This past Sunday Brian and I went to visit Bellows Airforce Station beach. It’s right before you get to Waimanalo (where we picked up our table and went to the farm). Brian and I are completely puzzled why this beach isn’t more popular. It’s only open on the weekends; during the week they use it for training purposes. On the weekends there is no guard checking IDs to the main beach. Ample parking and facilities. The surf is a little higher but nothing more than we’d see at, say, misquamicut. There are lifeguards. Picnic tables and grills.
Looking back at the two islands you see in my sunrise picturesLooking toward Waimanalo
Again, this is a SUNDAY. Where is everyone? Maybe Hawaii’s best kept secret. It’s a good thing these guys are scared of me, because they blend in so well I could barely see him.
I really wanted to go to check out the “market”. I am betting before COVID it was a little more happening, but for now it was 4-5 vendors and two food stations. The chicken meal we got from here was DELICIOUS.
And we got Elote Corn from here, it was good but a bit pricey for the size.
We could see this being a place to organize a BBQ and beach day with some friends. It’s super quiet, plenty of parking and space. We honestly don’t know why more people don’t come here, except maybe the drive?
Getting into photography with a professional grade camera has come with the blessing and curse of learning photo editing. Blessing because even with a really professional camera, editing can help improve picture quality. It has also helped me learn to not compare my quality to others because I can tell when a photograph has been edited. Curse because it feels like another huge skillset to develop and more money.
One particular issue cameras have is their dynamic range, or ability to capture bright light and low light at the same time. You most definitely have experienced this trying to take a picture of people in front of the sun. You can either get their faces exposed (the right lighting and visible) and the back is completely bright white OR the back is exposed and you can see blue sky and yellow sun but their faces are black. It turns out the solution doesn’t *have* to be that the object needs to face the sun.
You see what I’m talking about with an iPhone. Find the sun or really bright background, **DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN WHILE DOING THIS** find an object in front of it, and tap the object. Let it focus and you’ll see a yellow box with a sun around it, which means it’s exposing for the object. Look at the background and it’s bright and not capturing much color.
Now tap the background. The yellow box should move to the background and there should be more color captured there. However, the object will be dark.
It’s pretty incredible to admit, but professional cameras have this same problem. They’re definitely better at it, but not great. So I had to learn how to change my camera settings and what software to get to take pictures when I experience an environment like this. The process starts with taking a number of photos with different exposures, called “brackets”, like I did above with the tree. Expose the light to get the color for the tree, and expose the light to get the color for the sky. I usually do three, but my camera can do up to 7? 14 maybe? Then use a software to “stack” them. Here are the three I did for the Pyramid Rock beach picture.
Exposed for the light of the sky to get the colorsMiddle “neutral” Exposed for the Pyramid Rock to get the colors
If you’re super interested in the nitty gritty, you can refer to this article and look at the Aurora HDR part, which is what I use. But truly I add pictures to this software and it does the rest.
It’s equal parts colorful in the sky and bright on the rock, which is a lot closer to what the naked eye can see. There are ways to perfect this technique, like using a tripod so the camera doesn’t move between shots, making sure there’s nothing moving in your shot… I also find the sky blue is a tad off from reality; it somehow becomes a more turquoise (I’ve seen this a couple times). I’m sure I could figure out how to color correct. For now I’ve found my basic skill development satisfactory for what I need to accomplish.
I’m also confident you could expose for the sun and work editing magic to make just the pyramid brighter. I think I like the coming out of the camera strategy better.
I try to avoid this because of the editing intensive it is, but it comes in handy.
Waimanalo is the neighborhood next to us and is where a lot of locals live. It’s also where Obama bought property. The drive to Waimanalo Country Farms is a bit… sketchy… but once you turn a corner it all makes sense. They plant a huge field of sunflowers and stage them so they bloom throughout the “summer”. And in case you were wondering, no, sunflowers are not native to Hawaii.
They had fun props to stage pictures. Brian said that summer can official start now that we have a picture that says “Hello Summer”. What a wise guy. I don’t think summer really ever ends here.
I couldn’t resist using the bathtub, it had a layer of dirt so I’m awkwardly suspending myself. I should’ve just went all in, maybe next time.
