Lahaina, Hawaii.

The scenes of the fires and their aftermath on television and the Internet are heartbreaking. The loss of life is devastating and the loss of a major part of Hawaii’s history is beyond words. Please allow me to reminisce this Travel Tuesday about our visit to Lahaina. The post originally scheduled will be moved to next week.

Lynn and I have only been to the city of Lahaina once, in 2007. On our second cruise ever, we toured Hawaii. The 11-day cruise sold us on cruising. We visited several islands, going ashore during the day and sailing to a new location overnight, and our hotel room came with us. Lahaina was a special stop in that it was the only overnight where the cruise ship didn’t sail to a different port. That’s why I was able to get a sunset photo from land instead of from the ship.

I don’t know the name of the grill and bar we visited shortly after leaving the ship. If you know, please comment. Our goal for the day was to pick up the car we rented for the day and drive the Road to Hana but we had to be back from our drive in time to board the bus to the luau. The rental agent mentioned that the best part of the road to Hana is the first half so we opted to take his advice and turn back at his suggested turn-around point. I’m glad we did as we barely made it back to the bus pickup point on time.

The luau was held at a hotel and was specifically catered for our cruisers. Our only regret is that we didn’t get back in time to take a tender back to the ship and pick up the Hawaiian shirts we’d purchased for the occasion.

It wasn’t long and the luau started. Two handsome natives appeared with a pig hanging from the pole resting on their strong shoulders. I didn’t get any photos of the pig, the plastic skin was too reflective. So I was expecting a real pig. It was then that understood it was just for show. The food was typically Hawaiian and typically hotel-catered.

The after-dinner show was completely entertaining with lots of young men and women singing and dancing, and of course the fire juggling. We had a great time, plastic pig notwithstanding.

The next day we explored the city. From the shore, we could see our ship anchored in the harbor. The two boats near the ship are tenders ferrying cruisers to and from the ship. The Wind was on one of its last sailings, in only a few more weeks, it would be sold to another company. I understand it was destined to be a floating casino/hotel somewhere in Asia.

I don’t know the story of the sailboat but I thought it made an interesting image with what appeared to be a yellow submarine sailing by in the background. All of the photos taken were captured on a Fuji Finepix 3800, my first point-and-shoot digital camera that I’d gotten for family photos. The camera was only 3-megapixel and sported a 6-X optical zoom.

Something I noticed that was relatively new in 2007 was a local Internet cafe. We didn’t have any devices with us that could use the Internet connection so we walked on by.

Artists worked and sold their art as you might expect. We stopped and watched him work for a while before moving on. We ended up bringing home a small hand-painted wood souvenir that still sits on our bookshelf.

One of the most popular spots in the city was the large banyan tree. The images I’ve seen on the news in the last couple of days give me hope that it will grow healthy again, but it is too early to tell. I will always remember standing under its spreading branches.

The history of the tree is well documented. In the 1800s, Lahaina was the capital of the Republic of Hawaii. The tree was an 8-foot sapling when planted by Lahaina’s former mayor William Owen Smith. Smith hailed from Kauai and served as the attorney general of the Republic of Hawaii and his sapling took root in the center of the village in 1873. That puts the tree at 150 years of age. I hope it survives for future generations to stand underneath its huge canopy.

I leave you this week with sadness in my heart for the devastating losses on Maui. My final image is a panoramic view of the coast and the city of Lahaina as viewed from the deck as we sailed on to our next Hawaiian destination. As I looked at the several images I captured during the sail away, I discovered that three of them happened to overlap. When they were taken, I had no clue that someday over a decade later, I’d be creating a panoramic image from them. For a closer look at the gallery of images from this post, you can see them on my Flickr album here.

John Steiner

This week’s host, Tina, writes in her challenge post, “City, country, suburb, small town – whatever your preference(s) this is your chance to highlight the environments you’ve experienced and enjoyed (or not!) We hope you’ll join us to share your thoughts and images.” You can read her entire challenge post here.

Since the pandemic started to wane, my wonderful wife, Lynn, and I have redoubled our efforts to visit new places and new environments. In the last year, we made our first trip to Europe and down the eastern coast of South America. For this challenge response, however, I am going to focus on our two trips to the 50th state. One of the facts about those trips (in 2007 and 2013) that I misremembered related to Hawaii’s unusually varied environment. Never mind the mistake, Hawaii Magazine provided me with the correct information here. In short, the Big Island, Hawaii, hosts 10 of the world’s 14 microclimates. Many of the other islands feature subsets of these ten microclimates.

