Kihei Service
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| Our pleasurable service duty while
on this part of the island was to assist Dr. Marsha Green, a professor
of psychobiology, by gathering research for one of her current projects.
It relates to whale movements and the interactions of whales with
powerboats.
On a hill behind the tiny community of Olowalu, beneath the bright Hawaiian sun, she told us of her research and familiarized us with the instruments we would be using. Following the briefing and a bit of practice we broke for the day and were driven just a short distance away to a spot where Hawaiian petroglyphs could be seen, photos are below. We had a bit of a problem telling which were really ancient and which were modern forgeries. |
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PHOTO
BY MELODY |
Tripmate Marilyn, while walking up the trail to see the ancient art, apparently took a misstep and fell to the ground. Her first instinct was to quickly get up and "walk it off" but wiser heads convinced her to stay still. By great good fortune we had enough medical talent on this trip to have started a small hospital. Marilyn was well tended to and was transported to the local hospital where the diagnosis was that she had broken both bones in one of her lower legs. Problem: what to do with Marilyn now? We considered putting her out of her misery but no, she is way too nice a person for that. Bob (he is the one who greatly resembles the character Bull Shannon, the bailiff, on the old Night Court TV series) volunteered to carry her for the rest of the trip, and he probably could have done it without even slowing down, but that idea, too, was nixed. The final solution? She had planned to visit her niece on Oahu following our trip but she was able to advance the visit and flew there the next day. As of this writing she is still there recuperating but will be able to go home soon. She faces many more months of recuperation and then more months of physical therapy to get back on her feet. Marilyn: we were all sorry to lose you from the trip. Don't let this discourage you from future endeavors. |
| The next day, without Marilyn, we were
back at work. The photos below are from the current day, working
the hill mentioned earlier, and the following day at a spot right along
the main coastal highway where tourists were looking over our shoulders.
The instrument shown atop a tripod is called a Theadolite. An improvement over a surveyor's transit, it provides both a vertical and horizontal angle to a target, in this case either whales or boats. One of Dr. Greens research assistants would later use our readings to plot locations and tracks for the target objects. We were also keeping a written record of all the whale behaviors we could spot: surfacing, blowing, exposing fins, etc. |
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