The top photo shows the view 1/4 mile upslope from our present home.
Taken with full zoom (17-85MM) from my digital Canon Rebel. I could not estimate the distance to the vessel. However, with an elevation of a few thousand feet to the water directly below and the many miles out to the barge, my zoom helped a great deal.

Taking the photo to Photoshop and cropping it to 10 inches by 13 inches actually brought it to 100% (full digital accuracy without distortion).

Standing on the slope I could barely tell the vessel was a barge.

I caught this hint of a rainbow above a bank of cloud well off the coast. The rainbow was, in fact directly above a storm system. There are many natural wonders here that defy explanation. Given falling or rising rain is required for a rainbow to occur, I am left without an answer as to how it got higher than the bank of clouds.

Anybody understand how a rainbow can exist verticle from clouds?

You may have read about her striking Hawaii this past week as a category 4 with sustained winds of 140 MPH. There she was with a distinct eye looking at us from 300 miles SE of the Big Island and we being the most southern island in Hawaii. She apparently liked what she saw in us, traveling a fairly direct path toward us.

Living on the eastern seaboard of the United States, I always believed there was only one naming system for hurricanes. Well, there are three. The entire Atlantic Ocean has one list with the eastern and western Pacific having one list each. In the past 50 years there have been fifteen "Flossies"

On August 13 a hurricane watch was announced for the Big Island of Hawaiʻi as the storm neared the islands. Holding true to being a paradise, Hawaiʻi has not had a hurricane landfall since Hurricane Iniki of 1992. As Flossie tracked more directly toward the Big Island, it prompted a hurricane warning. Accordingly, the mayor of the Big Island declared a state of emergency. The Governor of the state signed an emergency declaration that activated the Hawaii Army National Guard before the storm's arrival. And Spirit (pictured below) nested more deeply into my wife's arms. Big Island Civil Defense also ordering the closure of all schools, including the University of Hawaii at Hilo and Hawaii Community College, as well as all public parks, as of August 14. The Port of Hilo was also closed.

Spirit, our Cockatoo, hunkering down in the face of Flossie.

Then we watched Flossie evaporate into thin air. She had survived the Intertropical Convergence Zone (Doldrums: detailed in an earlier post) ten days earlier had grown to a category 4 only to deliver sustained winds of only 40 MPH to the beaches of South Point. Where I live further north, sun poked through the overcast skies throughout that day.

Being a climatologist/meteorologist at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu must be a thankless job always being teased by hurricanes who dwindle at the sight of the Islands.

All photographs are taken by Gecko unless otherwise noted.

The Protea Family of flowers (pronounced "pro-tee-ah") are native to Australia and South Africa growing in volcanic soil at 1500 ft elevation or above. There are over 1500 varieties in the world. About 85 different Proteas grow in the higher elevations on the Island of Hawaii. The great difference in the Proteas in Hawaii are their intense color.

Why don't you begin a career in horticulture by becoming a scientist at the University of Hawaii Argricultural Research Center within the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and contribute to groundbreaking research supporting the local protea industry to make the flower last longer, be more resistant to disease and lighter in weight for shipping? Now that was a run-on sentance.

The Protea is a significant agricultural product of Hawaii.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you might recall, the Protean Charm is a complex spell used by Hermione Granger to enchant coins so that changing the serial number on one affected the others as well. She used it to communicate the times of secret meetings. It was also used by Voldemort to communicate with his Death Eaters.

The second photo is impossible to take in, while the first improves the appreciation some. These trees are growing on a forbidding slope. I would be surprised if anyone has made a general search of the area. It is in fact a gulch north of Hilo near the coast. Note the first pic has about 1/8 coverage of the second. This is a mature forest with palms as tall as found anywhere. You are only looking at the VERY TOP of each TREE with a river at the bottom in the shadows. It takes a tremendous amount of rainfall to sustain this vegatation.

Clearly I feel as though I have failed to give you a true sense of how grand the view, how steep the slope, and how tall the trees are here.






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The trade winds are bands of winds around the Earth's equatorial region and are the prevailing winds in the tropics, blowing from the high-pressure area well north and south of the equator towards the low-pressure area around the equator. The trade winds blow predominantly from the northeast in the northern hemisphere and from the southeast in the southern hemisphere. Thus, they blow toward the equator.

Now, if we had a 4 year old in the room, she would interrupt with the well practiced question, "Why?" Well, my Geckoette, the sun warms the air over the equator more of the time than other places, causing it to rise. The rising air then proceeds south and north toward the poles, replacing air at altitude that is cooler. From approximately 20° to 30° North and South latitude, the air sinks. Then, the air flows along the surface of the earth back toward the equator. In the area where the air rises over the equator, this place has been aptly named the "Doldrums". It is also called the intertropical convergence zone because seasonally their relative latitude changes. The import of this zone is the fact that the trades from the south and the trades from the north collide and rise into powerful storms. As you might imagine, these storms are not interrupted from day to day, simply because the dependable trades will dependably collide. There you have it Geckoette

Over time, these Trades have nearly completely defined the Hawaiian Island vegatation and beaches. The northeastern coast, the coast I live on, is where the trades come up against landfall. It is here where orchids and heavy rain forest dominate. Traveling over the top of the Big Island most of the moisture has already dropped. The western side of the Big Island is relatively dry.

Now things get a bit nasty, so all children need to go play.

If the air goes up it must come down at a predictable latitude further north and south of the equator. When air plummets it creates weaker air currents without moisture. These conditions are called the horse latitudes. Sailors would find themselves in sailing ships that would more likely be stalled at sea with little rainfall. The cargo would frequently include horses. Because of the great amount of water that horses drank, they would be thown overboard. So, we have the Horse Latitudes.

I just wish there was a region further from the equator called the politicians' latitudes.

For the purpose of emphasis, I type this at 4 AM and the rain is pounding the roof...but not with the force I have heard it at other times. Still, our plants welcome it.

Their name derives from the Middle English translation 'trade', meaning "path" or "track," and thus giving meaning to the phrase "the wind blows trade," that is to say, on track. Being the prevailing wind here, it can be depended upon.