We got lemonade with the price of entry. I tried Li Hing flavored (it tastes sort of like fruity pink lemonade). They also had mango, pineapple, and a couple others. I treated my friend to entry for her birthday. We were laughing about Brian’s attempts at shooting this picture for us.
There were yard games but they were occupied so we end up chatting (the men about submarines) and taking pictures and exploring. Fun night out in the “country”!
Brian and I went to secret beach snorkeling, it was his first time there and my second. If you recall, my first time snorkeling there felt like a bit of a dud, so I set low expectations for Brian. We went left coming off the beach this time, and were rewarded heartily.
We encountered turtles twice, we’re not entirely sure they were different turtles. You might get sick of my turtle pictures, but it’s kinda like when people have kids and can’t stop posting pictures of them. So here’s some turtle spam.
Resting in Reef
Swimming along
About to get air
Eating some algea
Snack time
Cruising along
The Stare Down
Doing his turtle thing
blending in with the reef
Shaka for the honu!
My proudest capture, beside that first turtle picture, was of this eel.
Moray Eel
I think a bit of ignorance is bliss when doing these types of things, because immediately a million thoughts came to my mind like “are they aggressive? Should I ‘run’? What if I get stung by it?” But turns out he’s pretty scared of me and I didn’t see him again once he disappeared. I think this is a Dragon moray eel.
The water was really calm. My only regret was eating stromboli too closely to going, I didn’t digest it well horizontally. I was not nauseous after, though. For some reason it felt like there was a hole in my snorkel (well, there is… but in this case the snorkel was vertical and it still felt like water was getting in). Brian said the same thing, so maybe it was some weird fluke with wind? Hopefully it was a one off.
These posts take an overwhelming time to create/edit. I’ll probably only post pictures of cool new animals I see moving forward. And of course sea turtles.
All beaches in Hawaii are public beaches. However, the Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) has 5 beaches that you can only access if you have base access. #workperks However, you can apply for base access even if you’re a civilian and it’s good for one year. The pictures don’t have the best lighting, it was cloudy, but I was tired of waiting for the perfect day to photograph, so you’ll just have to pretend or come see for yourself.
There are five beaches on the MCBH. This post will talk about three of them, and I’ll get to the other two eventually. First up is Fort Hase Beach (pronounced Hah-see). It’s probably the most convenient to the gym/main part of base. It overlooks Kailua and Lanikai, the area where I live.
Then looking left you can see base housing.
There is a lot of reef and rocks sticking up out of the water, which makes it difficult to swim. The surf is also really high. According to my friend, during low tide it creates a lot of fun tide pools for kiddos to use, but I haven’t been at low tide so I haven’t been able to verified that. Lots of sea glass opportunities. There is some open area for swimming without reef. And as you can see, I currently have the entire beach to myself (4pm on a Friday, though).
Convenience: A+
Parking: A+ (paved option and designated)
Swimmable: C-
Lifeguards: No
Bathroom: Port-o-potty
Sea glass: B+
Up next is North Beach. This is the beach that Brian and I ran (trotted) during the surf and turf 5k. It’s a little further away than Ft. Hase. There isn’t any real parking lot for it, just street parking. You have to take stairs down to get to it. More rocks on the shoreline, but I think more room without rocks.
Toward the right side of the first picture you’ll see a pyramid shaped rock. That’s by the third beach I’ll talk about next. North Beach is a popular beach for surfers. (I need to work on remembering to up my shutter speed during action photos, this is a little blurry).
All beaches have a lot of signs about who to call if you see wildlife in danger or nesting. There were a couple of these roped off nesting spots on North Beach. I wonder if the turtles approve of the imposed redecoration. Unfortunately, no actual turtle sighting.
This had more people on the beach, I think because it has more swimming space. It can be rough surf.
Convenience: B
Parking: C (street)
Swimmable: B
Lifeguards: Yes
Bathroom: No?
Sea glass: D
The third and final beach for this post is Pyramid Rock beach, which is essentially adjacent to North Beach. This first picture will look very similar to the one from North beach in the same direction.
