What is it where you live? Pigeons that deface statuary, buildings and the occasional human head? Squirrels? Locusts? Mice or rats?
Here in Hawaii, the pest of choice has been the mongoose. And we brought the pestilence on ourselves.
The 1800s were big for sugar cane. Sugar plantations shot up on a lot of tropical islands, notably the Hawaiian islands and Jamaica. The sugar cane attracted rats, and the rats caused serious crop destruction and loss. In 1872, the Small Asian Mongoose was imported from Calcutta to Jamaica. A published paper that praised the results intrigued Hawaiian plantation owners. In 1883, the owners brought 72 mongooses from Jamaica to the Hamakua Coast (Northeast) of the Big Island. These were carefully raised and their offspring were shipped to plantations on other islands. Didn’t take long for the mongooses to take over. Mongooses males become sexually mature at four months and females produce litters of 2-5 pups a year. Only the islands of Kauai and Lanai have been spared the proliferation – so far.
The experiment didn’t exactly work. Mongooses consider rats an okay thing to eat – the way you might think walnuts or rutabagas are okay to eat. But mongooses also like lizards, crabs, toads, frogs, birds and bird eggs, fish, spiders, and the grubs of all kinds of beetles and caterpillars … and just about anything else they can get their savage little mouths around. insects, spiders, snails and fruits. They’ve also been known to catch mammals many times their size, and even the young of deer. They also eat snakes, but snakes aren’t a problem in Hawaii. (Some people erroneously believe we have no snakes because the mongooses wiped them out. Not so. We’ve never had snakes.) Mongooses aren’t cause for concern to you. The only time you’re likely see one is if it darts across the road in front of the car you’re in.
Most of the animal-pest-eradication attention in Hawaii today has been distracted by the coqui frog. That tiny creature has taken over as "pest of interest" because of its ability to quickly adapt to Hawaii from its native Puerto Rico and reach scary numbers. It has no predators (unless you count the mongoose) and its mating noise is literally unbearable.
But that’s another story.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 27th, 2008
It’s almost becoming a game – checking to see what extra charges the airlines are laying on to compensate for fuels prices … and what free services hotels are offering to attract guests.
In Hawaii, some hotels have begun to provide free overnight parking for guests. Overnight parking has been costing an average of $20 a night, and has gone as high as $29. Other hotels are including free parking as an incentive within the packages they offer. Aqua Hotels & Resorts, for example, is offering a "snooze-n-crooze" special at 11 of its properties that includes a room, rental car and complimentary daily parking. Some Outrigger and Ohana hotels also have packages that include free parking.
Turtle Bay Resort, on Oahu’s North Shore, has gone for a daily, $20 "resort fee" of $20. It includes parking, Wi-Fi Internet access, a daily newspaper, coffee, an hour of tennis court time, and free snorkel gear for an hour. Guests seem to consider that a bargain.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 26th, 2008
As you read this, airline flights are in a mess, all across the country.
Every airport in the United States has been affected by an unexpected glitch in an Atlanta scheduling computer. The FAA has indicated the problem has been corrected, but has not said when things will return to "normal." The glitch led to ground stops on hundreds of departing flights and is forced some flights in the air to circle their arrival airport rather than land. The problem began at about 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time and worsened, with thousands of flights in the air and thousands more due to depart. Gate-hold times exceeded one hour as air traffic controllers worked to get flights already in the air on the ground. So far, we have no word of problems with Hawaii-bound flights.
If you are scheduled to fly later today, don’t assume the airlines are disseminating up-to-date information. This is an FAA issue, not an airline issue.
Keep watching this space. We’ll keep it as current as we can.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 26th, 2008
Getting aboard your flight to Hawaii for your long-anticipated island vacation should give you a rush of pleasure and excitement, shouldn’t it?
But let’s face it. Airlines are cutting back. Service is deteriorating. Travelers – you among them — are getting cranky. Who takes the brunt of all that pent-up hostility?
Right. The flight attendants, trapped between the struggling airlines they work for and an increasingly angry flying public. They have tough aisles to patrol.
They’re at the front lines. They listen to the complaints, try to offer explanations and do all they can to defuse passenger frustration. It’s been pointed out that it’s no longer enough for flight attendants to be poised and personable, or even multilingual. They have to be wearing tough skin, as well.
