YOUNG MONK SEAL

Aloha! The weather has been really nice on Kauai. We have been enjoying temps in the mid 80's with light trades. On Friday we went snorkeling at Anini but that shouldn't surprise anyone! We had a very interesting snorkel. We saw our usual friends along with a pretty good sized ulua. This fish was close to 3 feet long and I would guess somewhere near 20 pounds. It was behaving in a very protective manner so I would guess it must have had a nest with eggs close by. On our way back in we noticed that a young monk seal was sunning himself on the beach directly in front of our chairs. Kind of funny that with the entire beach to pick from he choose about the only spot were there were chairs! By the time we got to shore the NOAA volunters had already taped the area off and had signs posted to warn people to leave the seal alone. NOAA estimates there are only about 1200 monk seals left so they are very protective of them especially in light of what happened earlier this month. We had an idiot or maybe a group of idiots shoot two of them. One of them was shot at the beach just down from our house...the one you can see from the overlook. The other was shot near Poipu I think. The authorities won't say for sure which beachs but the video the news put out was taken at that overlook. A person would have to be pretty sick to hurt one of these guys...all they do is just lay on the beach. They're not afraid of humans so they don't even try to get away. Today Jackie and I stayed close to home with the one exception being our trip to McDonalds for dinner. We needed to go to the store anyway so we decided to do our shopping in Kapa'a as thats where the nearest McDonalds is located!

MOWING DAY

Aloha! It has been a busy day for Jackie and I...we mowed the lawn! I think this chore gets a little harder each time we do it. It takes Jackie and I about 4 hours of non stop mowing to complete the task. Hopefully tomorrow we can get back in the water for a bit. If not Jackie says we have a few weeds that need pulling in the garden. Looks like it is spagetti for supper and maybe papaya with fresh squeezed lime afterwards. If you have never eaten a papaya this way you need to try it. It is really good! I was never a real big fan of papaya but with the lime juice on top it is yummy! The video I posted today is one that Jackie and I have watched many times. If it was on film like in the olden days we would have worn it out!

THE TRADES HAVE RETURNED

Aloha! It was back to the beach for Jackie and I today. The conditions weren't quite ideal as the trades have ramped up some and have made the water a little choppy but Jackie and I have snorkeled in a lot worse! We saw the usual cast of characters and I was able to get a pretty good look at a couple of cleaner wrasses. These guys have been hanging out in the same spot on the reef for a number of months now. Jackie and I always love to check them out because you never know who is going to be there getting cleaned. We have seen a lot of interesting fish there with today being no exception. We saw a huge cornetfish getting cleaned. While seeing a large cornet is not that unusual I thought the way this guy was getting cleaned was. Cornetfish have fairly large gill flaps on their sides and one of the cleaner wrasses swam completely inside it to clean! Kind of strange watching this as the cornet would flare the flap out to allow the cleaner inside. Guess if you haven't got any fingers it is nice to have friends that don't mind picking your nose!

ANOTHER DAY AT THE HOUSE

Aloha! Jackie and I have spent another day inside. We were either playing on our computers or reading. Not real exciting stuff to blog about but how we have spent the majority of our day regardless! Not sure if I have told you guys how much Jackie and I enjoy Facebook. We really enjoy following the events and day to day happenings that get written about there, not to mention the wonderful pictures. It is so nice to be able to see our friends and family and by following you on Facebook we feel like we are a part of your lives again even though we are separated by so many miles. I know neither Jackie or I comment very much on your post nor do we post very often ourselves but if we did I really wouldn't be able to find anything to blog about as I would have already told you all about our day! Speaking of which I think I will try to pry my ass off the chair now and go outside and toss the frisbee around a little. We need to burn a few calories before dinner!

