Whale Watching

The waters around Maui are part of the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. Between December and May each year, approximately 2/3 of the North Pacific Humpback Whale population (2,000-5,000 individuals) come to Hawaii to give birth and to breed. Calves are born without a protective blubber layer, so the warm tropical waters are an ideal place to give birth. The area between Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe is particularly popular, likely due to the shallow depth between these 4 islands.

The gestation period for humpback whales is only 11-12 months. The calves are about 12-14 ft at birth and weigh between 1 and 1.5 tons. For the first six months of their lives, calves will gain about 100 pounds a day. How do they do that? Calves will consume 50-100 gallons of milk per day. Humpback Whale milk is about 50% fat and has the consistency of cottage cheese (sounds gross huh?).

The reason Humpback Whales migrate to Alaska in the summer is to feed. The whales do not eat while they are in Hawaii. Hawaiian waters are so clear because they lack phytoplankton, the microscopic "plants" that krill and other bait fish feed on. During the 4-6 months the whales are in Hawaii they live off of their blubber layer and can lose up to 1/3 of their body weight.

I've had the opportunity to go out whale watching quite a few times while I have been here. We see a lot from shore, just driving back and forth from work, but of course I don't have pictures of those times. Below are the best of my whale watching photos.

Whale Watching Photo's

Topside Molokai

I was lucky to be able to take a very last minute trip to Molokai back in May. While the primary reason I wanted to visit Molokai was to visit Kalaupapa, I was also able to visit pretty much the entire rest of the island while I was there. Molokai is the 5th largest of the main Hawaiian islands and has only 8,000 residents.
The day I arrived I drove out to the far end of the island to Halawa Valley. The drive was awesome- I think I passed two cars on my entire trip out and back. The views of the coast and of the interior of the island were beautiful, although sight distance was very limited due to the heavy vog (volcanic gas for the mainlanders) and the pictures from that day came out quite hazy. I hiked around out there for a while even though there aren't really any trails. I bushwhacked my way through brush and grass over my head at one point to climb out on a point over the bay- turned out not to be quite as great a view as I thought it would be and not worth all the effort to get out there. Plus, the plant litter was so thick that you had no idea where the ground was or what was down there (thankfully, nothing really scary came out).
Later that afternoon I returned to Kaunakakai (the main town) and checked into my hotel. A Marriott this was not! No AC, but at least they did have an option to purchase high speed internet access (critical since I had school work to do while I was there). I also managed to secure a room with a double bed after protesting at the desk that a twin bed where the headboard was slanted inwards quite steeply due to walls being slanted inwards was simply not long enough. Kaunakakai, being the metropolis that it is, had about 3 places to eat so I tried out the Pizza place that night.
My second day I rode the mules down to Kalaupapa (see below for more about that).
The third day I hiked out to visit the Phallic Rock. Yes, you guessed it, there is a Hawaiian fertility legend to go with it. Pictures are below, not much more to say about that. I hiked around in the forest there for a while until my trail turned into a goat track (lots of wild goats on the island) and became impossible to follow. After that I drove out to Papohaku Beach on the opposite end of the island from Halawa Valley. The beach is 3 miles long making it one of the longest in Hawaii. It is also very wide, which is also fairly unusual out here. I was very surprised to find that on a Holiday Weekend in the middle of the day, I was the only person out there. It made me feel like I was on a deserted island to see so much sand and no people.
By my last day I had seen all of the island that you are allowed to see in a rental car, so I drove around again, went out to the wharf for a while, walked through town again (yep- that took a long time since it's one block long!), then caught my flight home. It was an excellent trip, and I was very glad I finally got to visit Kalaupapa.

Kalaupapa

My trip down to visit Kalaupapa was one of the coolest things I have done out here in Hawaii. It ranks right up there with hiking out to see the lava on the Big Island. Kalaupapa is the leper colony that sits on a tiny peninsula of Molokai at the base of the highest sea cliffs in the world. The only way to get there by land is to ride a mule or walk down the trail on the side of the cliff. The trail is 3 miles long, 1,600 feet high and has 26 hairpin switchbacks. I elected to ride the mule!
It was an awesome ride down. The vog had cleared that day, so the view was amazing. I thought it would be scary, but there weren't as many places on the trail that made me want to hyperventilate as I thought there would be. Going around a few of the switchbacks was interesting (in an "All I can see is thin air on one side of me" sort of way) as the mules like to walk on the very edge because they have restored the trail with those concrete things to prevent erosion. Once we got to the bottom a bus picked us up for our tour of the town. We drove around part of Kalaupapa and stopped at a few places, including one of the churches. There are very specific rules about where you are and are not allowed to go.
There are still 26 former patients (Leprosy, now known as Hansen's Disease, has been curable since the mid 1940's) so they make the rules. Many of these patients have physical deformities resulting from the disease and do not wish to be seen by tourists. Kalaupapa is jointly run by the National Park Service and the Hawaii Board of Health and will be until the last of the former patients passes away and then it will become fully under the control of the NPS. You must go on the bus tour in order to enter the park. The bus tour only happens once a day at the same time every day. Everyone who lives in Kalaupapa tends to stay out of the visitor areas during the bus tour time. In order to enter the park you must also be older than 16 years. This is another rule set by the former patients. Before Hansen's Disease was curable and leaving Kalaupapa was not an option for them, any children that patients had were taken from them at birth and sent to family or put into foster care. Since their children were taken from them, they allow no children into the park.
Widespread fear of contracting the disease led to the forced isolation from 1866 to 1969 of people suffering from the disease at Kalaupapa. Despite this widespread fear, Hansen's Disease is one of the least contagious of all communicable diseases. Only 5% of the world's population is even susceptible to the disease. The other 95% are genetically immune.
After we drove around Kalaupapa, we drove over to the other side of the peninsula to the site that used to be Kalawao. Kalawao was the site of the first settlement, but was eventually abandoned because the climate there is not ideal for patients (it is very damp). About the only thing still standing in Kalawao is two of the original churches and Father Damien's Grave. Father Damien was a priest who became famous after he came to Kalawao to minister to the patients in the 1870's. The conditions in the settlement at that time were terrible. There were no doctors or nurses to care for the patients. Patients arrived with few if any belongings and were given only a blanket upon arriving. There were few structures and most patients were not well enough to build something, so many remained homeless. There were continual food shortages and many of the patients were starving. There was no real law (what could be worse than being banished to Molokai anyways?) so crime was rampant. Father Damien had a very positive impact on the settlement and is well known for his ministry to the patients. Father Damien contracted Hansen's Disease approximately 10 years after arriving in Kalawao and died about five years later. The church he built in Kalawao is still there, although in need of repair.
After visiting Kalawao, we headed back through Kalaupapa to where our mules were waiting and began the trek back up the cliff .
An intersting side note- The majority of supplies in Kalaupapa come over on a barge. This barge only comes to Kalaupapa once a year! Any appliances that are needed, cars, building materials, gas, non perishables, etc. have to be ordered and on that barge. For this reason there are more cars than residents in Kalaupapa because if one dies, you're going to need a back-up!

Kalaupapa Photos

Hello World!

I have finally joined the blogging world. No doubt it will take me a little while to get this all figured out, so hang tight for a little while.