The Decompression of a Boomer

Aloha! Are you ready to embark on another virtual trip to Paradise?

“NO!” You say? You hate me? You don’t want to read another series of seemingly endless blogs about yet another one of our trips to Kauai?

Awwwww….

What can I say? My sister and her husband own a house in Princeville and they invited us (David and me, and my brother Eric, a.k.a. ‘mountain goat’) back again this year. And I was NOT going to blog about this Jan 16-26, 2014 trip. ABSOLUTELY NOT. That is, until our first morning walk, when we ran into this sign at the edge of the golf course in Princeville:

Haha. It’s posted at the path that descends to Anini Beach.

Which, you’d better step carefully in snug shoes with deep treads to avoid this happening to your butt on your way down

And stop to rest your heaving chest as you grind your way back up.

We walked on the golf course about every morning.

Greeted along the sidelines by it’s perky inhabitants.

The Kauai state birds. Okay, not the feral chickens in that first photo (haha), but that second set of birds – the ones with zebra-like markings and bands on their legs. They are the Nene Goose, or Hawaii state bird. And they are on the Federal List of Endangered Species. During the 1940s, the Nene were almost wiped out by laws which allowed the birds to be hunted during their winter breeding seasons when the birds were the most vulnerable. The Nene is threatened today by introduced mongooses and feral dogs and cats which relentlessly prey upon the Nene’s eggs and young. Preservation efforts are continuing and the success of the Nene in Hawai’i, although not a certainty, is promising. There are now about 800 wild Nene in Hawai’i and the numbers are rising with each breeding season (to quote the linked article).

Along the golf course you will invariably hear the beak claps and calls or witness the gyrating mating dance of the Albatross.

There was an Albatross nesting just off the paved golf cart path.

Meet “Moli” the Layson Albatross. The species nests on Kauai from November through July. These birds mate for life and both parents take care of the chick. A single egg is laid in December and is incubated for approxiamtely 2 months. In early February the chicks hatch. After two weeks chicks are left alone, often for a few days, while parents are feeding at sea, returning regularly to feed the chick. In late June or early July, the chicks take their first flight to the sea and do not return for 3-4 years. (This information comes from the sign.)

Feeling obliged to be of some assistance around the house, Eric and David took a load to the dump. (I’m always such a big help, tagging along with my i-Phone.)

Eric can’t be satisfied with just dumping the trash, of course, he has to scope out every potential new adventure no matter the setting. Well he found one right there at the dump.

Yeah, Eric, like we’re going to scope out a nude beach, enticed by the teaser from you …

Whatdoyathink? Shouldn’t visiting a nude beach in Kauai be on everyone’s bucket list?

Stay tuned …

Tags: Albatross, Anini beach. Princeville, chickens on Kauai, Kauai, Nene Goose

This entry was posted on February 1, 2014 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Kauai, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.