My Summer Vacation: 6 Wedge-tailed Shearwaters

I left the house at 6:30 this morning to pick up the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters from Feather & Fur; because about 1/4 of my drive would be in morning commute traffic I gave myself an extra 30 minutes. Sunrise was at 6:36 this morning so I got to see it from the road. I reached Feather & Fur just before 7; it took them about 10 minutes to bring all the birds out & load them in to the car.

Entering Kailua on Mokapu Boulevard, sixteen minutes after sunrise.

The 6 travelers.

This one is a little too young to fly on its own.

I got to the Department of Agriculture inspection station about 10 minutes before they opened. But the staff there was very nice & did all the paperwork in spite of that. When I got to Hawaiian Air Cargo all 5 spaces at the front of the building were full! Since I still had 40 minutes before the cut-off, I waited at the far end of the parking lot for one of the spaces to open up. About 15 minutes later one did & I quickly grabbed it & started moving birds in. One of the workers there got a cart & loaded all the kennels; he took them back to the loading dock & started measuring each kennel. The other worker took care of all the paperwork; even with 2 of them working on it, because there were so many birds it took 35 minutes to process all of them.

At 7:41 a.m. Ooops!

Before I took off to pick up the birds, I weighed myself. I am clear on why I gained 1.6 pounds over the past week. I did not do the usually 1.5 mile Neighborhood Security Walk on Monday due to doing to the periodontist & I did not do the approximately 1 mile Citizen Forester tree inventory on Wednesday since it was cancelled. I need to develop alternative options when my usual activity is disrupted.

On the way back from dropping the birds off, I went by McKinley Carwash. It was very busy again, with a line of cars on the main road waiting to turn in. So I skipped it again.

I skipped the proothie this morning & had an orange instead. I have been trying to harvest an orange a day. I wash it up & put it in the refrigerator for anyone to eat. So far I have not seen anyone else eat one. I have eaten 3; I try not to eat too many since they are high in carbs (natural sugars in the juice). And they are large; I usually only eat 1/2 an orange a day. Hence the abundance of oranges in the fridge.

For lunch I made an alternative quesadilla; though I am out of the usual ingredients. I used a piece of vegan cheese in place of a tortilla & spread it with peanut butter in place of the cheese; then rolled it up. I did not heat it or take a photo of it. I just ate it.

For dinner I cooked a piece of salmon that I found in the back of the freezer. I had it along with some chipotle sauerkraut & kimchee. I had been anxious about trying the kimchee; it is the traditional rather than the turmeric kimchee & it is very red & spicy-looking. The spiciness turned out to be manageable for me. Hulō!

This week's Volcano Watch is about Alaskan volcano Pavlof & the difficulties with finding reliable precursor events that could signal an imminent eruption. I guess we are fortunate that the Hawaiian volcanoes are more likely to provide precursor events signalling an eruption is coming soon.

At 9:56 a.m.

At 6:11 p.m.

At 9:56 a.m.

At 6:11 p.m.

The Aix weather app forecast rain throughout the day in Honolulu; there were intermittent drizzles in the morning with partly cloudy skies in the afternoon. The H-1 traffic cam is not working; it is stuck on 1:11 p.m. on 11/04. For Kapaʻau, Aix forecast rain all day; Big Island Now forecast scattered showers with a 50% chance of rain. The Honomū weather station recorded 0.01 inches by 9:48 a.m. with no further precipitation. For Marysville, Aix forecast intense rain in the morning petering out after lunch & becoming drizzles in the evening. The traffic cams showed no evidence of precipitation.

Kaimukī looking easterly at 6:29 a.m.

Nā Koʻolau at 6:32 a.m.

Pali Highway looking easterly at 6:46 p.m.

H-3 looking southerly at Mt. Olomana at 7:15 a.m.

H-3 looking westerly at 7:17 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly; the camera is stuck on this photo from 1:11 p.m. on 11/04.

Honomū looking northerly at 9:48 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 9:51 a.m. HST.

Kaimukī looking westerly; still stuck on 11/04.

Honomū looking northerly at 6:10 p.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 6:10 p.m. HST.

The waves on the north facing shorelines is still providing good surfing conditions but is diminishing. South facing shores are small; east & west facing shorelines are in between.

Laniakea (N) at 9:52 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 9:53 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 9:55 a.m.

Banyans (W) at 9:55 p.m.

Laniakea (N) at 5:26 p.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 5:24 p.m.

Waikīkī at 527 p.m.

Banyans (W) at 5:25 p.m.

There were 124 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 84,814. There were also 12 new deaths reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 944; currently there are 1589 cases considered active. As of yesterday, 2,227,397 doses of vaccine were administered providing 71.6% of the state population with full vaccination and 82.1% having at least one dose. Currently 67 cases are hospitalized with 14 in the ICU & 11 on ventilators. The 7-day new case average on Oʻahu is 53 with a positivity rate of 1.6%.

The 7-day new case average for the State has now dropped below 100 and is at 98 with a positivity rate of 1.7%. According to Department of Health Director Char, as long as the new case average stays below 100 our health care system will be able to handle surges without the need for additional medical personnel from FEMA.