all... just snorkel to your heart's content) and shallow water makes for good beginner to intermediate level snorkeling. When Pat and I came out here on our first visit, we hit the park and snorkeled in the late afternoon (actually, not the best time of day) and loved it.

Later,

Steve

Last night we did another manta dive off the Kona airport. Water conditions were awesome... flat and clear... Our divers saw one manta in the distance on the first dive, then while we were taking our surface interval five or six mantas swam by the boat. There apparently were 11 or so mantas at the site on the night dive according to one of the videographers.

I went home after the night dive and turned on Jimmy Kimmel and straight up at midnight... the cable went out. It was still out this morning. The story I'm hearing is that somehow an undersea cable was severed and we won't have cable 'til it's repaired. Severed undersea cable? Gotta be the act of some giant sea monster surely.

Suposedly much or all of the Big Island is out of cable service. No TV, and internet options are limited. I've got service through the phone company here at the shop so I can still play on the internet. Major cable outages can effect things here, from what I understand the hospital and Kaiser both have their patient records based on Oahu and have no access to them right now 'til the cable's back up. There are notices on the radio station recommending people reschedule all but urgent care visits. My e-mail is routed through my cable connection, if I don't have cable service tomorrow I'll need to configure the shop laptop to check my mail. I can let it slide for a day, some days I'm running double charters and I just don't have time to spend on the computer, but I hate not answering e-mail reasonably promptly.

Here's a shot of a Sargassum Frogfish that Cathy took some time ago.

No charter today, too bad, it's wonderful outside. Sunny, little to no vog, mild breeze and very flat seas. Great diving conditions!

Later,

Steve

EDIT NOTE: I arrived home mid-afternoon and it appears the giant sea monster was no match for Time Warner/Oceanic Cablesystems. TV and computer are working.

LATER EDIT NOTE: The news just came on (5pm here) and said it was more or less a statewide outing of cable TV/internet/cable phones. Wow. Oahu and Kauai were restored early in the day, Maui and the Big Island had longer outages. It apparently was a single cable compromised between Maui and Oahu at about 3000 feet of depth... still might have been a sea monster that caused all of this after all. they figure it'll be weeks before they can pull up the cable and check it out, in the meanwhile everything's been re-routed.

Not that I'm going to even attempt to answer that question... I've always wanted to post a photo of a Gold Tree, it's evidently a Brazillian native that we find sprinkled around Kona. They have a short time where every leaf turns bright gold, they're in that mode right now. They really show spectacularly at times.

It's another very nice day in Kona today. No charter so I'm hanging out at the shop. The entire state was under a high wind warning this last week, in Kona south of the airport the winds were quite mild or non-existant. Up north it was a battle just to get a car door open from what I heard. Our customers staying up north were calling up asking if we were still diving... quite diveable in the Kailua area, while we did have a couple days of choppy water there was nothing that affected the underwater conditions.

Later,

Steve

...a noticeable limp.

I generally don't make resolutions, but this year I decided to make one. I've decided that since I'm in my 50s, I want to get to where I can walk 1300 feet without stopping or huffing and puffing. That would be 1300 feet uphill.

The day after Christmas Pat and I had the morning off and we decided to tackle the Captain Cook Monument trail. I haven't done the whole trail in probably 8 years, and had done the top 2/3rds a few times last year and had gotten pretty gassed. That day it wasn't so bad, but I still had to stop a few times and my knee was swollen for several days. I decided then I need to confront that trail and win before I get any older.

Well today was trail attempt number 1 of the year. We went down to our 2/3rds turning/viewing point and back. It's about an 800 foot elevation change in 1.2 miles. The section below is shorter and steeper, with more loose rocks underfoot - I'll add that on after I master the top section. Today's walk was better than the other week's attempt, stopped twice for a couple of minutes. At this rate I'll be walking the whole trail next month sometime. My knee swole up immediately today... it's actually the going downhill that bothers it the most. Quite the noticeable limp about an hour after the walk. I wrapped it up and iced it and it's shrinking already this evening, yay. Next time I wear a brace on the way down.

