Kauai News & Information

For information and news events happening around Hawaii please visit Maui News & Information, and Hawaii News & Information.

Canada Based Airline Expanding Routes to Hawaii
By Gina Mangieri

In an otherwise weak tourism outlook for Hawaii, the trend from Canada is on the upswing, and about to get better.

A Canada-based airline expanding its winter routes to Hawaii, bringing thousands of visitors from the north our way each week. They may partner with upstart interisland airline Mokulele, and Hawaiian responds.

Westjet is boosting hawaii capacity about 20 percent this winter as demand from canadian tourists booms — 23 flights will bring 3,500 guests weekly.

Which can’t be said about Hawaii’s U.S. mainland market. Hawaii is seeing solid growth from Canada . They stay the longest, and they’re shopping.

Westjet flies from Vancouver to Honolulu, Maui and Kona. they’re eying Kauai, and they’re exploring a partnership with Mokulele airlines to pre-sell interisland packages.

Hawaiian Airlines President, Mark Dunkerley says, “If Westjet wants to give us a call we’d always be happy to talk to them, if they decide to go with somebody else we will be there competing as we always do.”

Mokulele last week announced its own expansion, citing a price and capacity void left by aloha. Hawaiian says the interisland pie is actually shrinking and that price is up in the air until Mokulele, GO and Hawaiian are actually battling it out as of next month.

“The marketplace has its own dynamic, we don’t set the fares, we don’t tell everybody what the fares should be. It’s unlikely they would be setting the fares and telling everybody what it would be.”

Hawaiian, meanwhile, remains committed to its 4 billion dollar airbus fleet purchase — what they say is the largest private sector investment in hawaii history. It makes possible nonstop routes as far away as the asian continent and europe. No word yet if Canada is on their list. But they welcome the added visitors Westjet will bring for now.

Westjet says they’re meeting with Governor Linda Lingle tomorrow about state marketing partnerships.

Early voting began today in 15 locations around the State of Hawaii. Residents of Kauai can vote early in this year’s election at the Historic County Annex – 4386 Rice Street, Lihue (next to the Historic County Building) between the hours of 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

The State Office of Elections is reminding Hawaii residents to bring picture identification with them. Registered voters can cast ballots in the presidential, congressional, state, and county elections. Early voting ends Nov. 1, three days before the general election.

For additional early voting locations across the state visit this link.

One of Kauai’s newest and finest destinations is Waipouli Beach Resort in Kapa’a. Located on beautiful Waipouli beach, this resort has been rated by Expedia voters as the number one resort in Hawaii and number 7 in the United States.

It’s easy to understand the resort’s popularity. Just a few minutes from Lihue Airport, visitors can arrive on the island, get their luggage and Kauai car rental and drive up the coast. A few minutes later they can step out of their condo and find themselves in Waipouli’s fabulous golden sand, sunshine and warm Pacific surf.

But that’s not all. The resort boasts a 2 acre fantasy pool with lazy river, water slides, spa, and a kiddy beach for the kids. A beach side cabana serving lunch and dinner and a full Aveda Lifestyle Spa & Fitness Center are also on property. Ocean views are available from elegantly furnished 1 and 2 bedroom condos complete with granite counter tops in the fully equipped kitchens and bathrooms.

Waipouli’s location in Kapa`a makes it easy to walk to nearby Kauai restaurants, shopping and golf. Plus Kapa`a is considered a central location for exploring the rest of the island of Kauai. Go north a few miles and you’re in Princeville. South is Poipu Beach.

See Waipouli Beach Resort and dozens of other condos on Kauai that are available by owners on the Summit Pacific website and consider your winter escape.

Moonrise over Waipouli Beach Resort
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The Good and the Bad News… by Doug Porter

Visitor arrivals to Hawaii were down nearly 17 percent in August and Kauai’s visitor arrivals were down 25 percent from last year. Visitor spending throughout the state and in Kauai is down similar percentages. The downward trend started earlier this year by rising airline ticket prices due to higher fuel costs and also the closing down of Aloha Airlines. These factors, combined with the more recent tailspin of the economy are taking their toll on the state. State tourism liaison, Marsha Winert said, “Hawaii’s visitor industry is feeling the effects of the continued softness in the national economy.”

“Softness” …have you looked at your 401K lately Marsha?

The good news is that if you’re coming to Kauai, there are some great deals to be had. Many hotels, resorts and other accommodations are slashing their prices. There are plenty of deals on privately owned Hawaii Vaction Rentals with owners trying to fill their calendars. There are deals on Hawaii car rentals too, especially if you go through companies that have negotiated special rates with the bigger national rental car companies. Nearly all sectors of the island economy are offering bargains as they try to hang on to market share. These discounts are helping. Certainly they help to offset the higher prices you pay to get here.

