Kauai News & Information

The Naval Air Systems Command has awarded an $11.5 million contract for airlift and recovery functions in Hawaii.
Croman Corp., based in White City, Ore., has a fleet of helicopters which it uses for logging, firefighting and rescue operations, among others. It won the $11,521,918 firm-fixed-fee contract to provide airlift and recovery functions in support of all Hawaiian military ranges.
The contract also provides for utility/transport missions to carry passengers/cargo and range clearing operation in the Hawaii operating area. The minimum level of effort for the base-year is 2,510 flight hours.
Croman will be based at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai. Its work is expected to be completed in one year. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Six firms were solicited for proposals and Croman was one of four companies bidding for the business.

A KAUAI resident who hadn’t been to Honolulu in about three years was astonished that even on weekends, traffic packs the H-1.
She had assumed that when people told her to always expect slow going on the freeway they were exaggerating. They weren’t. She found that no matter if it was Saturday or Monday or Wednesday, through most of the daylight hours and into the night, cars stream relentlessly over Oahu’s roads.
Kauai, she said, had traffic problems, but nothing like the city’s. She said it made her feel better about her daily 20-minute commute, at least until a minor fender-bender tacked on more than 45 minutes one rainy morning.
That’s the thing about traffic. You don’t much care about it as long as you don’t get stuck in it.
When some national study or other details how drivers in Skokie, Ill., or Franconia, Va., spend 63.78 minutes a day in jams, then spins out stats that show we in Honolulu don’t have it as bad as others, I laugh because, as that Kauai woman conceded, knowing others suffer doesn’t necessarily lessen misery on island roads.
It wasn’t always painful. I’m remember when the freeway first opened, the family piled into the black four-door sedan — was it a Pontiac? — for a test drive. By turns, each of the kids got to sit by a window for a spell, no seat belts or harnesses to restrain us, few other cars to block our views.
At 40 mph, mock orange bushes planted between the coming and going lanes became blurred green barriers, but we could still catch the sweet scent of their white blossoms in the rushing air.
At the service station, $2 was the standard order for a fill-up of gasoline, the pump so slow that the attendant had enough time to wipe the windows and check the tires before its ping-pinging stopped.
In college, a friend’s huge white car — was it a Chrysler? — gave the gang a cheap, weather-proof hangout that could accommodate six in comfort. Each of us would chip in a buck for gas and still have cash to pick up guava juice and mochi crunch to sustain us through the cruising.
The itinerary would vary from town cruises — Tantalus, Waikiki and Manoa — to runs to the airport or night-time tours up the old Pali Road where we’d scare ourselves telling ghosts stories about pork and apparitions of white-haired women in the rear-view mirror.
Problems with traffic never entered our minds. The freedom of the road had yet to be confined by the price of fuel and number of vehicles.
We’re talking now about a transit system, probably rail, that we hope will lessen traffic congestion in Honolulu. The notion is that drivers will leave their cars — or a least one of the two or three each household seems to own — in the garage and hop on a train instead.
Even then, I don’t expect free-flowing movement on the H-1, the H-2, H-3, Kapiolani Boulevard or Moanalua Road.
There are just too many people, each with destinations too far from home or purposes too numerous to perform without a private vehicle. It will be tough to persuade them to surrender the independence and convenience of a car.
Humans are good at adapting. Some will undoubtedly reconcile themselves to a heightened misery factor that’s sure to come as the island’s driving population increases. But I hope more will adjust the other way and decide that a car doesn’t have to be the hub of their lives.

