My Hawaii Nature Journal ~ Day 7 ~ 12/24/2007

I woke up early on Christmas Eve morning. The moon was still a hand's breadth above the rim of the ocean, and a silky cream-colored path on the smooth ocean connected the moon to the shore as awakening zebra doves cooed softly. I sat on the lanai and watched the moon set while I drank my coffee and played around with a haiku:

The ocean smooths
a shining bedspread for the moon.
Doves tootle sweetly.

Then it was time to leave, and I tossed my pack and fanny pack into the rental car and headed up the road into a gathering storm. It was a wet trip, with windshield wipers going full-speed at times, but even with many stops for construction, I made it all around the island and reached Hilo less than three hours later (the car here is parked next to some sugarcane, 6'-8' tall) .

After snagging a room at the Hilo Bay Hostel, I sloshed dubiously back up the road to visit the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. But I was leading a charmed life this entire trip ~ it seems as though every time I wanted to take a hike or be out in the elements (except for a light soaking the first day while buying a taco at an outdoor food stand), any rain that was happening stopped when I got out of the car, waited until I had finished my touristy activities, then resumed pouring when I got back into the car (or quit entirely for a spell).

The road was awash on the way to the Botanical Garden. There were palm fronds and leaves floating across the road in places. As soon as I got there, though, the rain stopped and I had a marvelous time traversing the walkways and admiring the incredible trees, ferns, shrubs, vines, leaves (some with intricate green-on-green designs), flowers ~ including a colorful orchid garden ~ and admiring Onomea Falls and some smaller waterfalls which grace the gardens ~ for a couple of hours.

I have never visited a more attractive and bountiful botanical garden. It was quite strange to see what we have domesticated as houseplants in our houses and offices growing wildly, profusely, in this wild garden setting. Some of the leaf patterns were so outlandish I had trouble believing they hadn't been painted on ~ and it occured to me that here's an example of truth being stranger than fiction. The streams flowing through the garden were in flood, with mocha-brown water flowing riotously over the boulders.

I would have loved to sit and sketch, but the air was moist and while I never actually got wet, the air was frequently full of mist and I didn't want to get my journal damp. So I took a lot of photos. (I'll show you the results of an orchid photo in a later entry.

Finally, I couldn't absorb any more wonder, so I meandered back to the entrance of the garden. If you haven't yet read the opening journal page (at the top of this entry) you'll have to read it to find out what happened. Or you can look at the left-hand picture here.

After exiting the long-way-around, I drove a few miles up the highway to Akaka Falls, and was properly amazed at its monstrous drop. It rumbled mightily and made a huge cloud of mist as its flooding brown waters hit the bottom some 420' below.

That night at the Hostel Christmas Eve Party, I listened with great pleasure to Aunt Minnie and her nephew Phillip strumming their ukeleles and singing Hawai'ian (and some popular) songs, and eating some marvelous lau-laus brought by Aunt Minnie. Better than rambutans, even! They were wrapped and steamed in ti leaves, from a plant like this one I photographed in Volcanoes National Park.

That party was really splendid. If one is spending Christmas away from home, it is especially cheery to be invited to a party, to drink a beer and toast new-found friends, to share stories and adventures and talk about past lives a little, maybe, and compare notes on what we've seen and done in this life. I'm not a party-animal, but that was a perfect Christmas-Eve-away-from-home-evening. Exactly what I needed.

My Hawaii Nature Journal ~ Day 6 (p.m.) ~ 12/23/2007

The place I came to see on this overcast but still warm and balmy day, was the Pololū Valley, a terrific overlook where the north end of the island plunges into the sea. Approaching Hawi from the west or leeward side, it was fun to watch the instantaneous greening-up of the terrain as the road turned the corner around the north end and entered the windward side from which all the rain comes.

Hawi is a funny, hip little backwater village. Hawi's buildings are mostly old, with some recycled into gift shops, galleries and restaurants for tourists, and it has a friendly feel to it. Reminds me of Ashland, Oregon, a couple of decades ago. A sidewalk concert with guitars, cello and vocalist was happening in front of the Kohala Coffee Mill gift shop when I passed through, so I sat down for a few minutes to listen. Quality music, smiling people.

