Vicky Durand’s Adventure Blog #68

June 22,2024
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Welcome To Blog #68
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This has been a very exciting week with a visit from the world’s coconut authority Dr. Roland Bourdeix. Since they arrived we have been scouring Hana for rare Hawaiian varieties of coconuts. Besides various yards we have been to a coconut orchard and several large farms in Kipahulu-Wispering Winds and Ono, the largest organic farm in the state. Everyone has been welcoming and so generous with their time and driving us around the acreage in their Kawasaki four wheelers. Dr Roland and Jit have made some great discoveries and are doing the lab work to start the catalogue on them today. Some of the varieties will be put in our nursery and go into the gene bank after they are sprouted. As you can see from the pictures they found coconuts of all sizes and shapes. They also found some rare coconut flowers. It is all very thrilling to me to see this process and several genius at work.

Dr. Roland has written a beautiful book and his work is also about documenting migration throughout the Pacific with the coconut. This is all amazingly interesting and I feel lucky to have him involved with our Koali Niu project.

Besides the coconut work Chris has been clearing the point so there is a better view down into the stone beach part a bit of Wailua Valley where hundreds of Hawaiians lived. They hiked up here to work the taro lo’i.

We went to a woman named Pat’s house as someone had told me about a tree in her yard. Besides checking out the coconuts I got to know her. She was married to a man whose twin brother was in a sad Hana mishap where five Hana men got in the Sara Jo boat to go fishing and were never seen again. The boat and some bones were found down in the Marshall Islands many months later. Pat is pictures here with the boat where she will make a shrine for the men. Pat has many projects as I do so am looking forward to getting to know her better.

I forgot to mention what a fun weekend the reunion was along with seeing a few friends along with my water exercise buddies who asked me to do this blog. A lot of the reunion was about the past and now it is great to be moving forward with this meaningful project-a coconut research center and possibly an education center and museum. It is all in the dream!

It is a beautiful time of year here and the shower tree we planted is going off.
Thanks for tuning in and wishing you a great week ahead with some dreams.

Aloha Nui,

Vicky