Kauai Hawaii Quotes

At the end of the world the sunset is like a child smashing a pack of crayons into God’s face.

Pop trips over some vegetation and lets go. I’m roaring down the slanting, bumpy dirt path, trying to dodge the rocks and shrieking with delighted terror. I’m heading into the stand of Java plum trees at the end of our clearing when I lose balance and crash into a lantana bush. I’m winded and scratched as I try to crawl out of the prickly bush. My bike lies in the path, tires spinning, already getting smeared with red Kauai dirt. Pop runs over and picks me up to see if I’m okay. My knees have hit something and are scraped, lantana thorns tangle my hair, but I’m panting with excitement. “Let’s do it again!

As the men rode they saw for the first time the full grandeur of Hawaii, for they were to work on one of the fairest islands in the Pacific. To the left rose jagged and soaring mountains, clothed in perpetual green. Born millions of years before the other mountains of Hawaii, these had eroded first and now possessed unique forms that pleased the eye. At one point the wind had cut a complete tunnel through the highest mountain; at others the erosion of softer rock had left isolated spires of basalt standing like monitors. To the right unfolded a majestic shore, cut by deep bays and highlighted by a rolling surf that broke endlessly upon dark rocks and brilliant white sand. Each mile disclosed to Kamejiro and his companions some striking new scene. But most memorable of all he saw that day was the red earth. Down millions of years the volcanic eruptions of Kauai had spewed forth layers of iron-rich rocks, and for subsequent millions of years this iron had slowly, imperceptibly disintegrated until it now stood like gigantic piles of scintillating rust, the famous red earth of Kauai. Sometimes a green-clad mountain would show a gaping scar where the side of a cliff had fallen away, disclosing earth as red as new blood. At other times the fields along which the men rode would be an unblemished furnace-red, as if flame had just left it. Again in some deep valley where small amounts of black earth had intruded, the resulting red nearly resembled a brick color. But always the soil was red. It shone in a hundred different hues, but it was loveliest when it stood out against the rich green verdure of the island, for then the two colors complemented each other, and Kauai seemed to merit the name by which it was affectionately known: the Garden Island.

In every misfortune there are gifts. These gems born from great difficulty can only be found if one is courageous enough to dive beneath the surface to find them.

In many ways, Kaua‘i is the ultimate example of what a world would look like if plants were in charge. The whole island is covered in the surreal products of total floral freedom. When plants are allowed to evolve without fear, they get scrupulously and flamboyantly specific. Take the Hibiscadelphus genus, for example. Found only in Hawai‘i, these plants have long tubular flowers, custom-made to fit the hooked beak of the honeycreeper, the precise bird that pollinates them. Then there is the vulcan palm, Brighamia insignis, or ‘Ōlulu in Hawaiian, a short tree best described by its nickname, “cabbage on a stick.” Over tens of thousands of years, it has evolved to be pollinated only by the extremely rare fabulous green sphinx moth (its real name). The vulcan palm, still critically endangered in the wild, was saved from total extinction by Perlman’s work in the early days of the extinction prevention program, when he made his own harness out of knotted ropes and used it to hang over the Nā Pali Coast cliffs. There, four thousand feet in the air, he would use a small cosmetic brush borrowed from his wife to imitate the moth, carefully transferring the pollen from the males to the females. “You’d know if you did it well,” Perlman said. “When you’d go back, there’d be fruits just bursting open with seed.” (The vulcan palm is now cultivated as a houseplant in the Netherlands, where there are greenhouses full of them. I wonder if a person with a potted Vulcan palm on their Amsterdam windowsill knows of the drama it took to get it there.)

As she descended below the floor level of the loft, her former partner in juvenile crime was revealed to her from scuffed paniolo boots, up a long, muscled body that appeared to go on forever, to a venerable black Stetson. His cowboy look was new to her and it suited him. When she backtracked to his Hawaiian-sky blue eyes, she swayed under the impact and abruptly sat down. Any stair step would do." Noelani Beecham, Pele's Tears

There is something going on in Kauai which seems to be more toxic than the other Hawaiian islands.

There were eight main islands: Ni‘ihau, Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, Lana‘i, Maui, Kaho‘olawe, and Hawai‘i.

Shawn Smith Kauai is a dynamic professional hailing from Kauai , Hawaii, with a passion for Project Development and General Management.

Shawn Smith Kauai is a dynamic professional hailing from Kauai , Hawaii, with a passion for Project Development and General Management.