Eating peculiar food is one of my pleasures. Show me something strange and different, and I'll almost ALWAYS give it a try. Chocolate ants, sashimi, seaweed salad, sure! ~ although I did balk once when my sister fried up some tomato worms for lunch... So the rambutan in the tiny farmers market booth in Hawi looked extremely interesting, and the tiny woman selling them showed me how to peel one and pop it in my mouth (the process was not intuitive). Oh, YUM! I bought six, and portioned them out slowly over the next two days. In the close-up picture, one is partially peeled, the other two are not. The fruit is pearly white.

Then onward I drove, further east, through tropical canyons and emerald leas. The road shortly dead-ended on the top of a bluff, and I parked overlooking the ocean. During twisty little rain squalls, I sat in my car and sketched and painted the historic site marker, but I sprinted out to sketch the awesome bluff and ocean whenever the rain momentarily hesitated.

After awhile, it dried out a bit and I hiked down over the edge a short way. The path was muddy and was reamed out four feet deep in places, but I was able to see the valley floor, WAY down there, and peer up toward the narrow valley's head, which was being inundated by a rain squall.

From partway down the path I had a really nice view of the bluff and surf, as well (see photo at the beginning of this day's entry). Coming back up I spied some neon-orange mushrooms I had somehow missed (while gawking at the scenery, no doubt) on the way down. I left regretfully, wishing for another week or two to explore and sketch.

On the way back to Hawi, I stopped to visit a tiny Chinese graveyard. Almost all of the inscriptions were in Chinese, and many of the stones were 2'-3' lava monoliths with deeply incised characters. You can see the characters on the stone in the photo if you take a good look. I was intrigued by the general shape of some of the stones -- they were apparently hewn to that shape intentionally.

I wanted to get home in time to sketch the banana tree in Shirley's back yard because I knew I had to leave for Hilo the next morning, so I started back on the high road to Holualoa. In many spots, the high road, 250, has Mauna Kea and The Saddle visible on the east and the ocean visible to the west -- another occasion on which the small size of the island tickled me -- I'd thought it much vaster on the map. I made it home half an hour before sunset, just enough time to hastily sketch one of the banana trees. It would be hard to go in the morning, I knew!

I've been amused, being from gigantic Oregon, at the emphasis Big Island dwellers place on The Big Island's great size. "It's BIG," they say, eyes large. "All the other islands could fit on The Big Island!" At first I was impressed, but then I missed the turnoff to Hwy 250 coming back from Hawi, and while watching for it, I ended up clear across the island at Honoka'a before I realized I must have driven by it. Gave me a good chuckle.

So, I end here with a split journal page, one side is about December 23, and the other begins December 24, but I did want to include my drawing of the rambutan in this entry. The business card honors the honu, or sea turtle; I must confess to having bought a little ceramic sea turtle to commemorate my sea turtle adventures, at one of the galleries near Hawi. So endeth December 23.

My Hawaii Nature Journal ~ Day 6 (a.m.) ~ 12/23/2007

The difficult thing about keeping a journal on a trip is that, as a rule, you can't record an event while it is happening. I mean, if you're recording it, it stops or changes since you aren't experiencing it so much as drawing or writing about it. That means that my entries about a morning, for instance, may get made at some convenient stopping place in the afternoon, over lunch, or maybe even that evening or the next day. So the dates and times get all screwed up.....I'll have to put some of the journal pages out of order to keep things even halfway linear.

On the 23rd of December I planned a trip up the Kohala shore along the highway that skirts the northwestern coast of The Big Island. This leads past some fine sandy beaches and Lapakahi State Historical Park, an ancient Hawai'ian settlement that is being excavated, and ends at Hawi and the Pololū Valley on the north shore.

I guess I'm just not much of a beach bunny. At Hapuna Beach (considered one of the best there is) there were people playing in the water, surfing, and making sand castles, but I just wanted to photograph the neat plants and shoreline. Check out the lovely spiral forms of the flowerlets on this beach plant!

So while I didn't get much of a tan at Hapuna Beach, I did think it was lovely and I stayed awhile to watch the kids play in the surf. Somewhere along that coast, I also watched some kayakers heading off to explore the shoreline, which looked like a neat way to spend a morning.

