Enjoying the Scenery, Counting the Numbers

This morning's sunrise over Kauai

Today marks 50 days on the island.

Little did we understand the implications of a budding world-wide pandemic when we arrived. We soon found out.

"Kauai is now on vacation," pronounced the Mayor of Kauai several weeks ago when he initiated a night curfew. He subsequently closed resorts, beaches and placed any new arrivals on the island on 14-day quarantine. Nearly all businesses have shuttered.

Last Sunday there was not a single new arrival to the island.

Four cases of Covid-19 were reported here last week. That number remained the same as of yesterday. One Covid-related death has been counted.

We have been hunkered down under war-time restrictions in our little condo from which we have a glimpse of the Anini Reef some 200-feet below. North-easterly Tradewinds blow off the water, up the pali, to keep us cool, nature's own thermostatic air-conditioner.

We are surrounded by plumeria trees now flowering with springtime petals in shades of purple, white and pink. Two Puakenikeni trees with sweet fragrances oozing from yellow-orange flowers decorate our front yard. Plumeria and Puakenikeni flowers are the most popular for making beautiful Hawaiian leis.

Hedges with white, red and yellow hibiscus serve as landscape borders. Tall trees with bright green leaves and reddish-orange Poinciana and Lehua flowers brighten tropical forests that grow in culverts shaped by streams that tumble into the sea from the mauka-side green-blue carpeted mountains.

Sunrises are especially colorful. I rush outside early to capture their splendorous effects that shift as quickly and subtly as a shark moves through water. The photos, each of which is slightly different, never do justice to the real picture.

The photo I captured of the shark attacking the dolphin (see Mother Nature's Way) went viral on Facebook. That rare snapshot of natural predation has been "shared" by more than two-times the number of friends I have on FB.

Shark attacks dolphin in Hanalei Bay

I told Barbara, a FB skeptic: "My photo has been shared by 75 people!" That was Sunday afternoon.

She scoffed. As if to say, "So what?"

"I think it will reach 100 shares," I said. "Do you realize that means that each of those shares will reach all of the "friends" of those who shared it!"

By Monday morning the photo had been shared by 250 people.

"Look! It's going to reach 300 easy."

I felt as though I were playing a slot machine whose numbers were lining up with "sevens."

My skeptical wife began to take notice.

As of this morning that photo has been shared by nearly 450 people! I only have 200 friends.

I am just a simple man sitting on a tropical island enjoying the scenery, with nothing else to do.