This fall we’ve even seen the airlines finally cutting their fares. There are some good deals if you look for mid-week travel. The bottom line is this, now is a good time to visit Hawaii. You’ll find the beaches and highways less crowded, better rates at hotels and some great deals on Kauai condos, plus everyone’s going to be glad to see you get off the plane.

Four people have drowned in the waters around Kauai in two days. This brings to 15 the total number of people that have drowned this year in Kauai and the island is in danger of breaking the all time record of 17 in one year set in the 1970s. The recent rash of drownings has caused Kauai officials to issue warnings to tourists to stay away from the ocean until the high swell subsides. Beaches north of Hanalei Bay were closed on Monday.

Two women drowned at Queens Bath on Sunday when they were swept off the rocks by a large wave. That same day a visitor from Japan died while snorkeling near Kapa’a. Another man drowned Monday when he entered the water at Hanakapiai Beach along the Na Pali Coast.

Queens Bath, Kauai

By Rick Barboza

Description: If you can find a more beautiful hibiscus species, I have got to see it to believe it. I don’t know what it is about this flower that draws me to it, but when it blooms it is a truly spectacular event. Don’t think that I’m exaggerating when I say “event,” because once you see it you’ll count the days until the next bud blooms.
Other people who own this plant tell me the same thing. In fact, one woman just told me that she saw this flower blooming in the store from a distance and had to walk across the garden department just to see it up close. It drew her in, spellbound by its beauty.
Hui Ku Maoli OlaThis gorgeous shrub is generally 4 to 10 feet tall. It has dark, glossy, green leaves with some varieties having reddish petioles that connect the leaves to the stem. But of course the most distinguishing feature is its amazing flowers, the most striking of all hibiscus. The blooms are bright orange to orange-red and so vivid, they almost look fluorescent.
Distribution: In the wild this rare endemic subspecies of Hibiscus kokio (typically a red hibiscus) is found only in the coastal valleys of northwestern Kauai and nowhere else in the world. I’ve seen these plants in the wild, and they stand out so much against any backdrop they almost look fake – as if they don’t belong, but in fact they do.
Landscape use: Whether used as a hedge or specimen plant, the St. John’s hibiscus makes a wonderful addition to any garden. It responds well to pruning and requires little water once established in the ground. Like all hibiscus, keep an eye out for the usual pests, such as aphids, whiteflies and mealybugs, but don’t let them discourage you from getting one. You’ll be more sorry if you don’t get to experience the flowers for yourself.
Right now this amazingly beautiful, ultrarare hibiscus is available at Home Depot stores on Oahu and Kauai for $12, or at Hui Ku Maoli Ola native plant nursery for $10. Get them before they become as rare in the stores as they are in the wild!
Additional information: The Hibiscus St. Johnianus is a highly variable plant. Flower colors range from dark orange-red to bright orange-yellow, and there is even a pure yellow variety that is extremely rare.
Outside our state flower, the endangered ma’ohauhele (Hibiscus brackenridgei), this is the only other pure yellow native hibiscus. Although hau (Hibiscus tiliaceus) is also considered a yellow flowered native hibiscus, it’s flowers are not pure yellow, as it has a large maroon center and the whole flower tends to turn pink-orange as the day goes on. The other two varieties will stay true to their yellow color until they fall off the plant.

