The Statehood of Hawaii

Magda introduced me to Rikki. He's in his 70s with dark skin and a shock of wild white hair, and he's lived in Hawaii all his life. He wears an orca tooth on a leather strap around his neck, which is the sign of a warrior. He is a fantastic guy. He's very spiritual and knows all about the island. He is against statehood -- apparently before Hawaii became a state, there was an opposition. I had no idea about that. part of the movement was that some women went door to door with a petition and got 3,000 signatures. Rikki wants to see Hawaii become its own nation again.

Rikki thanked me for what I'm doing for the honu. He gave me his phone number and said to call him if anybody tries to give me trouble about the turtles.

Sometimes at night at Ho'okipa, after all the tourists are gone, Rikki sits with the honu and plays his nose flute for them, and they know him and trust him. (Click on the link to see a nose flute. Basically it's a flute made of bamboo and you blow it with air from your nose instead of from your mouth.) When he surfs, they swim alongside him. He walked very close to them and among them, and I was jealous when I saw that because I can't know the turtles that well.

I identified another turtle and asked Magda and Rikki what I should name it. Rikki said that a name must reflect who someone is, and I said I don't know enough about this honu yet to know who it is. Rikki laughed and said, "Then don't name it yet."

Honu #4
Female, lines between scutes very visible when dry, plastron curves up a lot, white spot on top where radio transmitter used to be attached, dent between fourth and fifth scute on edge of shell.

I just realized I should put a list of vocabulary words.
Scute: (pronounced "scoot") an individual plate on the shell
Plastron: the underside of the shell

Well that was a short list!

We all went to Hannah's house for dinner and talked about the colonization of Hawaii. It was very informative and interesting.

I've tried several times now to upload a picture of Honu #4, but for some reason I keep getting an error message. So here is a picture of a rainbow instead.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Honu Friends

Image
I finally got a Hawaii Wildlife Fund volunteer T shirt! I'm official! This is really great because it means that when I ask tourists to stay away from the turtles, there is a greater chance that they will listen to me. Allow me to illustrate. One day before I had a shirt ( actually things like this have happened many days )  some people were standing very near the turtles and I yelled at them to please stand back, but they paid no attention. I was very angry. The respectful tourists were upset too, and I wish I had a hat or shirt or something to make me look official so people would listen to me. One woman in particular would not listen to anything I said, and continued to stand right next to the turtle and take selfies with it. When she was walking away, she tripped on a rock. I laughed.  The very next day I got my shirt. I was at the beach with Magda, and she gave me the clipboard and said, "Today is your day. Name some turtles and take data." I named three new turtl...
Read more

Look what the storm dragged in

Image
There's not a lot to report turtle-wise. I go to Ho'okipa every day, keep away the rude tourists, and talk to the respectful ones about turtles. It's been raining a lot recently and the ocean has been pretty violent. The lifeguards sometimes put up a no swimming sign, and this is very helpful because it means that the tourists don't complain about the swimmers. "Those people are swimming and there's turtles in the water. Why can't I go take a picture right next to one of these turtles?" Well, it's a public beach and there's only so much we can do. People are allowed to use the water. But that doesn't mean you can go stand next to one of these turtles who are all trying to get some beauty sleep. Of course this explanation only gets groans, grumbles, and from time to time no response whatsoever. So I really like the no swimming sign. A couple of nights ago there was a huge storm and the entire island lost power. Apparently this happens ev...
Read more

The Swell

Image
The past few days have been very slow. The swell has been huge. This means the sea level is really high and there are a lot of big waves. Beaches have been closed because it's dangerous to get in the water. The storm and the swell brought in a lot of debris and driftwood and now the water is brown and gross near the shore. When the swell is so big, the turtles stay in the water. There's no point in coming on the beach to bask because they'd just get washed right back out to sea. We don't really know where they go. Maybe around to the other side of the island, or maybe they hide out in underwater nooks and crannies and lava structures and small caves. So no swimming, no turtle-watching, and no turtles. I've been filling my time by updating my travel journal (which I have neglected for far too long) and working on an essay. The essay is a summary of what I've learned during my time here. It's something that interns do so they can put their experience on thei...
Read more