2. If Fornander, Kepelino and Kamakau conspired to falsify the accounts, they did a very poor job of it. Their legends differed and each gave different versions of the legends at different times. Their versions probably differed because they were handed down to them differently. As Handy says of the Marquesan sacred chants, “Every tribe had its own rendition of these sacred chants.”25 About the Kumuhonua and Nu‘u legends, Fornander says “so runs the Hawaii legends, but the legends of O‘ahu, Maui and Kaua‘i differ somewhat.”26 Fornander had heard at least four different versions of these legends. Their versions changed because they had heard different versions. If they were trying to promote Christianity, why didn’t they include any legends about Christ or New Testament concepts? After the “Moses” legends, why were there no legends about Joshua and Jericho, Gideon, Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, Elijah and Jezebel, or the other great stories of the Old Testament? Why would they pick instead a very distorted version of the story of Jonah, an incident that occurred after all of these other great events?

Fornander says that from ancient times, the three genealogies he lists were considered as equal in authority and independent of each other. He considered them the most accurate of the many he received. The Kumuhonua and Pa‘ao genealogies were of the priests and chiefs of Hawai‘i. The Kumu‘uli genealogy was of the chiefs of Kaua‘i and O‘ahu. It is interesting that all three record the first man and his three sons, and Nu‘u (Noah) and his three sons. The Kumuhonua and the Pa‘ao genealogies both continue to include Lua Nu‘u who corresponds to Abraham and his two sons, Kū Nawao (corresponding to Ishmael) and Kalani Mene Hune (corresponding to Isaac). They also include the two sons of Kalani Mene Hune, Aholoholo (Esau) and Kinilau-a-Mano (Jacob), and Kinilau-a-Mano’s twelve sons. These genealogies end with Papa Nui, the legendary female progenitor of the Polynesian people. These genealogies are from the later comers to Hawai‘i, the people who came from Tahiti. The genealogy of Kumu‘uli includes Nu‘u (Noah) but does not include Lua Nu‘u (Abraham) or his descendants. This genealogy ends with Wakea, the legendary male progenitor of the Hawaiian people.29 One could speculate that the Hawaiian people are the joining of two different groups of Proto-Polynesians in the marriage of Papa and Wakea. One line, the line of Wakea, splitting off towards the east at the time of the Tower of Babel, and the other splitting off toward the east sometime after the Israelites entered Canaan.*

Before they depart, Ru looks about him and names the directions: “The east he called Te-hitia-o-te-ra (The-rising-of-the-sun), the west Te-tooa-o-te-ra (The-setting-of-the-sun), the south he named Apato‘a, and the north Apatoerau”—terms we have encountered before, in the margins of Tupaia’s chart. Then, sailing from the west toward the Society Islands, Ru and Hina draw their canoe to each of the islands in turn, naming them in their proper geographic order: first Maupiti, then Bora Bora, then Taha‘a, then Ra‘iatea. A similar sequence occurs in the well-known Hawaiian story of the volcano goddess Pele, who sets out from her home in Kahiki in a canoe belonging to her brother Whirlwind, with Tide and Current as paddlers. Approaching the Hawaiian Islands from the northwest, she reaches first Ni‘ihau, then Kaua‘i, then O‘ahu, then each of the others in turn—following the correct geographic sequence—until, finally, she settles in a crater on the island of Hawai‘i.

Everything You Should Know About Planning a Trip to Hawaii Planning a trip to Hawaii should be just as fun as actually going to Hawaii. There are tons of awesome activities and beautiful resorts that you can stay at that it might be hard to choose.

(Among its many oddly colored beaches, Hawaii boasts a particularly rare one on the island of Kauai called Glass Beach. Much of its sand is made up of millions of colorful pieces of long-eroded glass.)

Left unsatisfied, the craving for sensations can become an actual hunger. A few years ago on a trip to Kauai, I noticed something funny. Five days in, I hadn’t had a single snack between meals. This was strange because, at home, I’m an inveterate grazer. There’s nearly always a packet of trail mix or a bowl of popcorn on my desk. But on this vacation, not a nibble. I realized that in Hawaii I was surrounded all day by the lush textures of the jungle, the whoosh of the ocean, and the smell of salt water. I had my feet in volcanic sand and a lei of plumeria flowers around my neck. I was satiated, head to toe. Sure enough, by 11:00 a.m. on that first day back in the office, I had my head in the snack cabinet, hunting for almonds. People are quick to blame habits, and to dismiss this as mindless eating, but I believe that ignores the root cause. In our humdrum environments, we live with a sensorial hunger, and without any other means to satisfy it, we feed it.