By Pat Nelson

Home away from home. That’s what a house on the island of Kauai in Hawaii has occasionally been for a team of house sitters including three Woodland couples and families from Kelso, Castle Rock, Vancouver, Portland, St. Helens, and Deer Island.House sitting duties for my husband, Bob and I, began in 2004, when my son and daughter-in-law, Steve and Laura Ellsworth asked us to go to Kauai with them. Laura called her friends on Kauai to inquire about a good place to stay. It turned out her friend would be “off island” the same time we planned to be there. To our good fortune, they offered us the use of their home.The next year, that couple had friends who needed a house sitter for six weeks. The four of us were recommended. We couldn’t cover the entire six weeks, so another couple stayed part of the time, followed by Steve and Laura, and then Bob and I. We all loved having a home instead of a motel room to return to at the end of the day.Our house sitting perks include a two-story home, a lap pool and use of a mini-van. Duties include caring for the house, the pool and grounds, and three pets. The dog, Tasha, is a Borzoi, or Russian wolfhound. She is black with white spots and tall and slender. Because she constantly sheds, all the floors upstairs and downstairs must be swept and mopped each day before it gets too hot. It didn’t take any of us long to fall in love with this gentle, sweet dog who remembers us from one visit to the next and welcomes us with a big smile when we arrive. The two cats enjoy being well-fed and well-loved.Since our first visit, the owners added an aquarium and a fish bowl containing a beta. A goldfish is visiting until September while its owner is off island.This month, I came to Kauai alone for some quiet writing time while my husband trains for a bike ride at home. I was met at the Lihue airport by Woodland residents Scott and Nona Perry, who were just finishing their house sitting duties. Before they headed home, we spent a day together snorkeling, eating Bubba burgers and shave ice, and sifting through sand at Anini Beach searching for tiny seashells.When new house sitters arrive, they overlap with the current house sitters anywhere from a few hours to a few days for a good transition. Last year, the Perrys took over from Woodland residents Ted and Mary Ann St. Mars, who hope to return next year.When the owners make plans to go off island, they e-mail me. I send notices to our house sitting team. Couples must act quickly. The spots are grabbed up within 12 to 24 hours. Everyone on the list has stayed at the house before and knows the routine. Each couple tries to leave the house and yard in better condition than when they arrived, which makes the owners happy when they return home after a six-week absence.People often ask me how to land a house sitting job in Hawaii. Many island residents need to be off island for periods of time and might need house sitters to care for their pets or their yards. Lush island vegetation requires regular maintenance. The plants grow fast and constantly drop fronds, leaves, seeds and pods.If you want to house sit in Hawaii and don’t mind the duties that go along with the job, visit one of the islands and ask everyone you meet.One day, while house sitting on Kauai with friends Scot and Sue Lawrence of Portland, we decided to see how easy it would be to land other house-sitting jobs.First, we asked our tour guide at the botanical gardens if she knew anyone who needed house sitters.“I do,” she said. “I’m leaving next week and my regular house sitter has another job part of the time I’ll be gone.” We were already house sitting, so we couldn’t take the job.Next, we asked at a restaurant.“See that motel?” the waitress asked. “The owner goes to London, and she always needs a house sitter. Go ask her.”We inquired twice and received two leads. We were told some people who live in Kauai year around, house sitting from one place to the next, never having their own place to live. If you’re footloose, fancy free and interested in house sitting, you might try renting a place on Kauai — or the island of your choice — and then ask around and line up jobs. Who knows. Within a year, you might be able to give up your apartment and just move from one lovely home to the next. But don’t accumulate too many possessions … keep life simple for those frequent moves. Aloha.