The surf was really gentle compared to what pounds the Oregon coast -- that really surprised me, since I previously had the impression that Hawai'i was mainly pounded by giant surfing curls. Funny how we get misled by tales of the spectacular, huh?

My next stop, Lapakahi State Historical Park, was a much more fascinating experience. Lava rock enclosures surround where thatched houses once stood, the rock foundations stabilizing the roof posts and providing protection against the wind. There are also a couple of reconstructed houses with grass roofs, and the visitor center has some very interesting aerial photo/reconstructions of the way it was/is.
I monopolized the docent shamelessly, and he showed me how the kukui nuts and pandanus fruits were utilized (see the journal page).

One thing that really fascinated me was the coral beach -- not coral sand, but HUGE chunks of coral, some as big as a grapefruit, washed up over the seasons (I presume). Many of the Hawaiian beaches I've seen have occasional coral chunks on them, but this one has coral boulders, which are protected from being carried away by the Park designation, I suppose. In the beach picture above, all the white stuff is coral chunks. I wonder if all Hawaiian beaches used to look like this? In the coral close-up picture, the coral with the "fingers" is about five inches across.

I'm not sure why people in Hawai'i today don't still live in these carefree (and "free") thatch-roofed houses. In this forgiving climate, with food on the doorstep (beachstep?) and clan gathered around, what more could we humans need? Am I missing something?

I'm a little short on time today, so I'm going to end before that day's lunch. My little Instant Hawaaian book says the pronunciation of the "w" following an "a" (or beginning a word) may be either "w" or "v." So depending on your preference, I had lunch either at Hawi or Havi. It's spelled Hawi. And lunch consisted in part of a wonderful little fruit, called a rambutan, that looks something like a tentacled red sea urchin. Rambutan is NOT a Hawaiian word, and in fact it sounds rather Indian to me. Nevertheless, it was delightful, and I'll tell you about it in the next blog, so keep tuned.

p.s. according to that little book, my Hawai'ian name would be Ailina, AH-ee-LEE-nuh, with the Ah and ee slurred together.

Oops ~ Lights out!

WHOOOOOSHHHH! Right when I was hitting my Hawaii stride, a big storm came along (you may have been hearing about it on the national news) with 60mph winds here in my southwestern Oregon valley. Around 4am on Friday morning, the power went off over a three county area. At one point, the recorded message was claiming 19,000 households without power. With my woodstove and kerosene lamps, I wasn't in any trouble, but turning on my computer wasn't an option until yesterday at about 4pm. Thirty-six hours without electricity really catches your attention! I wanna go solar!

I spent today catching up on book orders and workbook prep for my Journaling/Sketching Workshop which starts next weekend -- if I get enough participants. I hadn't realized that the workshop was accidentally listed under "nature crafts," online, which evokes basket-weaving sessions and doing things with leaves and pinecones rather than writing and journaling.

As a result, so far I don't have enough participants to make the workshop go, so if you were thinking of taking a Journaling/Sketching Workshop in the Rogue Valley area of Oregon in the near future, here's your big chance! If you wish you'd known about it sooner, sign up for my newsletter in the column at right to get occasional missives from me telling about upcoming workshops.

Tomorrow I'll get back to uploading my hand-written and -drawn journal pages, photos and comments about my recent Hawaii workshop-site-search trip.

'Til then, aloha, and keep warm!

My Hawaii Nature Journal ~ Day 5 ~ 12/22/2007

Hawai'i is on the Tropic of Cancer, which means that at this time of year the sun sets around 6:30pm, which leaves nice long evenings in which to catch up on journaling and sketching. So while I was traveling, I got into the habit of picking up interesting things to sketch or glue into my journal. Seedpods, sea shells, postcards, leaves, etc., all make interesting additions to a page, as you may have noticed.
And there's time to write in the evenings, too, and catch up on the day's events.

For this page in the journal (with the jacaranda seed pod), I lightly pencil-outlined an interesting shape inside which I wrote, then later erased the lines. My plan was to draw a gecko into the empty space, but that didn't happen, so I left it blank. Later I will use one of my photos (I took lots!) for reference and draw/paint the gecko in. This is a good solution for "missed opportunities" and "sloth" ;^} The seedpod is from Shirley's yard.

