Chinese Mariners

After the movies yesterday, we went for a walk along the beach at the Ala Moana Beach Park.

We saw across the water that the Chinese boat seemed to have people going on and off of it, so we walked across the bridge to the marina.The boat is wooden, made of materials and techniques from long ago.There are bamboo poles tied together and the sail is hand-made.The captain and his crew are trying to recreate an ancient Chinese trade route to the west coast of America. They made it from China to Washington and California and are now on the return trip. The captain was talking to boat visitors yesterday. The crew said he rarely leads the tours himself.They sailed from San Francisco to San Diego and then here. It took 23 days to cross this part of the Pacific from San Diego to Hawaii.They are here until February, waiting for favorable winds to continue to Taiwan.
One recent invention is solar panels that store enough power to run the lights on either side of the boat and some instruments.The captain said they know of some skills the ancient sailors had that are now lost.
Rick was an interested participant in the tour.
The captain and sailors are giving a talk on campus this week that we plan to attend.

"'Reviving Seafaring Glory: The Grand Voyage of the Princess Taiping' A Special Session with the Sailors of a 54-Foot Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 C.E.) Replica Wooden Junk Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean, from San Diego to Hong Kong"

It was fun to see the boat first.
This is an article from the Honolulu newspaper.

Star-Bulletin Link

North Shore waves

Rick checked out the waves on the North Shore this week while Cindy was in class. He got some great shots of the winter weather.

Sunday evening walk

We were supposed to have heavy rain this weekend. Saturday had some showers and there was brief heavy rain overnight, but nothing too severe. Today was wonderful. We took a walk on the beach at sunset.Not many people were out. There was no wind, so no wind or kite surfers.There were a few kayakers and a couple of stand up paddlers.These three islands are unique to Kailua. The two larger ones can also be seen from Lanakai beach. The flat island on the left is a kayaking destination with a hiking trail and bird sanctuary.This is the view toward the Mokapu peninsula (Marine Core Base Hawaii). Kaneohe bay is on the other side.
This palm tree is outside our apartment.Good night!

More amusing trees

Sausage tree.

Canonball tree.





I am not making this up.

Thanks for the warning!

I appreciate the effort it took to flag this large pot hole in the Don Quijote parking lot. As an often creative speller, I also appreciate the fact that spell check doesn't work with marker and cardboard.

Between sprinkles

Went for a quick trip to the beach today, before/between the sprinkles that are nearly a daily event.There was enough wind for windsurfers but the kite surfers were grounded. Bummer. I like watching them maneuver like giant butterflies harnessed to a surfrider.

January weather

In between the "winter" rains, the weather is still nice enough for visits to the beach.

The water is cold at first, unlike summer, but fine for wading or swimming if you jump in all at once.


Just relaxing is always good.

Two massive trees

This tree is on the median at the main Kailua intersection.It is hard to see how enormous it is until cars pass on the streets on either side.

The second tree we passed this weekend on the way to our hike.It looks like it is climbing over the wall to cross the street.

Muddy hike

Rick and I went for a hike Saturday. This is the road to the trail. At this point, I was blissfully unaware of two things: the concept of an "improved" trail in Hawaii is apparently quite different from Colorado, and "trail may be slick and muddy when it rains" is a massive understatement.This is the beginning of the trail, soon to be remembered as "the good part."The plants are really dense. I was soon very good friends with the vines, which I used to pull myself along the uphill muddy part of the trail. At which point, I was very happy that Hawaii does not have snakes.It was beginning to get a little muddy on the trail here, but I still stopped to take a picture of the pretty flower and the cool mushrooms growing on the tree root across the trail.We crossed the stream three times -- Rick walked across the top of the rocks, I waded.By the second time, I was grateful for the opportunity to wash off the mud on the way across.Imagine this on an uphill slope. That was the most difficult part of the "trail" to navigate due to mud. We got past that to find "stairs" -- I think they were actually just wood and metal slabs to hold some of the mud from sliding down to join the rest. There were lots of them and they were often too high for me to take in one step. We went to the highest point of the trail where there was a great view. The next part of the trail went down large steps to the waterfall. We turned around here because I was really tired, it was late and rain was threatening. As much fun as the "haul yourself up through the mud by clinging to vines" portion had been, I was not anxious to revisit it in the dark and/or rain.It was a fun experience and we saw such wonderful things! Often, a camera just wouldn't do justice because it was dark and we were very close to these weird old trees. Also I had moved the camera from my pocket to the backpack after the second stream crossing. On the third time across, I took a sit right in the middle of the water but a large rock kindly positioned itself beneath me so I didn't get soaked.