This is the picture of its namesake, that Pyramid rock I mentioned earlier. (Tangent about photography. To create this picture I actually stitched together three different exposed pictures. Having the setting sun reflect bright in the clouds would wash out the sky, but then exposing for the sky would make the “rock” a dark blob. Will write a post about this later).
There weren’t any lifeguards at the time, but I believe there can be on certain days with certain currents. To get to this beach you have to cross the airfield, so it’s a bit far. Crossing the airfield is normally easy, but if they’re doing training exercises you’ll get stuck behind a gate (think railroad crossing except for planes).
Convenience: C
Parking: B (dirt patch)
Swimmable: B+
Lifeguards: Sometimes?
Bathroom: No?
Sea glass: D
Another #workperk is some of the recreational activities available to us. Here is a beach cottage you can rent out on the MCBH (there are a few on this side of base). Civilians can’t be unaccompanied without applying for access first, but if you came and visited we could rent one out and get you a pass. They supposedly book quickly though.
Moral of the story, MCBH has quite a few beaches if you’re looking for a quiet respite from the tourists, or for a quick walk on a different beach after the gym. I’ll recap the last two when I get pictures of them. Three beaches in one day is a lot!
I made another Brian and Sarah favorite recipe today. Remember the pizza dough I made a while back? It’s good for about a week before it starts to rip and get smelly. So I used the last two on Stromboli. Here’s the recipe I base it off of, but I’ll show you pictures of my process. Start by preheating the oven/grill in this case to 500 ~30 minutes before starting your stromboli prep. Basically, you’re trying to get the Baking steel to absorb heat for a long time so that it’ll retain heat when you add the food (in this case stromboli) and it will maintain the inner temperature of the stove/grill better.
Stretch out dough into an approximate rectangle (I go for 12″ long and wide enough before it starts breaking.)
Add pesto. The recipe calls for mustard, but Brian doesn’t like mustard. Try to find a thicker pesto. Minimizing grease is helpful.
Add meat assortment. I’m a fan of turkey and some sort of salami or sopressata.
Usually I add cheese next, but it’s been a couple months so I added veggies. This can be anything that you’d find in a sandwich that would heat well. So, not like lettuce but any type of onion or maybe even spinach. Here I have peppers and onions (pretty Italian).
Then add cheese. Again, normally I do swiss, but I hadn’t picked any up so went with pepper jack.
Finally, roll up like a cinnamon roll and pinch closed.
Repeat for a second time. The second is because you’ll want leftovers.
Add to the Baking steel.
Cook for a good 10-13 minutes. The bottom will come out nice and crispy. The top will crisp up if in the oven, the recipe calls to broil it the last couple minutes I think. In the grill it didn’t as much, but that’s ok.
This dough is a little old so it split pretty easily. Slice and there you have it!
I like using a curved slicer because it tends not to push ingredients through. I will usually add hot sauce to it and added this Da Kine Hot Mustard Sauce and it was AMAZING. Here’s a Wikipedia article on “Da Kine” language origin and maybe a better one from Atlas Obscura.
I feel like if my dad knew how much I spent on a piece of steel to cook with, he might think I am crazy… but I can’t argue with how delicious the food comes out. I also hear that pizza stones break really easily. The Baking Steel will break anything well before anything breaks it. Definitely one of my favorite kitchen items.
I snuck away from work for the sunrise today, big surprise no one missed me. I just got back for a walk around 4pm to pick up trash and made a mistake before leaving. Rule 1 of Hawaii: Always wear sunscreen Rule 2: If you think you don’t need sunscreen because it’s past 3pm, see Rule 1. Hopefully I have enough of a base layer that it won’t be too bad tomorrow.
I saw this lovely Sandcastle, the biggest I’ve seen yet.
And tried to grab a selfie with my full trash bag and plumeria tree to redeem the mood. Have you ever tried to take a selfie with a full trash bag and a plumeria tree in the background? If you haven’t because you would think it a crazy idea, you’re correct.
I get a few thank you’s and thumbs up when I’m doing this. Today, a lady said “It is both sad and heartwarming that I see you do that” and that’s a pretty good summation.