In 2007, we cruised around the islands leaving from Honolulu, so I felt it fitting to open with a view of the city with the iconic Diamondhead in the background. I took this photo from one of the upper decks of our ship.

We learned the hard way that Volcanoes National Park has four months of quite cool weather. Our light jackets were barely adequate and our hands were cold. We warmed them occasionally from the steam rising from fissures in the volcanic rock.

There are many types of rainforests on multiple islands. This one is on The Big Island. I will dispense with attempting to sort out each of the Koppen Classification System of climate types shown in my images. I don’t have the expertise to describe with any accuracy the five main types and 14 subtypes in the study published in 1884.

Our excursion on the Big Island covered many locations and we were able to hike a short distance in the rainforest.

On the island of Kauai, the botanical garden is in a rainforest area, and on the day we visited, we were not disappointed in finding rain. This area is famous for the location shooting of the Jurassic Park film franchise.

Probably the largest area of the subcategory of Arid and Semi-Arid Climates includes Hawaii’s many beaches. This beautiful beach on Kauai also features a large sheltered cove that is suitable for the youngest of beach-goers.

Mount Wai’ale’ale on the island of Kauai is one of the wettest places on planet Earth. Luckily the day we were there, we were blessed with a beautiful view of the lush tropical plants and a glimpse of the rugged Na’ Pali Coast.

Only a short walk from here is Waimea Canyon State Park and the beautiful chasm that is often called The Grand Canyon of the Pacific. So, what microclimates won’t you find on these islands? Well, some of the highest peaks foreshadow the arctic climates with snow on occasion, but the terrain is clearly tundra on the highest mountains. Though some times of the year, it falls out of the category, Mauna Kea’s 13,796-foot (4,205 m) summit can be considered Periglacial. Of course, maybe on our next trip to the 50th state, we can visit some of the other microclimates on this wonderful island state.

For this challenge, I completely reprocessed all of the images shared here, and you can view them in HD on my Flickr site here. Mahalo (thanks) to Tina for creating a challenge that allowed me to consider reprocessing some photos from a decade or more ago. I improved upon most of them using Luminar’s fantastic tools.

Thanks also to guest host Siobhan for last week’s Glowing Moments challenge. Next week, Patti leads. If you’d like to participate in the challenges, you can find more information here. Aloha!

John Steiner

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It has been 80 years, and though I wasn’t yet born when the Japanese launched their opening salvo against the United States that brought us into the war in the Pacific, I still think of the sacrifices made by those fighting men and their families as we joined World War II.

I would like to say that we visited the USS Arizona Memorial recently to capture some images as a reminder of the lives lost those 80 years ago. To honor the memory, I’ve reworked the images I captured a few years ago using processing software that I didn’t have available when these jpeg images were first published.

Using Lightroom Classic and Luminar AI, I’ve reprocessed the photos into 2K HD and posted them on my Flickr site. I found some interesting facts about the memorial on the Internet that I will also share. The memorial, designed by the US Navy was designed to accommodate 200 people, and it’s accessed by boat as the resting place of those 900+ sailors sits in 36 feet (11 m) of water where she sank on that Sunday morning.

If you look carefully at this image, you’ll see a dark stripe in the water in front of the superstructure that is above water level. It’s oil that is still leaking from the ship, over 2 quarts a day. Both the Navy and the National Park Service have explored ways to reduce the leakage without dishonoring the resting place of the souls on board. The hull is continually monitored with a concern that the leaks might someday increase to an unacceptable level.

The ship sustained severe damage when an armor-piercing projectile from a Japanese plane ignited one of the powder magazines on the ship. The tons of explosives and weapons exploded immediately killing virtually everyone inside the ship and most of the people above deck.

On display is one of the ship’s anchors. The USS Arizona was commissioned in 1916 and was one of the ships that escorted President Woodrow Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference. After a short stint in Turkey in 1919, she was repositioned to the Pacific Fleet and remained there until December 7, 1941.

Unlike most of the other ships which were salvaged and rebuilt, the violence of the magazine explosion rendered the Arizona unrepairable. It became the final resting place for the 1,177 men who died on that fateful morning. Guns and other salvageable superstructure were removed and reused in rebuilding other ships, and the memorial built and dedicated in 1962 straddles the ship’s remains.

Survivors of the blast were ultimately allowed to rejoin their fellow sailors on board the ship in final rest on the USS Arizona and many veterans chose that option. Those who once served on the ship, but were assigned elsewhere at the time of the bombing, were allowed to have their ashes scattered in the water above the ship.

