Honolulu Aquarium

The Honolulu Aquarium was quite small but unique in a few ways, for one thing it displays the Nautilus (a "living fossil"), last I heard it was the only aquarium to do so, quite a fascinating creature, also, the aquarium displays several rare or endangered creatures simply because Hawaii has a very high number of these. Of course, the creatures on display, being tropical, were also exotic, highly colored, and beautiful. :)

I think this was just leaving or returning from our trip, we were just outside our hotel anyway :)

Caleb at the outdoor tidal pool, he wanted to dip in and feel the fish, but that was not allowed :D

The sun was hot but thankfully umbrella's are often offered for shade. Derek and BaBa are watching the two Monk seals.

Monk seals are unique to Hawaii, and they are endangered, there are only aprox 1,200 left in the wild. One of the two here at the aquarium was brought in as an orphan with large scars on it's body. While we were at a beach in Poipu we got to see a wild seal lounging on the beach, it was fully cordoned off and seemed to be pretty comfy with the ppl milling around it :) There are large fines for disturbing the seals and turtles as they are quite endangered.
I used to think that numbers like 1000 were not that scary for a species, but was not thinking of the problem of the gene pool, it has to be quite big or inbreeding will finish the species off :(

Due to bad film (old) this is a terrible picture but I wanted to post it anyway because the trees were just so amazing, and we had fun playing around them. One tree had so many root thingys coming down Derek and I had to literally search through them to find the trunk in the center, it was not visible at all from the outside! The expanse of trunk/roots and the branches cover over head was tremendous! Could shade a whole herd of elephants I am sure! ;)

Waikiki Beach

Please excuse the bad pictures as these were all taken with disposables with old film to boot, bah!

I think Caleb is like Tigger, "bottoms are made out of springs!" :D


Wahoo! He would get bowled over and come out for more, with or without a helping hand :s

Hawaii!!

We just got home from an 11 day trip to Hawaii! We went with Nanny and BaBa so be sure to check their site for pictures too! We spent the first 2 days on Oahu at Honolulu, and then the rest of our time at an Organic Farm on Kauai.
Kauai is the oldest of all the islands and the least populated, it is called the Garden Island, and it was very beautiful and lush!

This is the life hey? The boys tried out 2 different hammocks on the farm :D
I learned something totally new about banana's, they are not a tree, but an herb! They have no bark, just a stem that grows leaves.

The foragers return successful!! AVOCADO! There were at least 3 different kinds on the farm, one being the jumbo ones that are bigger than grapefruit, crazy! They are interesting in the way that they all hang individually by a stem from the tree, some of the stems were over a foot long.
One morning Caleb spotted an avocado at his level and tried unsuccessfully to pick it. Derek heard him fussing, walked over and with a big pull that nearly landed him on his bottom, picked the avocado and handed it to Caleb, who walked off cheerfully swinging it by the stem in a very carefree fashion ;p

On the left is Sky who was our host in the absence of his Mom, he was just back from a trip to Thailand, and currently tutors music students on the farm, as well as running it. They have 50 CSA (community sponsored agriculture) family's they provide for every week. That is a coconut tree in the background, and my Dad on the right.
They bought the land 20 years ago and planted everything now growing on it, you would never guess it was empty 20 years ago!! There was a banana grove, avocados, lots of citrus trees, a soursop tree, macadamia nut trees, pineapple growing (they take 2 years!!), mango's, papaya, and probably some I have missed, oh and some beautiful purple fruit that I forget the name of that looked like a perfectly round, orange sized eggplant ;p


Here are Nanny and BaBa enjoying the surf and sunset at... Hanalei beach!
Derek was VERY keen on playing in the sand (every day, every minute, "Mama, I want to go to the beach!" ;D)
As you can see from Caleb's stunning grin it is WAY past his bedtime! :D