Daily Blog for Lawrence Fujiwara

Today we went to the Happa trail and Koloa Field System preserve 1. At both of the sites I worked with Jake to record the spectrometer readings. Both sites were ancient irrigational sites. Hawaiians used rocks to make “auwai” or irrigation ditches for their fields. At the sites I recorded the spectrometer readings of rocks used to make an auwais and other spectrometer readings of rocks used for other than auwais such as habitation platform. I am very excited to see if there are any differences in the spectrum readings. Also have a safe trip back to California Dr. Wechsler!

Today we went to the Napoli state beach. We woke up at 4am (no its not a typo) to go to the harbor. We took two zodiac boats to go to this remote beach on the western side of Kauai. The Napoli beach had remnants of Hawaiian buildings which was very interesting. The beach was a very interesting place in that it had high cliffs all around except facing the cliff. Anyway here are some pics of the beach and the area.

 (beach)

 (recreated Hawaiian structure with the big cliff in the back)

 (more beach/cliff pics)

Today everyone in the group got together to do something fun instead of field work. We left our house at 8:30am and we went to go see the Waimea canyon. It was a wonderful place so full of vegetation and massive canyons. After the Waimea canyon, made a quick stop at a coffee shop and went to the beach. We stayed at the beach all day and it was wonderful to be in the warm/clear water and relax. Also today was the first sunset I have seen since I was in Kauai.

 (group at the beach)

On June 23, 2012 I went to the upper and lower quarry all day with David Burney. For the lower quarry the archaeology group, Jake, Paul went with David Burney. At the lower quarry we saw some amazing rock features, fossils of extinct snails in rocks, caves and marshes. After lunch the archaeology group went with David Burney to the upper quarry. In the upper quarry the terrain and vegetation was much different. It was mostly full of “haole koa” (leucaena leucocephala). The day was full of adventures and I had a great hike following Dr. Burney.  After hiking pretty much all morning and afternoon with Dr. Burney, I went to the vegetation grid to see the Gatewing X100 launch. It was the first time I saw it launch and land and it was very cool.

Here are the pics of the adventure

 (Dr. Burney pointing at a fossilized extinct snail)

  (Gatewing X100 launch)

Today  we went to the NTBG facility in the morning to do data analysis. After lunch I went with Dr. lee, Dr. Wechsler, Ted, Dr. Burney and some of the archaeology group members for an adventure. The first place we stopped at was a church built in 1841 and the first Catholic Church that was built in Kauai. At the church we observed the open area (behind the church) for potential UAV launch and landing. Afterwards we walked the Hapa trail (I don’t know the spelling and also a potential area we may want to look at from the UAV). After walking the trail we went to a Heiau. This Heiau is a different Heiau called preserve 1 in the Koloa field system. After observing the Heiau we went to get shave ice. Thank you Dr.Wechsler and Dr. Lee for the shave ice! Fyi I had half lemon lime and half mango shave ice.

Looking at heiau preserve 1 in the Koloa field system made me a bit depressed. Its not that the heiau is in ruins that made me a bit depressed but that it has no name and that its name is simply called preserve 1.  Made me sad to learn that none remembers the name of this ancient sacred Hawaiian temple.

Heres the pic of the heiau

Today I assisted Jake and went on a hike to collect spectrometer readings of different types of rocks around the Heiau. We collected spectrometer reading of 5 different types of rocks. I learned to use the spectrometer because of Jake’s awesome teaching method. Thanks Jake!

Today we hiked the Mahaulepu trail and saw remnants of ancient Polynesian temple called Heiau. The Mahaulepu trail was a beautiful trail along the coast.  At the Heiau I helped out (or tried to at least) Jake (graduate assistant) in recording the spectrometer readings of the Heiau stone structures covered in lichem. The Heiau stone is basically volcanic stone. During the hike there were lots of flash rains which were very refreshing and helped cool me down. After the hike and we headed home, the rain picked up. After having tacos for dinner (since it’s a Tuesday J) we went to the NTBG facility and had a lecture on geology.

Mahaulepu trail pics

Heiau pics

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Today David Burney gave us a tour around the botanical gardens and around the area. We mainly toured around Poipu which is southern area of Kauai. We also flew a kite (unfortunately we could not attach a camera to it because of the conditions of the wind) and flew a small remote controlled aircraft with a gopro on it. I am excited to look at these gopro pictures to do some remote sensing analysis. Words cannot explain the beauty of what I saw today during the tour so I will let the pictures I took do the talking. Enjoy!

Tree (forgot the name but this type of tree was used in the movie Jurassic Park)

Dr.Wechsler driving through the National Tropical Botanical Garden

Lizard (again don’t know the species name)

Beach

Flying the kite

Abandoned sugar mill

Today we got up at 5am to catch a flight at 9am. The flight from LAX to Kauai was about 5hrs (not bad at all) After landing we had a delicious big appetizer  feast. Later when everyone was settled in, we explored a bit outside our place where we are staying at (National Tropical Botanical Gardens). Here are some pics of our small exploration outside our house we are staying at.

Today was our day off (well I should say catch up and reading day) I was able to get up late today at around 10am and did some readings for my research. I also downloaded images and started to play around with it. Today was a very relaxing day where I was able to rest my body and mind for Hawaii. I am very excited to fly to Hawaii but not too excited about waking up early (5am) to drive to LAX. Next blog post will be from Hawaii!