Dad had his hip surgery today and all went well. He was able to call me after surgery. Tomorrow he needs to be able to walk and walk up a step to go home. I am pretty confident with his ego will he will.
Last night I dreamt that I had another sub family visit us and as soon as they settled in I started balling to the wife about how hard it is to be a subwife and she basically said “Yup, suck it up”. Which is NOT her personality at all. It really truly isn’t all that awful right now, but still funny I dreamt it.
Sunrise walks are taking a hiatus while I am on backup to the backup to the backup for this manufacturing run. If they end early they’ll hopefully tell us. Otherwise, see you next week sunrise.
We had a pretty busy, but low key 4th. We started with running the Run the Runway 5k at 6:45, which is put on by the Marine Corps base by us. We ran all the way up one side of the runway and all the way back down the other. The race organizer said to “chase the ocean then chase the mountains”. Chasing the ocean was far harder because of the wind. Chasing the mountains was prettier and included a rainbow (my second sighting).
Chasing the oean
Chasing the mountains
My time was significantly better than the last one, 38 minutes vs 48. Still a long ways to go from my sub 30 minute time. I did feel like it was more my legs than my breath preventing me from running faster, which is a huge improvement. Lungs are still not back to 100% operational. I ran it with Brian and a friend Caitlyn.
We went and got breakfast from Morning Brew and I grocery shopped to make this black bean and mango salad to bring to a BBQ later. The friends hosting had it at their last BBQ and it contained peppers. My friends is allergic to nightshades, so she was really excited to try it until she realized there were some in it. As a surprise I made it again nightshade free, until I realized when we got there I had put diced jalapeños in it (ugh!). But she continually exposes herself to nightshades in low doses so she won’t become deathly allergic and they weren’t that dense in the salad so she ate it anyway and did fine.
Then Mrs. Eng came over and we went swimming in Lanikai with her pup, Hudson, who is turning 1 year in a couple weeks. He does NOT like the water. He was very hot and she was trying to work on exposing him, so in he went.
It was unfortunately on and off rain pretty much all day and very windy. It was *kinda* cold to be swimming. We didn’t stay too long. We came back and as we were cleaning up I stepped on a bee and was stung. That hurt pretty good and my toes swelled. Thankfully now it’s merely wicked itchy. After I recovered we cooked and ate pizza and after she left we took a pretty long nap.
Then we went to our friends place for the BBQ turned into fireworks watching. They are up on a hill overlooking a valley. Again it was rainy and cloudy, so thankfully we were under the roof cover but viewing the fireworks show at the Marine Corps Base was less than ideal.
Back to front Chip, Caitlyn’s leg, Dan, Jess, BrianMarine Base fireworks were hazy
This was my first crack at photographing fireworks. I understand the philosophy of being in the moment and just watching vs. trying to photograph and missing being in the moment. However, this was more about learning the technique and having some fun experimenting. I probably won’t photograph every firework, but this was a cool experiment. I improved as the night went on.
Those close fireworks were lit off from inside the neighborhood. Fireworks in Hawaii are illegal… They are in MA as well, but you need a mere adventure over the border to NH to get around that one. Word on the street is in Hawaii you make friends with guys working in the shipping yards. Brian and I aren’t enthusiastic about checking out that theory.
We slept in really late today (7:45, ha) and I am “working” this morning. I am the backup to the backup to the backup for a manufacturing run. I need to be within 5 minutes of my work computer from 2am-11am and have my phone on in case I get a call. So I am here writing and Brian left to go try to pick up the SUP we bought. By try I mean I threw out the receipt, so hopefully they acknowledge it was him who bought it, and hopefully he can get it on top of the Venza strapped ok.
I bet you couldn’t read that title without say “doo doo doo doo doo doo” after. You’re welcome.
Brian wanted me to take a picture of his new car ornament, presumably so I could post about it… he even made sure the shot I took was with the ocean in the background.
Today’s highlights included Brian buying a paddle board and having a ukulele play in Church. I bought a paddle board as well, but the woman isn’t leaving for a couple weeks and wanted to use it for a little bit longer, so I put a deposit on it.