A complete history of the USS Arizona is available on Wikipedia here. Also, on the PearlHarbor.Org website here, you will find some other interesting facts about the ship and those who served on her.

You can click on any of the images above to get a closer look in 2K HD on my Flickr site. From there you can scroll through the images, or you can visit the album here and select the images you’d like to view. You will find a couple of extra images from our visit that day posted there as well.

John Steiner

Lots of people dream of visiting Hawaii. I’ve had the experience of two visits to that magical state. In this week’s challenge, Ann-Christine asks us to share our own concept of “Dreamy.” You can read her entire challenge post here. For me, that would be the Na Pali coast. On a short dinner cruise to visit Na Pali, the northwest coastline was covered in clouds with ever such a small hit of a rainbow.

Earlier that day we’d visited the coast on land and were greeted by mostly sunny skies and that beautiful lush green landscape.

As we departed the coastline, the clouds parted and the rainbow moved offshore. I have found very few places I’ve visited in my travels to be as “dreamy” as the Na Pali Coast of Kauai.

John Steiner

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Travel Tuesday to bring you a very special Travel Tuesday… A Pacific island instead of a Caribbean island. We take you now to Halema‘uma‘u Crater on the Big Island, Hawaii. It’s big news that is occurring on the island, homes and neighborhoods damaged or destroyed. Lava flows  consuming large areas with molten rock. As this is being written, it remains to be seen what the final outcome will be. Click on the image above to visit the Volcanoes National Park’s website for updates and videos of the park. Videos show recent activity from the active volcano.

We take you now to an earlier, less turbulent time. In 2007, Lynn and I travelled to the islands on our first visit. We were on a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, the Norwegian Wind. One of our excursions found us at Halema‘uma‘u Crater, the home of the goddess of fire and volcanoes. When we visited her home, we talked nicely to Pele and she let us leave with our lives. The following year, Pele got upset and she spent the summer of 2008 fuming and sputtering. Lately, she’s been spitting fire and molten rock and the activity has closed much of the park including the overlook points where Lynn and I stood capturing photographs.

The photo above shows the view of Pele’s home captured at that observation point in 2007. The images in this week’s gallery were captured with my first digital camera, a Fuji Finepix 3800. The camera was an aggressively priced point-and-shoot consumer grade with all of a 3 MB image sensor and a $400 price point. A 6X zoom lens brought things a bit closer, but you’ll note in the images that the sensor wasn’t the best for noise suppression even considering these shots were typically around ISO-100. In other words, that was the best this camera could do. I used post processing software to minimize the noise as much as possible.

Apparently Pele doesn’t like objects thrown at her home, especially virgins. You can read more about the goddess and her history here. Noting the sign, many objects thrown find their way only as far as the rim of the crater. A few examples of material thrown are in a couple of the images in the gallery below. Next week we return to our scheduled posts and our last post on the family cruise in January featuring our visit to Grand Turk. In most browsers, you can click on one of the images in the gallery to enlarge it and to scroll through the remaining photos.

John Steiner

This week, Ben Huberman asks us to keep things fluid and focus on liquids. He comments on how “H2O-heavy” he finds his gallery of images. You can read his entire challenge post here. Well, I must say, going through my own library of images, I find I have a very liquid-centric library as well… the liquid being mostly water also. What’s not to like about lakes, rivers, streams? Being an avid cruiser, I have no shortage of ocean photos, sunrises, sunsets, moonlit seas, calm and turbulent waters. Instead of sharing yet another sunset at sea, I decided to share some liquid in motion.

At the south end of the Wailua River, just north of the town of Lihue, a short trip on a Hawaiian road, and a short walk will find you at Wailua Falls where a bifurcated stream of water plunges some 80 feet (24 m) into a small body of water. To those of a certain age, the scene might look familiar, at least to fans of the long-running Fantasy Island TV show. Starting in season two, the opening credits featured an overflight of the falls on the Wailua River. If you want to see an aerial view of the falls, you’ll find it on YouTube here. One thing I learned from the video is that there is actually a third stream of waterfall. From this viewpoint, it’s behind the larger of the two falls. Don’t confuse this Wailua Falls with the falls on the road to Hana on the island of Maui.