A lot of the nation’s largest airlines are operating their flights with the minimum staff required by the Federal Aviation Administration. That means more work for everyone, especially when flights are full, as they usually are. On top of that, flight attendants remain responsible for not only the service, but also for your safety. They are expected to know first aid, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and to be vigilant against possible terrorist activity.
So the next time you’re inclined to go off on a flight attendant because he or she wants $7.00 for an in-flight pillow, take a deep breath. It’s not the glamor job it once was.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 25th, 2008
According to a recent study by the National Business Travel Association, Honolulu applies lower taxes on things such as lodging, car rentals and meals than do other high-visitor places such as Chicago, Nashville and cities in Florida. The study ranked 50 cities, calculating the amount of taxes paid by travelers who stay at hotels, rent cars and eat restaurant meals. For instance, tax on a room for a night, a car for a day and a meal in Honolulu would be about twelve, six and three-and-a-half dollars respectively, compared to 16, 18 and eight-and-a-half dollars in Chicago.
Big difference. And remember … Hawaii amenities such as the almost-perfect weather, the surf, the rainbows, the scenery and the endless variety of things to do are not included in those taxes.
August 22nd, 2008
If the phrase “It depends” fits anywhere as an answer, it’s here. Very often price determines what hotel you will eventually stay in when you vacation here in the islands. So if you’re wondering what hotel rates are going for in Hawaii these days, here’s a general idea, island by island. There are four categories we use to characterize hotels and their accommodations, resulting in four different price ranges. To make things more difficult, the price ranges for each of those categories vary from island to island.
From time to time, we’ll give you approximate price ranges for each hotel on each of the islands for your reference. Here’s where we are these days:
Island Budget Moderate Deluxe Luxury
Oahu $ 80-100 $100-250 $ 250-450 $ 450-600
Maui 100-150 150-250 250-450 450-600
Kauai 100-150 150-250 250-400 400-600
Big Island 100 100-250 250-500 500-700
That’s a pretty broad range. Talk to a Hawaii-Aloha agent and discuss what you’re looking for. You’re sure to find the right accommodations for the price you’re looking for. Just pick an agent from the Hawaii-Aloha Web site home page, or call 1-800-843-8771.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 21st, 2008
You know, we actually get a lot of calls asking if a passport is needed to enter Hawaii.
Is Hawaii a foreign country? Well, no, of course not. It’s the 50th of the United States and has been since 1959. But there are aspects of foreignness that make it seem so to a lot of people.
To begin with, it’s way out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, five hours away by plane from the West Coast. Our population has no ethnic “majority”; rather, a little bit of everything. There are two official languages: English and Hawaiian, but Hawaiian is rarely spoken, except when it’s sung. There’s a lot of pidgin, which everybody who lives here speaks a little. You can enjoy just about any kind of cuisine you can think of.
When you walk down the street, you’ll see people who look Asian, Hispanic, Middle-eastern, European and African-American, but we all dress pretty much alike to suit this wonderful climate.
No, you don’t need a passport, special paperwork, shots or anything. Everything considered, Hawaii’s like any other state in the union. Only nicer.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 20th, 2008
If you’re going to be on the island of Oahu over the Labor Day weekend, there’s a festival just outside of Downtown Honolulu that local people love and you will be fascinated by.
The 5th Annual "I Love Liliha" Town Festival will take place on Saturday, August 30th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Prince David Kawananakoa Playground and Kawananakoa Middle School (at the corner of Nuuanu Ave. and Kuakini St.).
The Festival provides a venue for showcasing all the things unique to the Liliha community and features performances by the Royal Hawaiian Band, a special appearance by the Honolulu mayor, savory treats from local food vendors, (including Liliha Bakery’s world famous Cocoa Puffs, which you must sample while you’re here) and much, much more.
The ubiquitous saimin was born here, and is offered throughout the area in dozens of plate-lunch palaces, drive-ins, and ethnic restaurants. Beautiful Oahu Cemetery is the final resting place of royalty, national figures and local legends. Virtually every religious denomination is represented in the area. The purple pigeons of Puunui fly at sunset. While Kunawai Springs Park once housed an ancient natural healing center where bubbling mud carried elements of revitalization, the area now is home to medical facilities that represent all disciplines and traditions of health care.
Keiki (kids) can participate in fun activities, games and play in bounce houses, and your kids can interact with the local kids. Food booths will offer local staples, and there will be learning exhibits and a health fair for seniors.
It’s a terrific way to indulge in local Hawaii, have a good time, and even learn some of the lesser-known lore of this Paradise.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 19th, 2008
As you read this, three hardy people are sailing to Hawaii from California in very unlikely craft … for a cause.