By Tara Godvin

The National Tropical Botanical Garden offers plenty of beautiful flowers, with three sites on Kauai, Hawaii’s “Garden Isle.” Here visitors can get off the beach and learn more about the local flora.
But one aspect of what takes place at the National Tropical Botanical Garden goes well beyond aesthetics. Resident scientists face the challenge of snatching the Pacific islands’ quickly disappearing plants from the brink of extinction.
“Most of our visitors to Hawaii look at this beautiful, lush landscape and they just think, ‘It’s paradise,’” said Charles R. “Chipper” Wichman, garden director, gesturing to the verdant valley stretching out below his office window on Kauai. “They have no idea that what they are viewing is a war zone between our native plants that are trying to hold on to a space and all these invasive plants and animals that are trying to take it away from them.”
The Hawaiian islands have a wealth of conservation needs and are known among botanists as the nation’s “extinction capital.” About 180 plant species in Hawaii have 50 or fewer individuals living in the wild, Wichman said.
“We are facing an extinction crisis here in the Hawaiian Islands. And the plants here are part of our national heritage, part of the United States’ national heritage,” Wichman said.
Conservation at the garden involves locating and identifying endangered plants, raising them in greenhouses and then reintroducing them in the gardens and elsewhere to reconstruct native plant environments and bolster the health of the islands’ many other troubled species.
At the National Tropical Botanical Garden’s headquarters on Kauai’s South Shore, the public can visit display gardens for free, or buy tickets and hop a tram for tours of the McBryde or Allerton gardens in a valley a couple of miles away.
The McBryde Garden nurtures plants from throughout the tropics, some of which are extinct in the wild. Next door, the formal Allerton Garden was begun by Hawaii’s Queen Emma in the late 1800s and transformed into its current design by a scion of a wealthy Chicago family who purchased the land in the late 1930s.
The third site, the Limahuli Garden on the lush North Shore, features many native species and stunning 700-year-old terraces for growing taro, known as lo’i kalo.
In addition to these three gardens on Kauai, the National Tropical Garden has two other botanical gardens and three preserves, all but one of which – The Kampong in southern Florida – are located in Hawaii.
Though created by an act of Congress in 1964, the garden does not get annual government funds and instead depends on private donations and grants from public and private foundations.
Among the garden’s conservation and research triumphs is the alula, on display at both the McBryde and Limahuli gardens on Kauai. Similar in appearance to a cabbage on a stick, the cute, stocky little plant has been grown by the hundreds in the garden. But only one known alula remains in the wild, tucked away on a cliff on Kauai.
Not all the garden’s tales are so simple or triumphant as the alula’s. The world’s only known wild kanaloa, a humble-looking member of the pea family first scientifically described in 1994, lives on a sea stack off Kahoolawe, an uninhabited Hawaiian island still sprinkled with unexploded bombs after being used for target practice by the military for five decades.
Guided across the small island by people trained in ordnance detection, two of the garden’s collectors spotted two of the unique plants on a tiny lump of offshore land topped by a piece of native vegetation that had been isolated for centuries from the human-introduced ravages of rats, grazing sheep, farming and bombs.
The collectors were able to gather samples of the plant after perilously lowering themselves down on ropes. Subsequent visits to the spot have been made by helicopter.
A lone example of this shrub grown from a seed is rooted in a tub, cordoned off from the public at the spot where the McBryde Garden and Allerton Garden meet. But so far researchers haven’t found a way to produce any more of the enigmatic plant that ancient pollen records suggest was one of the dominant species here for a couple thousand years until the mid-1500s.
In all, the garden has had a hand in the discovery of 30 new species endemic to Hawaii and the rediscovery of about another 30 thought to be extinct.
But the garden has more in its sights on the research front than reproduction. It also has an Institute for Ethnomedicine through which the garden discovered, with the help of traditional Samoan healers, a potential anti-HIV drug currently in clinical trials.
If the drug proves to be marketable, the Samoan government as well as the village where it was found and the family of the healer who helped find it will get a good portion of the royalties, Wichman said.
“Our goal is to really try and set the standard for how to work with indigenous people and honor their intellectual property rights,” he said.

By Allison Schaefers

Neighbor island home sales continued slowing last month, but real estate experts said buyers were looking and properties that were priced right sold.
Single-family home sales for June dropped 39.1 percent on the Garden Isle and condominium sales dropped 12.5 percent, according to statistics released over the weekend by the Hawaii Information Service. Still, the median price paid for a single-family home on Kauai last month rose 5 percent as more than half of the buyers paid $687,500 or more to purchase a house. The median price paid for a condominium declined to $569,000 last month. However, it was a scant 0.6 percent drop.
“There are a lot of people out there still kicking tires, calling and looking,” said Phillip Fudge of Kauai Landmark Realty in Kapaa. “There’s still plenty of demand, but I think that prices have held and that’s hurt sales some. People think that prices should be going down more like they have seen on the mainland, and they are waiting because they haven’t seen that happen here yet.”
Single-family home sales on the Big Island declined 37.3 percent last month from the same period last year, and condo sales fell 32.6 percent.
The median price for a single-family home dropped to $299,000, which was a 17.9 percent drop from the prior year’s June.
The median price paid for a Big Island condominium declined 11.6 percent in the same period to $355,000.
“The sky isn’t falling. I’ve actually had more volume this year than ever,” said Howard Dinits, an agent with Re/Max Island Surf Realty in Pahoa. “I’ve already closed 32 transactions this year. There are buyers out there — it’s just the prices that are falling.”
Houses and condominiums that are priced right on the Big Island are selling, albeit in some cases for less than the sellers paid, Dinits said. The rash of speculative development and buying of the last cycle has hurt some neighbor- hoods, he said.
For example, there are 180 houses for sale in Hawaiian Paradise Parks, Dinits said.
“Those who bought pre-2003 have big grins on their faces and those who bought in 2005 have found that their houses aren’t worth what they paid,” he said. “That’s the difference two years has made, but it won’t stay that way forever.”
Neighbor isle prices
Median sales prices for homes and condominiums :
Kauai
SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES
June 2008 $687,500
June 2007 $655,000
Change +5.0%
CONDOS
June 2008 $569,000
June 2007 $572,500
Change -0.6%
Big Island
SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES
June 2008 $299,000
June 2007 $364,000
Change -17.9%
CONDOS
June 2008 $355,000
June 2007 $401,500
Change -11.6%
Source: Hawaii Information Service