Kauai: Hanalei

This year my aunt Jes, who is turning 70, declared that she wanted to spend her birthday at her favorite location on the planet – Hanalei Bay, on the north shore of Kauai – and said if anyone would like to join her she'd love to have us. Great idea for a family vacation, no? We rented a fantastic house in the little town of Hanalei, and are here for a week. It's pretty blissful.

The house is about a block from the beach. The closest beach is too rugged for swimming in but is still fun to have nearby. The boys are incredibly thrilled by beaches. They just love sand, love love love it, and love to dash in and out of the waves.

There are countless warnings about rip tides on Hanalei Bay. We tried to convey to the boys that the ocean is not kidding, but I think it's hard for them to imagine. Perhaps a little real-life experience will be a better teacher: Aaron was horsing around along a steep stretch of beach, not watching the ocean, and before he or we knew what hit him, he was being rolled in the surf like a little beach log. Dale ran and grabbed his flailing arm. He was sand-coated and terrified. We were all a little terrified, but he is fine, and hopefully the lesson is learned. 

As you can see, the weather the first day we were here was rather Pacific Northwest-y. Okay, it was warmer than home, but it rained all day. We made the best of it by heading to the farmer's market for tropical fruit. 

The bananas are a local specialty called apple-bananas, but they taste pretty much like regular bananas to me. The prickly red things are rambutans and the purple thing is a mangosteen, both of which Dale and I remember very fondly from southeast Asia. There are also papayas, and an eggfruit, which is new to me and delicious, tasting like a very sweet cooked sweet potato.

One of the things about Kauai is that it is replete with feral chickens, like so many pigeons. They are pretty, and it's funny to see chickens strutting around everywhere you go, but they are loud, especially in the mornings. Here is one of the local Foghorn Leghorns strutting his stuff.

The chickens were brought over by the ancient Polynesians when they arrived on Hawaii. They are only on Kauai, because on all the other islands sugar cane growers imported mongooses, hoping they would control the rats. Unfortunately mongooses are diurnal and rats are nocturnal, so the rat problem went unabated, and the mongooses ate an enormous number of birds. These days Hawaii is more careful about non-native species.