To call attention to plastic marine debris, two men are aboard a sail-powered junk. No, not a junk such as the Chinese sailing vessels you’ve seen depicted in Hong Kong Harbor. It’s a boat made of … well, junk; 15,000 plastic bottles and other refuse held together by discarded fishing nets used to support a scuttled Cessna fuselage, appropriately named the “Junk.”
The other boat – a 24-footer named the “Brocade” is being ROWED by a woman for the same purpose as she attempts to become to first woman to row solo across the Pacific. The three sailors, Joel Paschal, Marcus Eriksen and Roz Savage, met last week aboard the Junk, some 600 miles northwest of the islands. Paschal and Erikson departed from Long Beach; Savage from San Francisco.
The focus of their efforts is to raise awareness of an area of plastic debris in the ocean called the North Pacific Gyre, a clockwise-rotating mass of water roughly twice the size of the U.S., where currents and winds slow down. It’s referred to as “a toilet bowl that never flushes." According to Savage, the ultimate purpose of the effort is to see greater personal responsibility for limited one-time use of plastics and a more responsible policy for limiting single-use disposables.
The Junk is expected to reach the Ala Wai Boat Harbor in Waikiki on August 27. Savage and the Brocade are expected in Waikiki a couple of days later.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 18th, 2008
Visitors to Hawaii are stimulating enormous growth in an industry whose scope is unique to the Hawaiian Islands: Tropical Specialty Fruits such as atemoya, longan, lychee, mango, persimmon, rambutan and starfruit.
It’s just been announced that Hawaii’s growers of those breeds produced — and sold — 2.3 million pounds of fruit in 2007, an increase of 59 percent from 1.4 million in 2006!
In the last few years, visitors have caught on to Hawaii Regional Cuisine, which uses locally-grown ingredients and flavors them with ethnic contributions from all over the world.
In most excellent island restaurants, the salads are special. The simplest “house salad,” enhanced by the simplest house dressing, somehow tastes more lively, and the leafy ingredients – simple though they may be – seem more robust, more “fluffy,” than vacationing diners are used to, and those visitors seem to love the difference. They also love the mild-yet-vivid flavors of the mild-yet-vivid flavors of the locally-grown fruits and vegetables used.
There’s a reason for that. Hawaii’s tropical climate provides a year-round growing season. That creates flavors more intense than the flavors of even greens grown in “seasonal” climates. In Hawaii’s farming areas, plants grow in volcanic, muddy soil that’s fertile, easily worked, and loaded with minerals. Chefs in Hawaii choose their salad greens with passionate care. They look for bright colors and greens that look crisp, moist and fresh. (Brown or dark green spots and withering leaves are a sign of aging.) They look for heads of lettuce that are tight. To determine whether a head of lettuce is fresh, a chef will turn it over and look at the base. If it’s starting to turn brown, he or she will look for one that looks more freshly cut. Most chefs establish relationships with farmers they trust to provide the very highest-quality greens, precluding the need for them to examine every plant that arrives at the restaurant’s kitchen.
Today, more than 40 fruits and vegetables are grown in Hawaii on more than 5,500 farms. 50 years ago, there were fewer than 3,700 such farms growing 28 varieties. Until settlers started arriving from other lands in the nineteenth century, Hawaiians had only mountain apples, sugarcane, bananas, coconuts, and kukui nuts for fruits, and only taro, breadfruit, sweet potatoes, yams, ti roots, and some seaweeds and ferns to serve as vegetables. Captain James Cook brought seeds of pumpkins, melons and onions. Farmers learned from Europeans how to grow watermelons, strawberries, oranges, and many Occidental vegetables. Don Marin, a remarkable presence in the islands, introduced other vegetables and a variety of fruits that have become staples: guavas, pineapples, limes, lemons, prickly pears and mangoes. Settlers from the Orient brought – or imported – the seeds or stocks of plants they needed to prepare the food to which they were accustomed: fruits such as persimmon, lychee, Satsuma orange, dragon’s eye and pummelo; vegetables such as daikon, won bok, gobo, dasheen, soybean, rice, bitter melon, and eggplant. Hawaii’s new wave of chefs uses the gamut, and diners in Hawaii’s restaurants are enjoying the results.
Accordingly, Hawaii’s visitors are invigorating a very important industry to these special islands.
Posted by Jim Winpenny
August 15th, 2008
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