A NICE DAY

Aloha! Jackie and I have been taking it pretty easy the last few days so consequently not much to blog about although we did manage to drag ourselves away from the house long enough to get a snorkel in on Monday. The water was a little choppy but not too bad. We saw our usual assortment of fish along with a honu. I think the humuhumunukunukuapua'a must be spawning now because we saw a couple of them behave in a very protective manner. They would swim away from me then turn around and charge. Kind of funny watching a fish thats less than a foot long try and intimidate a big ole tub of lard like me! Jackie said that after I had stopped filming and was swimming away one of them continued to swim behind me like he was chasing me off! Guess he was showing off for his buddies. Today Jackie and I stayed at home. The weather is a little on the hot side with temps near 90 and the trades have ramped up some so we figured we would save the 3 dollar a gallon gas and stay home and play on our computers!

BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY

Aloha! It has been a very nice day for Jackie and I. We started our day off watching the Nascar race. It started here around 8:20 which worked out real well as thats when Cory got home from his shift at Foodland. He has today and tomorrow off so he wanted to stay up and watch the race with us. I don't know how he does it working 2 or 3 day shifts, then working 3 or 4 night shifts. It always worries me when he pushes himself so hard. Like today he will try to stay awake as long as he can so he will be able to sleep tonight in order to get turned back to the dayshift pattern only to have to do just the opposite in a few days to get turned back to nights! After the race was over today he drove to Kapa'a to check on Joel and make sure he is getting along ok. Just hope he doesn't push it to far and fall asleep on the way home! Of course we're only his parents and if we weren't worried about this we would find something else to worry about! Jackie and I checked on our bananas after the race. We have 3 or 4 bunches that should be turning any day now and we want to be sure and beat the chickens to them. No bananas yet but we did find a couple of dozen papayas that were ripe. The weather is so nice now with temps in the mid 80's and lite trades that Jackie and I had to get out of the house for awhile so we drove into Kapa'a for a late lunch. We ate at McDonalds then drove on down to Lydgate park...very nice! There were a lot of families out enjoying the weather and Jackie and I had a nice time watching them and talking story. We didn't take any pictures or video today so I will post some that we shot a couple of months ago.

TAKING IT EASY

Aloha! Jackie and I really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with Dave and Carol this past week. We had so much fun talking story and getting caught up on some of the things that have happened in our lives since the last time we were able to talk. It made us realize what a shame it is that we let a little distance get in the way of us staying in touch. For way too many years we were guilty of finding the reasons why we couldn't get together rather than focusing on ways that we could. Yesterday was Dave and Carol's last day on Kauai so we asked them how they wanted to spend it. They said relaxing at the beach so we went to Subway for sandwiches and took them to Kalihiwai. There is not a better beach on Kauai if what your looking to do is relax. We enjoyed our subs and talked story for the better part of the afternoon getting so involved in the talk story that we totally spaced taking any pictures! All to soon it was time for Dave and Carol to head to town in search of a nice place to eat before getting on their plane and heading home. Today has been a total veg-out day for Jackie and I. Not that most of them aren't! We spent the morning working on our farms on Facebook. The afternoon was highlighted by a trip to Kapaa to pickup a few supplies for our garden with a stop at Burger King thrown in.