The first morning, I took some time to explore Shirley's landscaping, and discovered all kinds of things: a banana tree in FLOWER, f'rinstance! The huge fruit-like flower was fascinating -- I couldn't figure out what it was at first. Ants were crawling all over the little stamens, which kind of clued me in that they might be pollinating it.

Fascinating spiky spiders spun orb webs between the lanai (covered deck) and the trees. A breadfruit tree stood beside the driveway, and there was beauty and lush foliage all around. I'm in love.

After my foliage inspection I took Shirley's advice and visited the nearby cloud forest, where I discovered colorful Java sparrows and saffron finches, red tree ferns and a lovely, 3" wide pink flower on a vine (at right) which I can't identify. If you know what it is, could you drop me a comment?

Then I drove a little further up the highway to Anaeho'omalu (Anna-ayho-oh-muh-loo -- I'm not sure where the accent is) Beach Park where lava tongues reach down to the sea. There I discovered and sketched sea turtles napping in a cove.

I wonder if it's possible that one of those turtles (the one in the picture) was a hawksbill turtle? I'm still not sure, even after studying my field guide....

Here I also found some lovely seashells to draw, and this is the only page in the journal where I used pencil instead of ballpoint pen in order to get the shells to look smooth and shiny. I didn't see a lot of sea shells on this visit. They may get picked over pretty thoroughly by people like me.

The beach sand at Anaeho'omalu is described as "salt-and-pepper" and it really does look like it. I taped on a sand sample.

I knew I should visit the galleries in Holualoa and seek an artists' group that might want to sponsor one of my workshops, but hey, being a tourist is exhausting. Besides, I had my seashells to sketch, and besides, I didn't get back until almost dark..... Isn't it amazing how easy it is to put off important things? Well, maybe tomorrow.....

My Hawaii Nature Journal ~ Day 4 ~ 12/21/2007

Bright and early on my fourth day I left Kulana Artist's Sanctuary and once more headed for the western side of the Island. But when I reached the Park entrance again I reentered on an impulse: I hadn't yet sketched that wonderful pahoehoe lava.... and wait! maybe I should check at the park gallery to see if they ever sponsor workshops....(one of the nice things about traveling alone, you can do whatever you want, when, why, wherefore....etc).

So I dressed warmly in jacket and fuzzy hat for the cold breeze (it's cold on the volcano in the early mornings, and the wind can be biting) I drove back down the Chain of Craters Road and sketched this gorgeous section of pahoehoe. If you've ever made a chocolate cake from scratch (or better yet, brownies before you add the nuts) then you have seen an edible version of pahoehoe. On the way I met a pair of gorgeous Kalij pheasants along the road -- aliens from India, but fascinating nevertheless.

This is the general area where the first Polynesians arrived, on the south end of The Big Island. I forgot to mention that yesterday I discovered some petroglyphs across the road from some specimens they encourage one to visit at Pu'u Loa Petroglyph Trail. It was nice finding my very own lava petroglyphs! There was red stain in one of them. I understand that ancient Hawai'ian parents chipped these holes in which they placed umbilical cords from their newborns. The circles shown here are about 8" across and are chipped about ¾" deep.

The pahoehoe picture shows an area about 10'x6.' That's one big cake batter....

Back onto the highway, the road went through scrubby uplands I'd never have associated with Hawai'i. I watched for nene geese, but didn't spot any, although I'm pretty sure I heard one ~ "HWAH-hwah-hwah!" ~ in the distance at one point.

I stopped several times within the next few downhill miles to strip off items of clothing. First the hat and jacket, then the fleece top, then the turtleneck and the fleece pants under my zip-off pant-legs, then the pant-legs themselves, until finally I was at Black Sand Beach in my t-shirt and shorts, in the warm, humid more-what-I-was-expecting Hawai'ian sunshine. And there, as I arrived, my turtle came.

That was wonderful.

When I was full of turtle and my sketchbook was satisfied, I returned to the highway and shortly took the South Point Road 8 miles down to the southernmost point of the island. I think from where I was standing, the next point of land was the South Pole.

