Paepae O' He'eia Fish Pond

Whoaaaaaaaaa, Week 2 Down! This week was a really nice transition from the work we did up in the mountains last week. It was really nice and refreshing being near the water and not having to be constantly soaked by a sudden downpour of rain. This week's work location was at the He'eia Fishpond on the windward side of Oahu. We did various work trying to restore the pond, such as transporting heavy, jagged rocks and coral to the outer walls of the pond. It was pretty tiresome having to haul the pontoon loaded with the heavy rocks and coral, especially because of the mucky sediment and mud at the bottom of the pond (which had fallen from the mountains during heavy rainfall). It was pretty cool learning about the history and cultural significance of the pond, which was surprisingly 600 years old. The pond was created by old Hawaiian chiefs in order to grow fish, which would be difficult to catch during the winter months. The organization's mission is to restore the integrity of the walls of the pond, which were destroyed by the introduced, in order to restore the pond to its former condition so that they can continue to foster the growth of numerous fish such as moi. We learned many different things, such as the 3 different species of mangrove (the button, oriental, and the caribbean mangrove), the mangrove's role in slowing down water that flowed from the mountains, and trapping sediment, and the cultural storied surrounding the pond and nearby mountains. Other work we did included removing tons of wicked underbrush on the property's hill, in order to prime the soil for 'uala. The organization wants to utilize the land in order to grow useful plants and herbs, such as 'uala, the Hawaiian sweet potato. We really did get down and dirty removing the weeds and unwanted shrubs (not to mention the plethora of creepy critters that flew into our ears and noses and crawled onto our backs). Despite the dirty work, this was a really successful and fun week.

Tired and dirty, but still esmiling,
your friendly neighborhood Pilipino,
Robert.