Blue Planet Journey

  Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. Hanauma Bay consistently is rated one of the top tourist destinations on Oahu. In 1999, the family began a 13 month sojourn in Honolulu. I had started my first sabbatical at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, as a visiting faculty member in the Botany Department. My host was David Duffy, then the director of the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit. The mission of the PCRU is to "...protect and restore Hawaii's native species, ecosystems, and cultural resources." As a family, we were visiting Hanauma Bay about every other week. The Bay is a city park, but a state Marine Protected Area. In 1999, admission was free, but you had to pass a gauntlet of signs reminding visitors to avoid standing on the reef, don't feed the fish, and be safe. On the beach, there was a blue tarp stretched between four coconut trees, with tables and volunteers. I still remember volunteers Larry and Bob, staffing these tables and leading schedu...

Playing our ukuleles on the intact Renaissance-era city wall surrounding Lucca, Italy.   Ci ty wall surrounding Lucca , Italy. One of the joys in playing the ukulele is that, because of its size, you can take it with you when you travel. So far, airlines have been good about allowing us to bring our ukuleles on board, placing them in the overhead compartments. We use soft cases, so the space used is a bit more flexible than when using a hard case, although we have to be careful that they don't get smashed when a heavy roll-away is thrown in the same compartment. Caroline started playing the ukulele soon after the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in 2020.  I started playing the guitar again, to accompany her, but a few months later I picked up her uke and I was hooked. Wesley started soon after, followed by Mignon. Caroline begins to play the uke, March 2020. Initially, I accompanied Caroline on the rhythm guitar. By December, Caroline, Wesley, and I were all playing. In ...