On Poipu Beach

A small toad hopped across my beach towel and landed in the pine needle debris next to me.

Pine trees provide delicious shade on Poipu Beach.
Because it's across the street from the apartment that
we're renting, we've spent lots of time there.

Every now and then someone comments on my purple Keens. Most of the comments are from
people who also bought themselves a pair on sale at amazon.com.

I'm timing this post to appear during our long trip from Kauai to Detroit airport via Los Angeles tonight.

Loco Moco at Last

This is loco moco, a Hawaiian special plate lunch including hamburger, rice, gravy, and a fried egg.
For years I've been saying that I wanted to try this local comfort food, invented here.
My loco moco today at Anuinui Cafe was a bit fancied up -- it included mushrooms, and the hamburger was
crumbled to bite-size instead of a patty. I enjoyed it. To the left you can see my lilikoi iced tea.

I haven't been neglecting my favorite flavor lilikoi. Here's a lilikoi
cheesecake from earlier this week. Lilikoi, as I've mentioned, is Hawaiian for passion fruit.

At Merriman's Hamburger and Pizza place I had another lilikoi mousse for lunch Tuesday.
I also had a scoop of lilikoi sorbet after lunch today.

For my main course at Merriman's I had this salad.

As we are getting ready to leave, we're still enjoying the island flavors. I've had quite a few more helpings of fresh local fish at various restaurants, but the pictures would be a bit repetitive!

At the Kauai Culinary Market

Lots of vegetables.

You can see that the market is held in a shopping center. Some of the shops also display products outdoors.

Fruits: mangos, gaviota, papayas, lilikoi (passion fruit), and many others.

Happy Birthday, Len

Len wanted to scuba dive on his birthday, and he did it!

Ready to go down. Underwater videos are still to be processed!

Underwater Video

From Len's dive a couple of days ago. For all of his birding and underwater photos see his flickr page HERE.

Walking from Shipwreck Beach

Today we took a hike beginning at Shipwreck Beach around a mile from the apartment we're renting. We walked until we were in sight of Mahaulepu Beach where we visited on Sunday. The trail goes along the cliffs above the ocean, so it's quite spectacular. 

Vegetation on the cliffs is sometimes low succulents or brush and sometimes pines. Just inland is a huge golf course -- for one stretch, the cliff-side path crumbled into the ocean so the trail is on the golf course. Signs warn that some of the low brush is nesting grounds for wedge-tailed shearwaters, and that some of the rock structures are ancient Hawaiian sacred sites. So it's a fascinating walk.

This flock of Ne Ne (Hawaiian native ducks) was grazing among the vegetation covering the cliffs,
which I think is called Ohelo kai, and on the Big Island is sacred to the volcano goddess Pele.

The End of the Road

From a previous visit to Kauai, we remembered the nearly-deserted beach at the end of the road that goes through Princeville and Hanalei and ends up by the steep cliffs of the Napali coast. Yesterday we went there, found it as beautiful as ever, but were surprised at the huge number of people and at the cars that were circling around looking for a parking place!

The beach ends here, and the cliffs begin.

Near the road: a shallow sea-cave.

Mahaulepu Beach

Mahaulepu Beach is close to the perfect beach. Pine-covered sand dunes come right down to the water. Because it's accessible only by a fairly terrible dirt road or a long hike, it's not very crowded. When we were there yesterday, the waves were high but not scary, the sun was shining brightly, and it was beautiful.

A bit of sea glass in the pine needles.

Dinner at the Dolphin Restaurant: sushi made from fresh, local ahi. I also had a sushi roll with some of the ahi on top.

Reading on the Beach

Poipu Beach, just across the street from the apartment where we're staying.  

This is the third novel I've read by
S.J. Rozan

 Yesterday we sat on the beach all day. Today I'm going to do more or less the same while Len goes diving. Yesterday's reading was China Trade, a detective novel by S.J.Rozan, set in Chinatown, New York City. Perfect beach reading. Today I have a police procedural set in England. Probably also perfect for the beach.

I love the way that Rozan, in the first-person narrative spoken by private investigator Lydia Chin, uses food to create a character sketch of the person who is eating or serving it. Here are some examples I really liked. First, consider this scene where Lydia's partner Bill Smith brings her a box of cookies from an Italian bakery:

"'Cookies?' I brightened, led the way into my office. 

"'White-trash medicine,' he said, settling on the guest chair. "'Eat sugar, you’ll feel better.' 

"In the box were miniature Italian pastries: tiny cannoli in three flavors, silver-dollar-sized cheesecakes, thumbprint cookies with red and green cherries on them. My mouth started to water; lunch had been years ago." (Kindle Locations 1685-1688)

As they much the cookies, they discuss the case.

"I pulled the chewy green cherry off a cookie. 

"'Of course, there may not be anything sinister about this at all. Nobody ever said they didn’t know each other.'" (Kindle Locations 1706-1707)

Or Bill eating a burger while they consider various possible strategies:

"The waitress brought his burger, thick and juicy-looking, smelling of the grill. I had that after-class hunger, too. 

