Where the Sidewalk Ends.: How about those Rainbow Warriors!

02 December 2007

How about those Rainbow Warriors!

On a tiny island, in a tiny room listening to tiny computer speaker, on an atoll 600 miles to the Northwest of Aloha Stadium, there was rejoice.

Washington 28 (12) Hawai'i 35

And there was dancing in the colony. This after C. Brennan's go-ahead TD pass within the final minute.

When the ball bounced off the UW receiver's chest and was intercepted in the endzone in the final seconds, relief and celebration broke out.

Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals atoll, Northwestern Islands, Hawai'i yells back at O'ahu and the main islands, "PERFECT 12-0, Go 'Bows!!."

We yell even louder toward the mainland and the sleeping East Coast writers and poll voters, "B - C - S BOWL!!!!"

This morning, on Tern I., the several thousand Hawai'i fans are sky high. They all want Sugar Bowl Shirts.

Though they can never find shirt sizes in albatross (Laysan & Black-footed first 2 pics) or frigatebird(female Great Frigatebird pic above), they remain hopeful.

What a season. Congrats UH-Manoa, students, alum, fans. Congrats main islands. Congrats O'ahu and Honolulu. Congrats to the O family, longtime season ticket holders and dear friends of my family and me.

From ALL of Hawai'i, Nihoa and Necker Islands and way up the NW Chain to Kure atoll...

In the middle, between the Big Island and Kure, French Frigate Shoals atoll says

GO 'BOWS!!!!!!!

-mwyork

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Go Sugar BOWS. Loved the dancing in the colonies and all other pics and repartee! Wonderful entry!
JLY; December 2, 2007 at 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Matt,
Great pictures, great commentary. Now lets see if the ocean is mightier than the bayou.
Thanks for the continuing flow of pictures...remarkable.
bd; December 2, 2007 at 2:23 PM
MWYork said...: The ocean becomes less and less pacific as we push toward winter. The waves are quite tall and powerful where open & deep ocean meet shallow reef. Tern I. sees this to the north and the island is on the north "edge" of the reef & atoll.

The underwater currents must certainly be stronger than the bayou's currents. Though I've never snorkelled the latter.

Thanks for reading.

paz; December 2, 2007 at 3:43 PM

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Hawaiian Monk Seals

The most endangered seal in the U.S., with only around 1500 in existance. This animal has always had a fragile phenology due to the precarious transition from nursing pup - to weened pup. This species had its population lowered due to a number of factors including human harrassment, historical hunting among others. There are those in certain groups and agencies that have had the opinion that in order to help this animal, the culling of the Galapagos Shark, one of its main predators, from nearby waters that seals use as the way to bring the population back. An oceanic apex predator had nothing to due with the seals' population decline. Interesting how we humans immediately go to predator persecution in various aspects of wildlife management and conservation. The last shark crew on Tern I., not without effort, took all of zero Galapagos Sharks. Cunning, we as a species are sometimes. Anyhow, the outlook for the HI Monk Seal is not a rosy one, though many biologists are working extremely hard on its behalf. The world has already lost the Caribbean Monk Seal and the Mediterranean Monk Seal. Unfortunately these guys may be next. I felt absolutely honored and fortunate to have been able to see them during their extremely important restings on the shore, as well as the incredible experiences of being with them once in awhile snorkeling.

Tristram's Storm-petrel (Oceanodroma tristrami)

According to The Birds of NA, no.673, 2002; In the US this sp. breeds only on HI Archipelago, where it is the rarest and smallest breeding seabird, exact location for most colonies are still unknown.(we have them on Tern, and monitor the small population).The TRSP is one of the largest Storm-petrels. Breeding only in the remote NW HI Islands and small islands off Japan. It is considered threatened.(Birdlife International,2000) Because of the secretive habits and remoteness and/or inaccessibilty of their breeding sites, estimates of populations are out of date and inaccurate, making their protection difficult.**This guy was bumping our screen door last night. A tubenose, like shearwaters, petrels, even albatross. **For more about TRSP's, refer to the Nov. 4th entry entitled Nocturne.