Gettin' old's fun. I figure it's time to take it on now. Anyway, it's a fun walk/hike. The trailhead is about 200 yards down from the top of Napo'opo'o road. It cuts through tall grass and scrub brush for much of the top two thirds and then opens out to a picturesque view of the ocean. The vog has been pretty much non-existent the last few days and we had a great view for miles. Once I get to where I'm handling the top portion readily I'll add the bottom portion. It's a worthwhile hike as the monument area is some of the best snorkeling (not so great for diving though, I'll have to write about that in another post) in the entire state.

Our surf of the other day went down yesterday. I had a charter in the morning and we were able to get out and find decent water. By mid-day it was pretty decent. Today the ocean was pretty nice. It should be fairly nice tomorrow, but by the looks of the swell chart at Magic Seaweed it'll bump up a bit for mid-week. Looking at the chart now it's not going to be as large of surf as it appeared when I looked at the chart around noon time. Looks like the bulk of the heavy surf will be north of us. This site is a great site to check on surf conditions for the next day or two.

Here's a shot of the sunset starting this evening. We're in that time of year where the sunsets are fantastic. My camera batteries ran out before it really got going this evening.

Later,

Steve

We've got some real loud thunder right now. The evening news talked about heavy rain on the Big Island, and we weren't seeing a drop. Well, it's been about 40 minutes and suddenly we're really getting the thunder, the rain just started a minute or so ago. We don't get lightning storms that often, but when we do it seems our neighborhood gets some power troubles so I'm preparing.

Here's another clip from the other day diving with whales singing in the background. Turn it up and you may hear them. The clip itself is of a Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus). These beautiful fish are the only member of their family, which has similarities to both tangs and butterflyfish in many respects.

As I'm posting, the lightning has subsided but the rain's starting to really come in. I have a charter tomorrow, one really nice thing about diving in Kona is that rain rarely effects our diving - the viz generally stays good as there's little to no runoff here.

We'll see if the power holds through the new episode of "Lost" (one of about two or three shows I watch) coming up in 40 minutes.

Aloha,

Steve

...so I thought I'd stop in. Located at the corner of Kaiwi and Kuikini, it's in the space where Orchid Thai was before it moved to larger digs. It's called "Almas Mexican Food" and shares a space with another business (might be the same owners, I didn't ask) and is the first Mexican restaurant - religious bookstore I've ever been in. So far it has a limited menu - burritos, tacos, enchiladas and tamales, with a choice of meats and such. They apparently also serve chili rellenos on Wednesdays and menudo on Sundays.

I had two pork/bean/rice burritos... 3 bucks a pop or 2 for 5 bucks, which were quite decent for the price. They're pictured here with some add on salsa they have on the side. Pretty tasty and a good amount of food for $5 for the Kona area, so I thought I'd mention them here.

later,

Steve

Well, the surf came up big in Kona yesterday and today. I'm looking for it to be heavy through maybe Sunday. We ended up canceling the charters both yesterday and today after looking at it. There were probably 3 "diveable but yucky" moorings left yesterday, but it would have involved timing the exit to the harbor and praying the winds predicted for later in the afternoon didn't come early, so it was better to call it. Today's basically the same, but they're expecting 10-25 mph south winds to come up today, which would really make for a poor time on the water.

We've actually got it pretty good on the Big Island. We had some beach closures on the west side yesterday, but aside from the surf and high winds on the north end of the island, it's been great weather. The other islands are shutting schools and parks and setting up emergency shelters today as they expect to get the brunt of the bad weather.

I hate canceling for weather/surf, as I like money coming in, but sometimes you've got to look at it and allow for the fact that if you know a large portion of your typical guests are going to have a miserable time because of it, it might be best not to go out. If it's flat out unsafe I cancel, if it's just plain nasty but doable, I try to give people the option.... there was one time I had two customers and I gave them the option on a night trip, they insisted we had to go and spent the evening throwing up - most of the time people are happy to pursue other activities when it's that nasty.

So I'm trying a new video thingy today, I'm using Blogger's Google video hosting just to see how it looks vs. the Vimeo and Youtube videos I've used in the past. Here's a quick video of Magic Sands Beach, also called Disappearing Sands Beach or La'aloa Beach park, in Kailua. Much of the year it's a nice sandy boogie boarding beach, when the surf gets real high, all the sand is pulled out and it's a big rock pile.

later,

Steve

This is actually a pic from last night... after the storm ended. We woke up yesterday morning and it was a bit gloomy outside, but nothing to deter us from diving, so Pat and I headed off towards the harbor to take the boat out since we were both off. As we headed into town I got a call from Bob... "Steve, are you still planning on diving today? It just started raining two minutes ago and now the wind is swirling so hard the trees are bending over." I said we'll check it out, and then about a minute or two later we got to the edge of the front.

What a strong little tropical storm. It was very messy and blew in in an instant. Apparently there was a drowning/storm related death at the harbor right as it happened, something involving kayaks and a small boat that tried to rescue them. I'm watching the news tonight to see if I can find anything out, I heard 2nd/3rd hand early today that someone I know may have been involved but is OK. Very very sad for all involved. I'm glad we weren't on the water when this came across, that's about the time we go out when we have charters. Anything that was on the water at 9am yesterday got suddenly pounded bigtime. We turned around about half way to the harbor and got back to a home with no power. Apparently there was a swath through our neighborhood that lost power (we had neighbors both to the right and left of us with power, but straight above us and below to the coast were without for about 11 hours). It was about a 4-5 hour storm, rather strong for here, then turned beautiful.

Last night's sunset was fantastic, and we woke up to incredibly clear skies this morning. For those of you who get here on occasion... Hualalai was clear of clouds all day, and that's not a common event. Today I went for a drive. I went up to check out the newly re-opened Mauna Kea... they wouldn't let me in - boo on them - said only guests with reservations were allowed during their soft opening. I wanted to check it out. When the Mauna Kea opened back in the 60's it was regarded as one of the top resorts in the world. They were hit pretty hard by the big earthquake in October 2006 and decided it was time to renovate and remodel. They just re-opened this last month and will officially re-open in March. It was still an excellent drive... clear skies and bright sunshine everywhere.

later,

Steve

It's a fairly busy week here in Kona... Ironman is this Saturday. Ironman is likely the world's most famous triathlon event, held here annually for almost three decades. I can still remember the big worldwide showing of the '82 Ironman on television where the woman who was leading collapsed just short of the finish line and was passed after what seemed like minutes of crawling (she eventually made it) which turned into a huge PR boon for the event.

The only time I've gone downtown to see the finish of the race was back when I was here on vacation over a decade ago.. lots of good energy... I was really impressed that there were people in the miles before the finish line looking at contestant's numbers on their shirts with binoculars, then looking up the names and cheering them on by name as they passed to finish the last miles of the race... pretty cool. Being the slow season in October, we're sometimes out of town that weekend, most of the times I've been here I've just avoided the traffic and stayed home. The town pretty much shuts down, at least the north end of it outside of downtown, that day. I'm debating between heading downtown for some good energy or just watching college football for the day and avoiding the crowds.

We've been having fun on our charters this week. We had our newly certified students on board yesterday and did a one way drift north of Hoover's (the northern most mooring off the Kona airport) that I led... I love that dive... lots of pinnacles, saw a flame angel, a big spiny lobster in a hole, a very cool Reticulated Frogfish (which I'll post a pic of on my next post) in a coral head, and DOLPHINS UNDERWATER ON THE DIVE!!!! Yes, I have a very few seconds of that on video to be posted later...

Here's a photo of a Zebra Moray (Gymnomuraena zebra) that we came across on that dive.

later,

Today was a gorgeous day. Pat and I went out for a walk and decided to go to the Coffee Shack Deli up the hill in Captain Cook for a breakfast (no charter today and Pat had the day off too). The Coffee Shack provides what is arguably the best view from a restaurant on the west side of the island. It's a mostly open air restaurant on the side of Mauna Loa overlooking the South Kona coastline right on the side of the highway. They serve breakfast, lunch and desserts. Prices tend to run right in the 10-13 buck range for most everything on the menu. I had one of the specials of the day.... 3 egg omlette with bacon, mushroom, avocado, red onion, peppercini, calmata olives, tomato, cheese and topped with pesto... yum yum!
We don't get here very often, even though it's close by for us, but it's a pretty nice place.

As an extra bonus.... this place is one of those places where not only can you have a meal with a view, you can also share a meal with a wild animal!!! I decided to see if one of the resident geckos was interested in some pineapple...