Those looking to buy a quiet vacation place in one of Kauai’s most beautiful state parks will have to wait awhile, state officials said recently.
An auction of 100 privately held cabins in Kokee State Park, originally scheduled for September, will be put off at least until next year, thanks to a Kauai court decision last month.
And those holding on to their rustic cabins might be able to enjoy them for a while longer, when a decision to issue revocable permits to current leaseholders comes up at Friday’s Board of Land and Natural Resources meeting.
“We didn’t want to get to a situation where the leases expire and then people didn’t have a right to stay on their property,” said Peter Young, chairman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources.
“While the issue is being resolved in the courts, we’re going to let them stay,” he said.
At stake are leases of the land under about 100 cabins, 60 of which are designated for historical designation, in wooded Kokee in mauka Kauai. The area, which features hiking trails, fishing areas and native flora and fauna, marks one of the few accessible areas to the inland mountain regions of the Garden Isle.
Frank Hay, president of the Kokee Cabin Leaseholders Association and one of the leaseholders suing the state, said he just wants the opportunity to stay in the cabin he has had for 30 years. If that is not possible, he said, he would like to be compensated for the cabin and the improvements he has made.
Hay said he bought the cabin in 1975 and then negotiated a lease with the state, first in 1975 and again in 1985. The lease ran out at the end of 2005, but the board extended the leases until Dec. 31, 2006.
According to the lawsuit filed on his behalf, Hay and the other leaseholders say they are entitled to compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
But Young said the leases clearly state that any improvements revert to the state when they expire.
A Kauai judge ruled last month that the decision on compensation would have to be made at trial, killing the chances for a September auction.
Hay said he and his fellow leaseholders are not wealthy. Many are local and kamaaina families who care for the land and want to preserve the beauty of Kokee.
The leaseholders first petitioned the Legislature to include areas like Kokee for historical preservation. Then they petitioned the area to be included as a historic district.
They thought that the preservation would lead to direct negotiations with the state for a new lease on the 60 historic cabins, with the 40 newer ones to be auctioned to the public, Hay said.
The Land Board, however, decided in February to auction off all the properties, except for a few run by nonprofit organizations.
Young said the board received a number of requests to put all the cabins up for auction, “so they have a chance.”
But many of them believe that opening up the auction will allow speculators to drive up the prices of the cabins.

Kauai police closed the Hanalei bridge today after heavy rain overnight caused flooding.
Similar flooding conditions were reported on the south side of the island, where police also closed Omao Road. Henry Lau, National Weather Service forecaster, said the rainfall was caused by “a lot of low-level moisture” coupled with “an enhanced upper level disturbance.”
Between 2 to 5 a.m. 2.6 inches of rain fell on Mount Waialeale with .63 inches recorded at Hanalei and 1.73 inches at Kalaheo.
Kauai remained under a flash flood watch until noon today.

When Russell Stokes told his wife Karolyn that he wanted to open a second Kauai Pasta restaurant in Lihu‘e, she hesitated.
“I’m tired,” she said.
The couple already helms Kauai Pasta in Kapa‘a, which opened in 2004, and Kauai Cuisine, a catering business opened in 2002 that specializes in food for high-end weddings and events.
Stokes, 29, does bookkeeping for both businesses, with the restaurant bringing in about $60,000 in revenues each month, she said. She was looking forward to a two-month break in Europe.
Instead the couple leased the old e.b.’s Eats storefront on Kuhio Highway, revamped the interior and hung a Kauai Pasta banner in the window.
“Everything just fell into place,” Stokes said last Friday.
White chef coats piled on a table in the front window indicate one of the biggest boons for the restaurateurs.
“We found 20 employees in less than a week,” Stokes said. She expects to hire five more, she said.
Her brother-in-law Cory Stokes, an eight-year veteran of the Grand Hyatt Kaua‘i, signed on as executive sous chef, a move she says will allow him to spend more time with his five children.
The couple also hired Jeffrey Aguinaldo as executive sous chef. He comes from Roy’s Po‘ipu Bar and Grill, where he also worked as executive sous chef, Stokes said.
The biggest change will be the addition of a lunch menu. The Kapa‘a location only serves dinner.
Otherwise, the fare offered at the two restaurants will be similar, Stokes said. The menus feature pasta with homemade sauces. The new location will offer some new items, including entree-sized salads, sandwiches, manicotti, real tiramisu and more specials, Stokes said.
She said the Kapa‘a restaurant attracts a local clientele, and she expects the same for the new location.
“We design the menu for that,” she said. “Good food, big portions for a reasonable price.”
The couple still has a lot of work to do, but with new tables in the front window and chairs stacked in front of coolers, the restaurant is less than two weeks from completion.
The doors will open for lunch at 11:30 a.m. on Monday, August 14.
Stokes said customers can bring their own wine and beer until the restaurant obtains a license to sell alcohol.

