Wednesday, July 12th - around Masset and Hokulea Tour

This morning, we went for a walk around the Delkatla Wildlife/Wetland preserve, learning about the changes caused by the causeway, the project to re-open the causeway, and the process of returning this area to a salt marsh.

We saw 2 pairs of sandhill cranes and another flying overhead. We also saw a kingfisher catching a fish and learned that ther viewing platforms, in the middle of the day, generally didn't help us to see anything we couldn't already see.

Old barrack foundations on the way to the wetland

Wetland and sandhill cranes

Wetland and sandhill cranes

This was a longer walk than planned, and Marieka's legs were letting her know this gently. We got some tacos and torpedo prawns at Charter's Food Truck on the way back downdown, then went to the "open ship" for the Hokulea.

The Hokulea "open ship"

It was amazing to see this boat, double-masted with beautiful wood, held together with lashings, and meet the crew, who were all proud Hawaiians and amazing human beings. We heard pride of learning traditional ship-building, tales of repairs, of how traditional Polynesian ocean navigation was re-learned, of restoration of language (from being banned from being taught in schools, to being a second primary language in schools). Marieka and I even got cajolled into trying at hand at the giant paddle/rudder.

Looking up the foremast

Chris at the rudder

After this we finally got some of the ceviche from the 626 fish truck, which was really good.

For dinner we passed up on the feast for the Hawaiians in Old Masset (the walk probably would have pushed Marieka's back over the edge) and had a salad with the last of our lettuce and a couple of hard boiled eggs.