The island ends in an abrupt bluff, and if you look down over the edge the water is perfectly clear and turquoise, and you can SEE the fish swimming in it. This was a favorite Hawai'ian fishing spot, but the currents were fierce, so they drilled holes into the lava edge of the bluff (you can see the holes in the picture) and tied their canoes to the shore so they wouldn't be swept away.

By the way, a note about these journal entries....you have undoubtedly noticed that they aren't perfect in terms of design, additions, etc. I decided that spontaneity and just DOING the journal was more important than creating a polished, finished product from the get-go. Sometimes I just sat down on the ground and sketched because an opportunity occurred, not taking time to figure out a beautiful design or layout. So wotcha see is wotcha get, and even if they aren't gorgeous, they're still fun, and within reach of us all with a bit of instruction and practice (that's what my workshops are all about!). BTW, the black patch on the turtle journal page is a little pile of the shiny black sand firmly battened down with clear package tape.

My day ended further up the highway, along the west side of The Big Island, at Shirley's house in Holualoa (ho-LOOuh-LOWuh). Shirley was one of my recent workshop students, and when I discovered she had a home in Hawai'i -- well things just took off from there! On arrival I found an enchanting house, with a bold neon-green welcoming gecko (it's a Gold Dust Day Gecko) waiting on the doorjamb, an absolutely perfect ending to my day full of adventures.

My Hawaii Nature Journal -- Day 3 -- 12/20/2007

Day Three was my Volcano Day. Mauna Loa, from whose loins springs Kilauea caldera and Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, was looming over all as I left Emma and Manny's house south of Hilo and started west. It wasn't a LARGE loom, just a persistent mound up which the road kept rising for thirty miles until it crested at the park entrance.

I wish I could have seen that caldera when Mark Twain saw it -- apparently it was quite hellish, red and roiling, gnashing its teeth, lacking only visible devils. Now it is quiet, black and hard, with some steam fumaroles and other vents around the perimeter belching miniscule white clouds.

Nevertheless, the drive around the rim and down the Chain of Craters Road revealed some superb vistas of both pahoehoe (puh-HOY-hoy (smooth and ropy) and a'a (ah! ah!)(sharp and cutty) lava.

There are several places you can stop along the road to see steaming vents. Shortly past the visitor center, a nicely fuming hole in the ground emits what may be pure water steam -- it has no scent I could detect. Around the west side and on the south edge, however, the vents are putting out much more noxious stuff. I hack-hacked for some time before getting smart and moving upwind. Duh. The photo with ferns, here, is looking down into the water steam vent, while barren earth surrounds the sulphurous vents (makes sense, huh?)

There are numerous flows of varying ages on the Chain of Craters road leading from the caldera down to the sea. It was a fascinating drive, with some really interesting lava deposits. One volcanic vent, about 6" across, was particularly compelling, being composed of red lava, while most of the other lava is black. The red makes it look H.O.T!


At 2:30 there was to be a nature walk at the Kipukapuaulu Bird Trail so I finished my caldera circuit in time to make that tour. There were over-arching tree ferns with furry bases, a huge hollow tree at whose base someone had left an offering tied up in leaves, and a ti plant, which is used for lots of things (like tying up offerings). More about ti plants later, and I'll put up the ti plant picture I took here when I do that.

I had taken a room for the night at Kulana Artist's Sanctuary near Volcano Village as I was hoping against hope that I could go back into the volcanic park after dark and see flowing lava, get the soles of my feet supernaturally hot by standing on a thin sheet of lava over a seething red lake of molten stone (okay, okay, that's a bit much, but I did really want to see flowing lava....).

But it turns out that the lava, which is currently flowing, is emerging in a roadless area. The closest visitors can get was some six miles distant. At the Visitor Center they SAID it would be a fabulous view of glowing red in the distance, but when it started to rain I opted to spend the night working on my journal and chatting with Cristina, who runs Kulana. All things considered, it was an excellent choice.

By the way, sometimes the journal page entries get slightly out of sequence when I need a place to write. The journal page with the caldera postacard glued to it has an entry written on December 21, after I left the volcanic park. Sorry 'bout that!