Stand Up Corals

Click on photos to enlarge!Stand-Up Paddling, or "Old Guy Surfing" the old is today's "new craze."

“How young can you die of old age?”
Stephen Wright

Sausages growing on a tree!

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

Albert Einstein

Surf

“As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends, all my dreams, come back to me.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is generally agreed that the world's coral reefs are stressed to a dangerous degree and may even be in danger of disappearing entirely. This interests me because these isles that I love were designed and built by a committee of coral and fiery lava. The plants, animals, & humans all came late to this party. Geologically speaking, we're just the hair and make-up of Hawaii.

Aside from the gargantuan cost of a modern war ship, the big issue with the recent grounding of the USN Port Royal off of Honolulu Airport is damage to the reef. Local divers whisper that damage to both ship and reef are much more extensive than reported. Like "build a new warship" extensive! But the reef could take hundreds of years to recover - if it can.

The real tragedy of extinction is losing the treasures we have not yet comprehended fully. This unknown bounty of lost knowledge is a blank check we have just about thrown away un-cashed.

For example, it had long been thought that the reefs in our Hawaiian waters were no more than a century or three in age. Actually, scientists using mini-subs, OK "Submersible Vehicles," have recently discovered that some of our local Leiopathes corals are more like FORTY TWO CENTURIES old! They are among the oldest living things on this planet right up there with California's five thousand year old bristlecone pine trees. A younger species of coral, the youthful Gerardia, has been discovered to be a mere two thousand, seven hundred years old. It's not even collecting coral social security yet! (Coral reefs are communities of social creatures.)

What else is hiding right under our noses (and waves)?

A L O H A! Cloudia