Dive Kauai offers undersea adventures that boast scenery unlike anywhere else
Ask Michael Gough to recount his most memorable diving experiences, and there’s no doubt that petting a 5-foot whitetip reef shark at Tunnels Reef off the northern coast of Kauai will be among them.
That said, Gough, a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) master instructor with more than 3,500 hours logged underwater, doesn’t advocate touching or disturbing any sea creatures — especially sharks. “I’m a professional diver who has done many dives with sharks,” he explains. “Do not attempt to do that on your own!”
Gough is president of Dive Kauai Scuba Center, a PADI International Resort Dive Center whose professionals teach courses and lead tours according to PADI’s highest standards of safety. He considers Kauai to be one of the best dive sites in the world.
For instance, at Brennecke’s Ledge off the island’s southern coast, a humpback whale swam within 25 feet of him.
“I was so close to him, I could see the barnacles on his fins!” he says.
Another time, Gough and his tour group were gliding through Camp One at Weli Point, along the south shore off Port Allen, when a Hawaiian monk seal appeared. Gough recalls, “He was mimicking our movements and gestures just 10 feet from us — turning his head back and forth, then using his flipper to cover his eyes like he was playing peekaboo.”
Many of Dive Kauai’s customers, even novices, have gone on multiple tours.
“They see the marine life in one spot and are so enthralled, they want to know what creatures they might see in another location,” says Gough. “When you dive off Kauai, you really get the scuba bug!”
Tunnels reef, as seen from the air, represents an area where lava once met the sea, forming a labyrinth of underwater caves and arches now home to a variety of marine life.
HAWAIIAN WATERS harbor an abundance of marine life, including 680 species of fish, 25 percent of which are endemic, meaning they can’t be found anywhere else in the world. On the Tunnels Reef Shore Dive, one of Dive Kauai’s most popular offerings, certified divers descend 60 feet to enjoy close-up views of razor and dragon wrasses, flying gurnards, green sea turtles, moray eels, barracudas, lobsters, raccoon and milletseed butterflyfish, and much more.
This site also is known for its dramatic underwater topography — an intricate maze of caves, cracks, arches and more than two dozen lava tubes formed eons ago when molten lava met the sea.
Says Gough, “The lava tubes are a magnificent sight; beams of sunlight shine through them, creating an ethereal effect. They look like caves with many passages, and certified divers can swim through them! The longest tube measures about 75 feet.”
The Tunnels Reef Shore Dive is only offered during the summer, when there’s no high surf to create strong currents and poor visibility. Certified divers complete a two-tank, three-hour dive in two different areas, one inside the reef within 25 yards of the coast, and the other outside the reef about 150 yards from shore.
Noncertified divers complete a one-tank dive as deep as 40 feet, but they must first read and sign the PADI Registration/Medical Questionnaire, downloaded from Dive Kauai’s Web site.
“Scuba diving is an exciting and demanding activity that involves physical exercise and breathing compressed air,” explains Gough. “A ‘yes’ response to a question on the form won’t necessarily disqualify you from diving, but it does mean you have a pre-existing condition that may affect your safety. Therefore, you must seek the advice of your doctor before diving with us.”
DIVE KAUAI’S tours are led by experienced PADI instructors and dive masters, sometimes by Gough himself. His passion for diving dates back 25 years. At the time, he was working for Paramount Can Co. in Southern California, selling a wide range of food and chemical containers to clients including paint, chemical and food processing companies. Hawaii was part of his territory.
One morning in 1981, one of Paramount’s vice presidents, a certified diver, described a fabulous dinner he and some friends had enjoyed on the beach in Palos Verdes, Calif., where the television show “Sea Hunt,” starring Lloyd Bridges as a crime-solving frogman, was filmed from 1958 through 1961.
“They went for a night dive, came back with lobster and abalone, and cooked them right on the beach,” Gough recalls. “I thought, ‘Going grocery shopping underwater — that’s way cool,’ and started scuba lessons the following week.”
Three weeks later he obtained his PADI Open Water Certification, and for the next nine years explored underwater oases across the globe, including Mexico, Guam and Yap.
In the spring of 1990, Gough was reading Dive magazine and noticed an ad announcing a PADI dive company on Kauai was for sale. He had just returned from a sales trip to Kauai, and says, “I immediately thought, ‘Wow! I can live in paradise and do the thing I love the most!’”
Within 60 days, Gough bought Dive Kauai and moved to Kauai. For the past 16 years, he’s been thrilled to run a company that enables him to share his love for Kauai and for diving with people from all walks of life.
“About two years ago I taught a couple who lived in Kiev,” he said. “The oldest diver I’ve ever taken out was 84 years old. Many of my former students have become professional divers.”
Wise stewardship is a key aspect of Gough’s business philosophy. For example, eight years ago, in an effort to protect Tunnels Reef’s fragile ecosystem, he and other Kauai tour company owners agreed they would only use that area on weekdays, reserving it for the local community on weekends and holidays.
Gough is steadfast in his commitment to conservation: “Diving gives us the opportunity to see a pristine, incredibly beautiful side of nature,” he says. “We all need to do our part to ensure it stays that way.”