"'A guy I know,' Bill began, fiddling with onions and ketchup, salt and pepper, 'who, of course, doesn’t handle stolen art himself, but knows a guy who might know a guy—'" 

"'Of course,' I agreed. I peeled the pulp out of a wedge of lime. 

"'This guy says that he hasn’t— that is, as far as he knows, his friends haven’t— been offered anything that might come from the Blair collection. But if he were— well, of course, now he’d call me, since he knows I’m looking and he’s eager to cooperate. ...' 

"'He sounds like a pain in the neck, this guy,' I interrupted, as Bill bit into the assembled burger. It was dark red inside, just this side of purple. That’s the way I like it best. 

"'Just a little cautious,' Bill said. 'He’s been in business a long time.'" (Kindle Locations 342-337)

 Of course, there's also a scene in a Chinese restaurant:

"This place— Lucky Seafood— was small, unatmospheric, and sort of a dive, but still at least half the customers were white. Lawyers from the courts and city workers from the area around City Hall, which both border Chinatown, wielded chopsticks with practiced ease, talking, eating, and thrusting the sticks at each other to emphasize important points. They passed the platters of breaded pork and jade scallops so everyone could scoop some onto their plates. The tables of Chinese ate the way I did, reaching across each other onto the stationary platters for the morsels they wanted, dropping pieces into their rice bowls so the rice could soak up the sauce. The lawyers and city workers didn’t eat out of the rice bowls, but scooped rice, also, out onto their plates."(Kindle Locations 1344-1349).

There's lots more. Lydia's mother cooks for her, Bill and Lydia eat in other places, Bill scrambles some eggs for dinner, and a very proper lady serves them some lunch -- every scene revealing something about the characters that helps the story to proceed. And it's a nicely structured and satisfying detective story as well!

A turtle on Poipu Beach. It's time to go there now!

On a Boat

Yesterday we went on a 7-hour excursion up the famous Nā Pali Coast and onward.

We left from Port Allen, the small harbor that's now mainly for day-cruise boats and a weekly delivery of diesel fuel to power the electric generator for this side of the island. Not long after departure, our boat was passing by the Pacific Missile Range Facility near Barking Sands Beach. The captain stopped the boat, and suddenly we were flooded with the sound of the Star Spangled Banner, which resounds over the ocean from the loudspeakers at the Base every morning at 8 AM. For the official history of the base, including its role in World War II, see this page. 

The Nā Pali side of Kauai is accessible only by boat or helicopter because most of the cliffs are incredibly steep, dropping into the ocean down a 1000 to 2000 foot sheer face. Occasionally the cliffs part slightly to reveal a little flat land with a beach and often a waterfall where the water comes down from the rainy peaks above. An 11-mile trail allows really intrepid hikers to one such beach -- we talked to a young man who had walked down and camped there for a few days a year or so ago, using the waterfall as his shower. Some adventure!

Until around a century ago, villages of native Hawaiian people occupied some of these flatter sites, with a few hundred or a few thousand people farming the small, level area. A few bad storms drove them away. Hurricanes and gigantic winter swells from the North Pacific occasionally wash over most of the lower-lying lands.

Len's incredible dolphin photo.

After the Nā Pali coast tour, our boat, the Blue Dolphin, headed for the island of Niihau, around 17 miles from Kauai, which is a long passage even on a large, motor-powered catamaran. We saw three types of dolphins (bottle-nosed, spinners, and rough-toothed), flying fish, and many sea birds. We anchored next to a very small island, Lehua, near Niihau, which is a bird sanctuary as well as a snorkel site.

Birds on Lehua island near Niihau.

Unfortunately, we discovered that climate change warming the Pacific Ocean has bleached the coral at the snorkel site where we were. The colors are very muted, and much of the coral may be dead. We saw some fish, but nowhere near our expectations. It's one more very sad change that we have witnessed.

Roy's Kitchen and Other Food in Kauai

The open kitchen at Eating House 1849 by Roy Yamaguchi where we ate this evening.

 Dinner at Roy's Restaurant

The service is excellent, beginning with a complimentary appetizer of
edamame, and a promptly served glass of wine. We ordered
Santa Barbara Chardonnay. Our salad was local tomatoes, arugula, and
mozzarella with a very nice sauce.

Superb locally caught opah with fennel slaw and tomatoes in "tomato water" which is essentially a vegetable broth.
It was so good I asked for a spoon. 

Dessert: cheesecake with blueberry compote and chocolate.
All three courses were fabulous. Our best meal so far on Kauai.

Lunch at Hanalei Gourmet

A very delicious piece of ahi on a vegetable salad at a lovely small
bar & grill in this remote town on the North Shore.

Ice Cream at Lappert's 

Dinner at Brennecke's Beach Broiler 

Brennecke's is less than a block from the apartment we are renting, which was why we chose it. We didn't find it
as good as other places. We did go for mango pina colada drinks; I tried the ahi sandwich (though only
medium rare, it was somewhat dry) and Len tried the rum cake which was ok. I had creme brulee.

Best Rainbow of the Day

Best birds from birdwatching in Hanalei with guide Hob Osterlund --