Geckos gotta eat too! from Steve on Vimeo.

Aloha,

Steve

I was driving down the highway today and had to check out the Kona Commons because they'd opened up the parking lot. There were probably 50 cars out front and Petco was open. What a nice store. I'm not just talking nice because I like pet stores, but nice because I like looking at well merchandised stores. 10 years ago I was in lower level management for Petco, going back and forth between a couple of stores in Oregon, this store is big and laid out very nicely. My only gripe right now is I'd probably switch what looks to be a help desk right up front with their second register island 'til they slow down... it was crazy busy and it put a lot of people in one corner... but then again, I'm no merchandising guru and it sure looks like they did a great job on this store. Their official opening is Friday and this weekend, but they're doing just fine sales already. It's definitely nicer than any of the Petco's I've been in over the years.

I'll probably go equally as ga-ga over Sports Authority if they've upgraded their layout over the other stores I've been in (granted I don't get out much... I've pretty much only been in one in Oahu and maybe another one in years, they've always been good, but if the newer stores are upgraded like Petco has done, wow). The small note on the door of Sports Authority says it opens Thursday the 9th. Office Max is set to open on the 17th, it looks a little less ready to go at this point but the merchandise is coming in. Circuit City went from a hole in the ground last month to where it's got the building shell (not sure if it's roofed yet) and is starting to look like a Circuit City.

The highway looks fairly finished to Makala from Honokohau Harbor, south of there it's a mess as expected. They've shut off the access to Kaiwi for a few weeks to rebuild that intersection, so the Makala exit is quite busy with people turning down to the old industrial area.

Here's a pic of a Scrambled Egg Nudibranch (Phyllidia vericosa) I took the other day.

Later,

Steve

This is a new major intersection on the north end of town, down from K-Mart on Makala. They're putting in a large shopping area there. Sports Authority and Petco will be opening sometime this month, with more stores opening later in the year. Circuit City is putting up a building just makai (seaward) of the structure you can see here, and Target is starting to build in Phase 2, which is just to the south of Makala blvd.

The new highway is coming along. They were putting lane bumps and directional arrows on the southbound lanes from Honokohau harbor to Makala this last week, so it's looking as though they may open up 2 lanes southbound to there quite soon. The area from Makala to Henry street still needs a lot of work and most of it is torn up. They're supposedly supposed to be done with the highway work in December and then start working the span from the harbor to the airport starting some time next year.

I'm sure there will be people claiming that Kona and Kailua will be ruined by the new development, but for people who live here it'll be nice to be able to have easy access to what the new businesses have to offer. Downtown along Alii Drive will still be the same wonderful/quaint/feel good experience it's always been. Looking at the highway, it appears they're leaving 70-100 feet of open area between the northbound and southbound lanes, hopefully they'll landscape it nicely, as there's an opportunity to really spiff up the appearance of the entry into town.

Aloha,

Steve

We've had them in our place over the time. One of the things we didn't realize before we moved over here was how many of what we consider to be "house plants" grow wild here in Hawaii.

One of the common ones around is the ficus tree. We have a pretty good sized one in our backyard that I've been interested of getting a shot of with me under it... but then I saw one at a house of a person that Pat knows and knew I just had to get a shot of it. That little blue blob under the tree is me. Considering that I'm a bit over 6 feet tall, that makes the tree fairly good sized.

Ficus trees are in the fig family, and many of the figs banyon. They'll send down "air roots" which eventually hit ground and become a secondary trunk and spread the tree out. This picture actually doesn't do the tree total justice as I'm standing in front of it from the narrow end, it's trunked out more in the other direction.

This is the same type of tree that many of you may have sitting in a corner in your home or office.... just think, with a little care you could someday be living the life of the Swiss Family Robinson!

So I'm turning on the light in the bathroom and I hear a rattling noise from the switch... hmmmm, what could that be. Well 20 seconds with a screwdriver reveals this...

Gecko eggs, lots of 'em. We've had an explosion of Gold Dust Day Geckos the last year or two in the house, and we've probably got these in lots of our sockets. Looks like time for a cleanout. Still don't quite know what the rattling was from.

Later,

Steve