While we were there that early November day, I decided to try to do a smooth water shot of the falls. Having no tripod, I found a sturdy wall upon which to set the camera, stopped the lens down to f22 and the exposure meter gave me a 1/3 second exposure time. The opening image with an f7 lens opening gave me a 1/200 second exposure. I would have liked to include more of the falls in the ‘smooth’ water photo, but I would have had to tilt the camera down and handhold it. I don’t think I could have held the camera still enough to give me a sharp image.

A few days after this excursion, our trip to the botanical garden on the island was interrupted by some heavy rain showers. After raining heavily much of the day, the rivers on the island were full and carrying lots of extra water. We went back to Wailua Falls to see the bifurcated stream had grown into one large waterfall.

On most browsers, you can click on an image to enlarge it for a better view. Reviewing these images reminds me that I’d like to head back to the islands. I envy my daughter and her family who will be leaving for Kauai on vacation in just a few short weeks.

John Steiner

Kaua’i, Hawaii.

This week, David W. asks us to share our take on “focus”, in or out thereof. The obvious application of the challenge would be images that are either sharply in focus, or stylishly out of focus, both a factor of the combination of lens characteristics and camera settings. You can read the entire challenge post here.  Focus, by definition, has other meanings. A central point of attraction, attention, or activity. In physics, focus is a point at which rays of light meet after being refracted or reflected. One example of the latter is a rainbow where the reflection and refraction of light inside of water droplets create a spectrum of colors. In the image above, a very faint rainbow is visible in the clouds and haze of a rainstorm on the Na Pali Coast on the northwest end of the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i.

John Steiner

At 7:55 AM on Sunday, December 7, 1941, two waves of Japanese warplanes struck the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. All eight of the battleships stationed there that morning were damaged or destroyed. All but the USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma eventually returned to active duty.

The final resting place of the 1,102 sailors and Marines who died when the ammunitions storage area was breached by a bomb are entombed in the ship, now a memorial to those who died on that infamous day. The memorial opened in 1962 and since the practice was authorised in 1982, many survivors of the USS Arizona who have since passed on have chosen to join their fallen shipmates by being interred there as well.

The large memorial is built over the sunken hull and two gun turrets of the USS Arizona. The superstructure and other armaments were recovered and reused in the war effort. A few years back, my wife, Lynn, and I took the short boat ride to the memorial. You can view a gallery of images and more about Pearl Harbor on that blog post here.

This week, Nancy Thanki asks us to share an image that features a surprising shine. “Has something bright or reflective caught your eye in the moment?” You can read the entire challenge post here.  On a dreary, rainy day my wife, Lynn, and I visited the McBryde Botanical Gardens while we were visiting friends in Hawaii. Even though it was gray and a light rain was falling, the plant’s shine in the image above caught my eye as I walked by. A second example, shown below, also brightly reflected light off the wet surface of the plant.

You can view more of the flora captured during our day in the gardens here.

John Steiner

Port Allen, Hawaii.

A favorite coffee mug, a streak of sunlight coming through the bedroom window, roosters that “sound off at 5 AM”. All of these are reminders of a new day, suggests Cheri Lucas Rowlands in this week’s photo challenge, Morning. You can read the entire challenge post here. Lately, I’ve had some busy Fridays, so I have delayed thy entry in the challenge until Saturday. This week’s delay, however, came from the challenge itself. I have many favorite sunrise photos, all of which would be a great contender for a “Morning” photo challenge, except for one thing… the last sentence in the challenge reads in part, “…bonus points to those who think beyond the usual sunrise photo!”

It took me awhile to think through an entry that says “Morning” to me. I went to bed and slept on it. I awoke early this morning and in the early morning light, the idea came to me. Some of my favorite aviation activities happen early in the morning. This small gallery features images of those early morning flights. The opening image features an early morning flight, a lesson in flying weight-shift aircraft over the island of Kauai, Hawaii. Technically, I didn’t take this photo. It is from a GoPro camera mounted on the apex of the delta-wing aircraft, automatically capturing images during the flight. This image is a “selfie”, that’s me in the rear seat of this powered glider.

One of my friends owns a Piper Cub that spends most of the summer on floats. Flying out of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, I have accompanied him on what literally are joyrides over the northern Minnesota countryside. One of my greatest aviation pleasures is landing the Cub on a Minnesota lake.

My final image was taken in 2002 at a family reunion outing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our family arranged an early morning balloon flight. It was my first flight in a lighter-than-air craft and I am looking forward to the 2017 reunion which will again be in Albuquerque. After attending the balloon festival last year, I know I will have to partake in another balloon flight. Click on an image in the gallery to enlarge it and to scroll through the photos.

John