FUN IN THE SUN

Aloha! Sorry it has been a week since my last post but guess things just work out that way sometimes. From Thursday thru Saturday not much going on for Jackie and I. The weather was nice but we spent the majority of our time sitting at home watching the grass grow so consequently I had a lot of time to write in my blog but nothing to write about! That all changed on Sunday. We got an e-mail from Jackies Aunt Kay telling us that David and his wife Carol are here visiting and wanting to see us but they didn't have our phone number or address so Jackie called them and we were able to make plans for a trip into Lihue that afternoon. We had a blast! We toured the Marriott at Nawiliwili, made stops at Costco and also at Snorkel Bob's to get them outfitted to enjoy the water. David and Carol had to go to a timeshare presentation on Monday morning and Jackie and I had a lawn that needed to be mowed so that took up most of Monday although we were able to work in a short snorkel at Anini late in the afternoon. David and Carol did great! They snorkeled like two old pros and gave us enough confidence to suggest that we try PK's on Tuesday. The water is a little rough on the southshore now but as well as they handled Anini we knew they would be just fine at PK's so yesterday it was off to the southshore. We stopped at Kilohana on the way thru Lihue and gave them a brief tour. Our next stop was Spouting Horn then it was back to PK's for a very nice snorkel. The water was a little rough but the fish more than made up for it. We saw a large honu with a huge tail. When male green turtles reach maturity at about 25 years they grow these long heavy tails. Immature males and females have short little tails. After our snorkel we headed back to Poipu. We stopped at Poipu beach park and also Shipwrecks beach. After this we walked thru the Hyatt hotel. Jackie and I had heard how nice this hotel is but until yesterday had never taken the time to check it out. Big mistake on our part...this hotel is awesome! There are lots of shops and a huge waterfall not to mention a lagoon style swimming area. Kind of nice to see how the other half lives every once in a while! From here we went to Grinds in Ele'ele for a late lunch. Jackie and Carol opted for the loco moco while David and I stuck with a cheese burger. After our meal we went to the Red Dirt shirt factory which is just down the road from Grinds then it was into Waimea for shave ice at Jo Jo's. The day was about shot so we figured we should probably start to head towards home. We made stops at Wailua falls and Opaeka'a on the way. From here it was a brief detour down Aliomanu road to check out the scenery with our last stop being the overlook located just down from our house on Waiakaloa road.

BEACH WEATHER

Aloha! Jackie and I have enjoyed a very nice day. The weather has been ideal...mid 80's with light trades. We have all our little chores caught up so we were able to go to the beach and we didn't have to worry about things being undone at home. It was close to noon before we were ready to go and we figured we might as well eat our lunch at the beach. We waffled back and forth between Subway or Barr's fish taco wagon. We played it safe and opted for Subway. Barr's is very good but you can never be certain he will be there as he normally works three days a week and they aren't always the same three days! We made the right call today as Barr was not there! We also ran into Tiffany today. She and little Rylan were relaxing under a false kamani tree near the beach while Ryan's mom and Tiffany's younger sister were out enjoying the water. We talked story for a bit and watched little Rylan sleep. We had a good snorkel today. The tide was almost all the way in so we were able to explore parts of the reef we don't normally get to see because they are so shallow. Jackie ran across a large undulated moray eel. She said he was close to 5 feet long and as big around as a roll of paper towels! I was unable to spot him so no pics. I did get a few pics and a short video of a longspine porcupinefish for you to enjoy as well as a pic of a blackstripe coris.

BUSY MONDAY

Aloha! Guess the first thing I should do is to remind everyone that Jackie and I are retired now and even if you aren't retired the rat race runs much slower here on Kauai so don't be laughing at what I consider to be a busy day! It started around 9 this morning with breakfast. After our cereal Jackie and I talked story a bit and decided that our bananas needed some of the dead leaves cut off. This makes the plant look a little neater and also helps to keep the spiders in check. We have close to 50 plants so this little chore took us almost 2 hours to complete. After this it was back to the house for a quick shower and a bit of lunch. We cleaned up some leftovers we had in the fridge...beans with the potatoes and coldslaw we had left from KFC. Next thing on my busy schedule was to juice a few apples. We bought a Breville juicer about 6 months ago and man this little guy works great! Jackie and I had bought two 3 pound bags of apples about a month ago we had put them in the fridge and forgotten we had them so today I cored while Jackie juiced. This chore was completed in about 10 minutes including the clean-up which was by far the hardest part. Our next chore was to run our cans to the recycling center in Kilauea. This is another chore we had been putting off. The recycling center is located at the old Guava Kai plant which closed a couple of years ago. It sure looks a lot different now they have pulled most of the trees out and rumor has it that they will be using the grounds for community gardens. I think this is a great idea as Jackie and I are lucky enough to live where we can have a garden but most of the people who rent aren't. Next up was a trip by the post office to check our mail and then it was home so Jackie could start dinner and I could write in my blog. I will post a slideshow I put together with some pics I had taken in 1981.