Hi'iaka

Today the wind blew fiercely and blasted away the vog from the volcano on the Big Island; this is what had caused the high smoky haze through which our sunlight has been filtered for the past few days.

Blue skies arched above us this morning so we were on the beach at Kekaha right away. The wind goddess was whipping up the sand into an exfoliating blast, so we retreated a few steps to the neighbouring lawn.

We baked for almost three hours until the rain made an appearance.

Waiting it out on our lanai reading our books.

Hi'iaka

View from the beach blanket

Kekaha Beach.

View from the beach blanket

Lumaha'i

A warm day on hot sands at one of my favourite places in the world.

A few people were there today. We've been on this beach many times with nary a soul for a neighbour.

This time we had about a dozen, but there's plenty of room.

Lumaha'i

Bird of Paradise

Kalaheo, Kauai

Bird of Paradise

Another day

High and bright haze, today, but with the sun shining brightly
through. Made for a good afternoon at Salt Pond park. Lots of pretty
fish seen while snorkeling and plenty of hours under the warm sun.
Back at the cabin now, after a few shopping stops to replenish
supplies, for BBQ chicken and greek salad.

This will be our fifth night of BBQ out of six.

It must be paradise.

Another day

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Salt Pond Beach, Kauai

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Toast

To all our friends and family who would enjoy this bottle of Prosseco with us, along with the chatter of geckos and a rather spectacular sunset...

[clink]

Toast

By the way

...This is the "after" shot of the "Decisions, decisions" post from a few days ago.

We decided to have both the Lava Flow and the Honolulu.

By the way

Yup

Yup

Sun

It is out in force today, finally. Baking down. We hit the beach at
9:30 this morning and lasted until just before 1pm.

Sun

Whale of a good time

We are watching the gray whales breach and spout in the Kaulakahi
Channel out in front of our cabin.

The sun is obstinately intermittent but the rum and coconut is persistent.

Whale of a good time

Blended

So, we are surviving the night time traffic and the missing beach.  This is, of course, paradise.  However if there is one thing that drives wifey c r a z y, it is a rental landlord who promises a blender as part of the accommodation amenities, but fails to deliver.

The weather remains unsettled, with patches of blue amongst forbidding gray, and the periodic shower.  Today we slept in. I managed almost 12 hours sleep.  I am working my way up to the full 1/2 day of sleep.

After a morning walk on almost-empty Kekaha Beach, we packed our usual lunch with a tipple in the thermos, and drove off in search of solid sun. We managed a swim and snorkel at Salt Pond, with a bit of tanning thrown in the patches of sunshine, that is, before the smoking rednecks drove us off ...to find a retailer.

You see: Wifey had discovered that the promised blender consisted of an Oster bottom end and a Sunbeam top end ... Or something like that.  Needless to say: It was NFG. 

So it was off to Wal-Mart in Lihue.   But first I wanted to try a gluten-free baker in Kapa'a.  On our way north through Wailua we came upon a two-mile tailback headed south on the Kuhio Highway.  Having missed our turn to the baker, we ended up having to pull a U turn and getting caught up in the terrific jam.

Since we first came to Kauai 13 years ago, Kauai's recreational developments haven't really grown, thanks to strict regulations on building permits. However the number of visitors has grown dramatically.  Where the two major state highways meet in Lihue, there is a constant backup of tourist rush hour in the middle of the day.  It used to take 2 hours to drive from one end of the island to the other.  It would now take four.  The blend of locals and tourists has mixed up a potent batch of frustrated commuters and confused visitors.

I can completely sympathize with the locals and their bumper stickers:  "If you love Kauai, go to Maui."

And we are part of that horrible rush that is bringing this island to its knees.

Kauai is starting to become everything that I dislike about Maui. Crowded, congested roads;  too few beaches populated with too many self entitled tourists; goods and services too expensive for the locals; residents almost completely reliant upon tourist dollars that are competed for with more and more local attractions managed by new immigrants and transplanted mainlanders; aged infrastructure groaning under the weight of the tourist burden with State and County budgets unable to keep up with the demands that the rest of the world is placing on these island jewels. 

We have spent many days on Polihale beach with not another single person in sight for three miles in each direction.  Now, the rutted 4x4-only cane field road is easy passage for anyone in their rental Jeeps, and there's a constant stream of those jeeps passing in front of our cabin on their way out to - what used to be - the end of the road.

We, on our fifth visit, are the problem, of course.  Soon, the silent Kauai refuges will have to be found in the adult swim hours, poolside, in some overpriced luxury resort with no privacy and demanding, boorish neighbors. 

People like us.

Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.

Is that the sound of a $15 Wal-Mart blender I hear? Well, then fuck it.  Wifey says it's time for a strawberry daiquiri. 

Blended

Morning Walk

Kekaha Beach, 9am

Morning Walk

Waiting

Waiting

Drum n Bling

The nexus for Shelley and Hoto: Hermes window display in Waikiki

Drum n Bling

Our afternoon

Our afternoon

Break

Break

Lono

We landed in Lihue to mixed cloud and sun. Since our Kekaha cabin was
not going to be ready for us until 3 pm, wifey had mapped out our
Costco, Wal-Mart and Big Save shopping lists. We got the rental car
(we always go for the cheapest) and made our way around Lihue,
gradually filling up the back seat with liquor, food, water, pop and
the bare essentials. Then we drove down into Koloa to get our snorkel
gear from Snorkel Bobs, as one does, and finally out to Kekaha.