Sixteen people left Kauai yesterday with plans to paddle a Hawaiian outrigger canoe 450 miles over four days in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The 15 men and one woman will stroke a six-man canoe from Mokumanamana, also known as Necker Island, to Laysan Island, starting tomorrow afternoon, said paddler Kendall Struxness of Hanalei.
This is the sixth year for the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society’s epic journey through the entire Hawaiian Archipelago.
The mission began in 2001 with a trip from Waikoloa on the Big Island to Kihei, Maui. Last year’s trip was from Nihoa to Mokumanamana.
The society hopes to complete its mission next summer by paddling from Laysan Island to Kure Atoll.
This year’s voyage includes four support crew for the paddlers and four crew for the escort vessel, the tugboat American Islander.
The participants come from all walks of life, including “a pig farmer from Molokai, a real estate broker, a personal trainer from New York, an insurance broker from Santa Cruz,” Struxness said.
Three Maui men have participated in each segment of the multiyear project: Kimokeo “Bully” Kapahulehua, Jamie Woodburn and Chris Luedi.
Each year other paddlers join in. This year they are: Chris Smith, Michael Spalding, Katherine Hughes, George Rixey, Terry Quisenberry and Jeff Meadows of Maui; Kamakea Han of Molokai; Struxness and Scott Funk of Kauai; Frank Negri of New York; Matt Muirhead and Dave Loustalot of Santa Cruz, Calif.; and Scott Woodburn of Florida. Ages range from 26 to 63.
Kapahulehua is credited as the visionary of the project. “His vision has basically been to retrace his ancestors’ footsteps by paddling the ancient sea trail,” Woodburn said. “And to do it consistent with cultural protocol and traditions, paying respect and make sure what we do is passed on.”
Though only two paddlers this year have native Hawaiian heritage, everyone participating feels a link to the islands, Struxness said. “I may not be Hawaiian by culture, but I’m Hawaiian at heart,” he said.
The name of the group’s canoe is Ke Alakai O Ko’u Mau Kupuna, which translates to “in the pathway of our ancestors.”
The trip is costing about $110,000, much of which the paddlers contributed themselves. Support also has come from businesses, the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association and individual contributors, participants said.
On the voyage, each person paddles an hour at a time, then rests in the escort boat until their next rotation. The voyage is taking place during a full moon for good visibility while paddling at night, Struxness said.
They train separately and don’t paddle together except during the annual segments as the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society. Part of the group’s commitment is to visit schools and community organizations to share about their journeys and to create a video documentary to be used by teachers.
Struxness, a colon cancer survivor, said he is eager to “paddle in waters that haven’t been paddled in centuries. It’s new territory and there’s something very gratifying about new territory.”
Woodburn agreed. “It really makes you appreciate a number of things. … One is the vastness and just how small you are in relationship to how big everything is out there. Another is the interdependence on each other and how you grow together as a family and deal with whatever comes up.”

Tourists have opened their wallets this year to the tune of nearly $1.8 billion in Maui County, an average of almost $10 million a day.
In June, they spent even faster. Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism numbers show that visitors spent $333.2 million in June, or more than $11 million a day.
For the first six months of 2006, tourism numbers are up 9.2 percent while tourist spending is up 20.1 percent.
The other Neighbor Islands are getting the higher head counts but not the extra money. And Oahu is down in head count and just even in spending.
In June, the average per-person, per-day spending on Maui island was $197.80. It was $275 on Lanai but only $103.10 on Molokai.
Except for Lanai, where the year-to-date daily average is $269.60, the June figures were higher than in the previous months on Molokai and Maui.
Maui County also saw a big jump in head count in June compared with June 2005. Maui island welcomed 228,601 visitors, up 22.9 percent.
Lanai was up 23.1 percent to 7,691, and Molokai was up 4.7 percent to 6,599.
For the year to date, the Maui head count is up 9.2 percent to 1.18 million (with Molokai up 2.3 percent and Lanai up 11.9 percent).
Over the past two decades, Maui generally has attracted almost exactly half as many tourists as Oahu, and as many as Hawaii and Kauai combined.
That ratio holds today for the Neighbor Islands: Maui County’s total this year is 1.26 million, Kauai and Hawaii together have drawn 1.39 million.
But Oahu is slipping badly. Its total arrivals are down 2.2 percent to 2.23 million.
Kauai’s head count is up 9.8 percent this year to 555,973, a slightly faster rate of gain than Maui’s.
Hawaii’s head count is up 8.1 percent to 772,728.
Oahu, despite much the lowest room rates in the state, still outpaces Kauai and Hawaii in per-person, per-day spending: $173.30 vs. $160.80 on Kauai and $149.10 on the Big Island.
One factor in the differences is the amount of retail shopping and fine-dining options available on each island.
Tourism on Maui’s small islands is only a tiny fraction of Maui island’s totals.
Molokai accounts for a little over 3 percent of visits but only about 1 percent of tourism money ($15.1 million).
Lanai also accounts for about 3 percent of visits and about 3 percent of spending ($36 million).

