Hawaii, Day 5

I’ll skip days 3 and 4 for now, as those involved a visit to Pearl Harbor and to the ships on display there, as well as a long ocean trip to snorkel with dolphins and turtles, so there are lots of photos to organize. Today (Wednesday) was a visit to the North Shore, the famous surfing spot of Oahu and one of the most famous in the world.

First, though, it was time to feed the ducks. The rounds: the usual mass of ducks in the canal and the five to ten favorites in the nearby marina.

In the canal a lovely but dangerous bird was on display, a black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). They’re native here, and this one shows its nuptial plumes (males and females both have them). This one, which is named Slaugh, hangs around the canal that itself harbors dozens of ducks, and the species is known to prey on ducklings as well as fish, frogs, and other aquatic beasts. We haven’t seen any ducklings at the canal, and I worry. Here’s the beast trying to catch a fish (it failed):

But we did see ducklings in the marina. Encountering the usual crew of Fergus and his mates, we noticed a female on the marina’s island (yes, like my duck island, but a huge wooded tract) and she had ducklings! After a while she swam toward us and we fed her and her brood. There were ten offspring, and they must have been only two or three days old. I’ve decided they were born on my birthday, and I’ll be feeding them daily during my stay—if they’re around.

Wherever I go there are ducklings! Ten—count them—ten.

Three are yellow and the other seven yellow and brown, like normal mallards. I wonder if there’s some ancestry with domestic mallards here.

Here’s the duck island in the marina (right), which must be about 50 yards or so on a side. The ducks hang around there, and it offers them shelter and safety from predators like feral cats. I think the water is brackish, since it’s contiguous with the sea, and I’m not sure how mallards do in salty water.

The island’s Hawaiian stilts (Himantopus mexicanus knudseni), an imperiled subspecies of the black-necked stilt. They eat aquatic invertebrates, but I’ve found that they’re not averse to waterfowl starter chow. (I don’t feed them, but they clean up any spillage.) These ones are sleeping, standing on one leg with their eyes closed and bills tucked in.

And my good friend Fergus, who is almost certainly a mallard/muscovy hybrid, or “mullard.”

After feeding time, we drove north from near Honolulu to a point between Haleiwa (Surf Central) and Pupukea.

First a visit to Waimea Bay, a legendary spot that has up to 50-foot waves. It was tame when we visited, so I haven’t seen the famous monster swells. Plenty of people were sunning themselves, and doing acrobatic mating displays:

Human mating displays on the North Shore apparently involve complete rotations of the body in the air:

Waimea Bay on January 2: pretty tame (my video):

Here’s what Waimea Bay looks like when the big waves come in and the surfers come out. Gnarly!

And then there’s the famous Banzai Pipeline Break, a bit further on in Pupukea, a beach where the waves are a bit smaller but there are jagged reefs below, making it one of the most dangerous surf spots in the world. Many surfers have died here, as they have on many North Shore beaches.

This is drone footage of the Pipeline. After watching a bunch of surfing videos, I’m convinced that it requires both an inordinate amount of skill and an inordinate amount of courage—at least in places like these.

Almost across the street from Waimea Bay is the Waimea Valley, harboring a botanical garden, a much-visited waterfall, and one of the most endangered bird populations in the world. We spent several hours there. It’s very scenic and has been the site of some movie scenes, including “Lost” “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” and “Hunger Games: Catching Fire”.  It was a prosperous farming and fishing community in pre-European Polynesia, and is considered a sacred site.

And the site is one of the few places in Hawaii to see the Hawaiian moorhen (or Hawaiian gallinule), a highly endangered subspecies (Gallinula galeata sandvicensis) of the common gallinule. Only about 1000 individuals remain, but a breeding and reintroduction program is meeting with success. The adults at the park entrance had plenty of chicks:

This one was pulling a worm out of the bank which it then fed to a chick. The birds make a weird barking call, but I didn’t record that.

Some beautiful flowers in the park, a place that I highly recommend for a visit. Please identify them for me!

A bromeliad (pineapple is an artificially selected plant in this group):

An orchid:

Taro, grown on this site by ancient Polynesians:

A Hawaiian demonstrating the traditional way of weaving mats, bracelets, and other items:

The waterfall at the end of the trail. You can swim in the pool, but have to use a lifejacket, and I wasn’t in the mood to immerse myself:

The walk worked up a big hunger, and I knew the destination: Kono’s Restaurant in Haleiwa, famous for its kalua pig (pulled pork, cooked underground).  I seem to be eating a lot of it these days because it’s GOOD! We had it with a scoop of rice and a salad: there must have been more than a pound of the toothsome and smoky pork shreds.

It’s an informal place (almost every restaurant in Hawaii is), and the fare is on a big blackboard:

I had the pork plate lunch, but was so hungry that I finished half of it before I thought about taking a picture. So, no photo.

It was then off to the nearby Dole Plantation (“Hawaii’s Complete Pineapple Experience”), a big touristy operation organized around the Dole Pineapple farms, having expanded from a fruit stand opened in 1950. Now it’s a huge moneymaking operation with overpriced pineapple gee-gaws, a pineapple maze, train rides, and pineapple-cutting demonstrations. We were there for one reason only: to get a Dole Whip: pineapple-flavored soft-serve of high repute.

As Bon Appetit notes, Dole Whip is found throughout the U.S. at various Disneyland venues, but I wanted to try it on its home ground. It’s not fancy: the magazine says “the dairy-free dessert is made from a pineapple-flavored dry mix (dried pineapple juice and the key to all silky smooth soft serve: stabilizers) that’s combined with water and pumped out of a soft-serve machine.” I had it in a waffle cone with a fresh pineapple spear. The large serving hit the spot in the hot weather.

Across the street, on the real farm, forklifts were hefting crates of fresh-picked pineapples onto a big rack:

I’ve now had fresh pineapple on Oahu several times, and it’s a gazillion times better than the underripe fruit you get on the mainland. The stuff here tastes of sugar and sunshine.

Finally, on the drive back we passed this famous Army base, and if you don’t know why it’s famous, you’re not a movie buff: