Day 100: the end of the road North

In my last week here I'm wrapping up things, this day at the north shore end of the road. Wednesday morning found me out early at Hanalei Bay watching surfers at sunrise.

Weather forecasts variable winds - weakening of the trade winds that usually blow - a rare circumstance that means often nice weather with clearing and often good surfing. Hang gliders are only safe when winds are down and saw four of them the previous day above Anahola.

The end of the road, north shore

From there I just had to drive on out to the end of the road at Ke'e beach to begin wrapping up my Kauai time, but quickly turned around and drove about a mile back to the Limahuli garden. No time today to hike the wonderful Kalalau Trail though it would have been a fine day for it no doubt.

Well before 8am there was plenty of parking still, but I was reminded how crowded it has begun out here even in recent years since I first visited. Last time I was out here at Limahuli I couldn't help but notice for the first time that from the end of the road back over a mile every pullout and possible parking spot along the highway was filled with cars. And yes I realize that I am part of the crowd contributing to the congestion. It's a hard but important figuring out how we balance popular spots that are inherently valuable by virtue of being natural and unimpacted by humans that now want to visit them in numbers.

This week the hale builders are back and working all five days, planning to complete major work by Friday. This morning we built out the roof, completing the makai side and most of the mauka side. Selecting and passing wood up to people on the roof lashing it in, cutting off long ends, splicing in extensions to short pieces.

My particular specialty, not surprisingly, is operator of the digital camera equipment. Today we shot 5 second interval stills to make a time-lapse movie (sped up 75 times) of the work with a GoPro camera. To get perspective from the top of the hale we lashed the camera to a large pillar piece and supported it vertically at one end pointing down. I climbed up the olokea (scaffolding), held on to the roof ridge beam, and reached out to adjust the camera angle and start it recording. An unlikely marriage of digital and native technology and not something I could have possibly imagined would be part of my experience here.

After lunch I headed back for a last visit to my friends with the pineapple farm (snagging four to take home) and drove back to Hanapepe where I was invited to dinner at friend's home here. Overlooking the Hanapepe River and the ocean at sunset (until the mosquitoes were too much - next time, long pants and long shirt) was a perfect ending to my last north shore day for this trip.