Lihue Airport on Kauai will be getting perimeter security fencing and an improved service road.
The projects will be paid for with a four-point-two (m) million dollar federal grant.
Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye says the projects with strengthen the airport’s security.
He says the plan for the installation of eleven-thousand-300 feet of fencing was coordinated with the U-S Transportation Security Administration.
Inouye says airport security and emergency vehicles will be better served when the road is improved and realigned.

Of Wind and Waves: The Life of Woody Brown, an award-winning hour-long documentary on a 94-year-old legend in the worlds of surfing, sailing and soaring, will receive its Kauai premiere at the opening night of the Kauai Health Guide Film Festival in the Grand Ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort in Poipu at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, August 8th as the opening night film of the Kauai Health Guide Film Festival.
Full festival schedule is on-line at www.HawaiiHealthGuide.com/films
Maui resident, Woody Brown, will attend and answer questions along with filmmaker, David L. Brown (Surfing for Life). Woody has not only lived a life full of remarkable adventure and accomplishment – including inventing the modern catamaran, setting world gliding records, and surfing Hawai’i’s 25-foot surf in the early 1940s – but he has also done so with a kind of selflessness and generosity that have made him a role model for three generations of Hawaiians.
Woody is like a modern Thoreau on a surfboard, living in harmony with the world around him, alive to the possibilities of each new day, and following his own singular vision of how to be in the world. The documentary captures his unique blend of enthusiasm, wisdom, humor and spirituality that have made him a truly inspirational figure for everyone who has met him. Born to great wealth in New York City, Woody ran away from the life of privilege to become a protégé of Lindbergh at age 16. The film portrays his journey to become a world record glider pilot, surfing pioneer and inventor. It also depicts the tragic death of Woody’s first wife in childbirth which led to the painful decision to let relatives adopt his two children.
Of Wind and Waves explores Woody’s life in his own words and from the perspectives of his family and friends who have shared his journey. Family members adding their perspective include Woody’s daughters, Mary Sue and Jennifer, his sons, William and Jeffrey, and big wave surfing friends Wally Froiseth, Joe Quigg, Peter Cole and Fred Van Dyke. Surfing superstars, Laird Hamilton and David Kalama, are shown bonding with Woody and comparing Maui’s big waves from the ‘40s with the present huge surf at “Jaws.” The film also features a remarkably rich archive of film and photography from every stage of Woody’s long life to complement coverage of his contemporary life as an amazingly lively elder whose days are filled with service, friendship, humor, compassion, spirituality, and, up to his 90th birthday, frequent surfing.
Among the high points of the film are Woody piloting a glider and skippering a catamaran at age 92, his volunteering at Hale Makua Adult Day Health Center on Maui, his tales of early big wave surfing, his story about his first experience sailing on a double-hulled canoe and then deciding to build the first modern one, and his poignant 2002 reunion with his 67-year-old son, Jeffrey and 75 year-old step-daughter, Jenny, whom he left in the care of relatives in 1939 to embark for the South Pacific. There are also very humorous recollections about Woody and “Ma” Brown from Woody’s daughter, Mary Sue, and granddaughter, Nicole Bastian.
Of Wind and Waves provides a valuable cross-cultural portrait of the land, people and culture of Hawai’i over the six and a half decade span of Woody’s life there. While the explosive economic growth of the islands has unquestionably undermined and obscured many Hawaiian traditions, Woody Brown’s story shows that the spirit of aloha remains very much alive. Of Wind and Waves won the “Inspiration Award” at Mountainfilm in Telluride in May of 2006. The 35-minute version won the “Audience Award for Best Short” at the 2004 Maui Film Festival.