Things change.

This is our third stay in Kekaha and second at Hale Aloha. After
unpacking and getting settled, we discovered that a few things have
adjusted themselves in the intervening years. Some dramatic and some
subtle.

Subtly, the traffic along the traffic along the Kaumualii Highway
between the Pacific Missile Range Facility and the rest of Kauai has
changed dramatically in the four years since we were here last. It's
heavier and starts earlier in the morning.

Around 4 o'clock in the morning.

But the most dramatic change in the landscape is what the storms have
done to Kekaha beach.

Formerly an 11 mile expanse of unbroken and unspoiled beach that
started a mile east of our cabin and extended ten to the west, ending
in the wild and dangerous dunes of Polihale, Kekaha beach has been
decimated by storms, and the beach across from our cabin is gone.

A lava rock seawall has been dropped into place to stop the
encroaching brine, and the mighty waves splash up so high that their
spray almost lashes the road.

Just after we discovered this, the storm god washed his hands of us,
and unleashed a torrential tropical storm so vengeful that we spent
the night and most of the next day inside.

The rains and wind will also keep us out of Polihale, whose dirt
access road through the cane fields is now impassable to our modest
rental car.

So we lie by the cabin in a warm patch of sunlight and wait for
permission to leave.

Lono

Sans Souci

Sans Souci

Decisions, decisions...

Honolulu or Lava Flow.

Decisions, decisions...

Mighty Mai Tai

The Sunset Lanai bar's award winning mai tai.

New Otani Kaimana, Waikiki.

Well, two.

Mighty Mai Tai

Beach Day

A nice breakfast at the Hau Tree restaurant was followed by two hours of swimming and tanning at San Souci beach in front of the hotel. Now off to stroll up the beach to Waikiki in the sunshine.

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Sent from my phone. Please pardon typos.

Beach Day

Oahu

Arrived in Honolulu after a bit of a bumpy flight.

On the way over from Vancouver we watched the movies Hellboy, which was very entertaining and funny, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, also funny and intended to put us in the mood for Waikiki. Which it did.

Our plane descended down through thick cloud and we landed in a light rain which, as we made our way off the plane through the open terminal, became a torrential tropical storm. We got our bags and found a taxi and as we drove out from underneath the airport underpass the rain had stopped. Then 10 seconds later it was torrential again.

Anyway, we found our way to the New Otani Kaimana hotel, where it was bone dry, checked into our modest room and made our waey to dinner. The Hau Tree restaurant in the hotel is one of Waikikis finest, as it turns out, and we had one of the best meals we've ever had, which is rare in the US. I had a pan seared duck breast appetizer served on a poi/green onion pancake with a tropical fruit chutney. It was unreal. And four giant, juicy lamb chops to follow. Phenomenal service, which is not rare in the US. The two intertwined Hau Trees that shade the outdoor dining room are impressive, and their branches actually intrude on the sight lines for some diners. Under these trees, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island.

This morning we woke up before sunset to discover that our land side room had a rather spectacular view of the sunrise over Diamond Head.

We are still in bed. The sun is shining hot through our open balcony door, the incredibly scented breezes are wafting through the room, and we are actually getting a sun tan ... We're not even up yet.

It is likely going to be a very good day.

Oahu

Whistler Cross Country

A beautiful day to ski in the Callaghan Valley trails.

Whistler Cross Country

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Winter wonderland

> Today we drove up to Whistler for some Cross Country skiing. Wifey has been trying to kick The Cold That Won't Quit and finally felt she could handle the trails. It hasn't been the best weather in Vancouver, admittedly, and so our eyes lit up when the skies cleared over highway 99 as we drove north.
>
> The trails were pristine, and the air cold enough to keep the snow crisp, without freezing us.
>
> This pic was taken looking north west from the Mountain View trail.
>
> Finally, a view worthy of a Christmas card this holiday season.
>

Winter wonderland

Making it right

Instant Bedroom installers showed up tonight after working a different install to correct the mistakes made yesterday:

- two missing cupboard doors: installed

- wiring conduit cut in the wrong place: partially resolved

- wallbed installation askew at top by 1/8 inch: adjusted
- filing cabinet too deep for the desktop: brand new deeper desktop cut, bullnosed, stained today and installed this evening

Buuuut, the desktop was stained the wrong shade. Doesn't match.

Aaaalmost there.

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Sent from my phone. Please pardon typos.

Making it right

Heavens to Murphy

> The install of our new murphy bed and built-in office for wifey is not yet complete due to some mistakes by Instant Bedrooms. However they are going to correct them shortly and the installers were very nice guys that worked very hard to get things right, so far, at least.

Heavens to Murphy

Bedtime

The wall bed is a vast improvement over the old futon, which was too low to the floor for some of our more aged guests to comfortably get out of, and was crammed up against the wall. This features the "autoleg" which drops automatically as the bed opens and raises the bed another 6-8" off the ground.

Bedtime

Table that

I designed this so that wifey would have storage and a large work surface. The drop table was a mandatory feature, and Instant Bedrooms were one of the few with a recessed version of the table, that doesn't look like it was just tacked on the underside of the bed.

Table that