Donnelly Oceantics: CAVE WORK ON KAUAI

Cave Work on Kauai
Do you like caves? I had a little private cave when I was a kid in Colorado, near the family cabin in the mountains. My brother and I lined the small cavity with moss and spent every waking minute going to it with candles and bits of homemaking. Quite hidden, we had to climb down into it from above, between large boulders – the first trip each summer with branches to clear out spider webs. Who knew fifty years later I would be making nice in a cave on Kauai?

The Makauwahi sinkhole is actually a large opening in ancient petrified sand dunes with two caves on the perimeter. We can look down from thirty feet above, or go around along a stream to find a small opening to crawl through. In the 80s, artifacts were found in the sinkhole and with much hard labor, it has turned out to be a source of fossils providing a time line for endemic birds and plants from the area, some long extinct. The caves themselves were later used by humans throughout time even including the hippie era and once even housed a witch’s coven.

Once pre-human data was known to be hidden in the sediment layers, it has turned into a treasure trove that David Burney calls a poor man’s time machine. In addition to understanding what Kauai may have looked like with endemic plants and birds going back over 10,000 years, the area is slowly being transformed into a venue for native plants. A huge banyan tree nearly filled the open space, dead and sprawling in the aftermath of a hurricane. Little by little, dead wood, invasive plants and weeds have been removed and native plants lovingly re-introduced according to pollen evidence from the cave. None of this info is new. (see blog entry February 2011)

However, now that I have joined Kauai Native Plant Society, I’ve had a great time on their adventures. So 26 of us gathered at the cave entrance on a Saturday morning. Plants were donated; wheelbarrows, cinder stone, compost and friendly plant foods arrived as well. It is a Hawaii tradition to chant permission to enter a site and also to ask for guidance with a project. They asked if anyone would do such a chant and I finally offered one. I only remember E Ho Mai from my oli class but it has served me well. I have heard it done at memorial services, house blessings, and entry to sacred valleys. I don’t have a nice voice, I certainly don’t possess the deep resonance to do it justice – I just think it is important to bring in the tradition and trust that my flaws were corrected on another level. Thanks to Aunty Edith Kanaka’ole for writing it and to Kehaulani Kekua for teaching it.

It is repeated three times.

E ho mai ka ‘ike mai luna mai e

O na mea huna no eau, o na mele e

E ho mai, e ho mai, e ho mai e

Outside the cave along Waiopili Stream that comes out at Maha'ulapu Beach, Poipu

David Burney, cave man on left and Keren Gunderson of KNPS center

volunteers on right

More volunteers, Lida Pigott Burney all lit up

The cave entrance is gated when not open to the public or workers

Open, as above, crawling through is required. It is just about right for a wheelbarrow.

So it was time to work. We formed and chain and passed the plants into the cave. Then came the wheelbarrows – one pushing and one pulling until they were free of the overhang. Once able to stand up again, you find yourself in a large cave and you can see the bright opening to the sky. One hill had naupaka growing tall just outside the cave itself. It blocked the view and therefore the impact of what the enclosed space. Even though naupaka is native, it was cut down. One large tree remained to provide shade and scale and the roots of the naupaka. Most of us weeded throughout and strategies were set for the planting sequence while the last of the roots were removed and taken to the designated green waste site outside the cave.

Inside: North Cave and entry at right

Digging out remainder of naupaka roots

Cleared and smooth, the lava rock perimeter has begun

Everyone listens up for the planting strategy

The plants were placed where they were to be dug in. We grabbed shovels and dug holes three times the size of the pot and placed fertilizer into the sides of the holes. Compost was added around each one.

The compost rich and ready

When original excavations were done at the sinkhole, three piles had been made made: rocks, sand, dirt. I helped load rubble from the rock pile into wheelbarrows either for use in the edge here or destined to be removed from the site altogether. Our main project was replanting what had been the dirt pile above. More plants than were needed were used in other areas. The sand hill received new green guys.

News to me you could grow anything in a sand pile, these guys know what they are doing

Sides of the open space were weeded and new drought resistant climbing plants added. I weeded a rock garden near the entrance to the South Cave but we did not re-plant it today. Perhaps those green guys will come from the project's own native plant nursery.

Rock garden ready to be planted,

Single Alula doing well (nearly extinct in the wild)

While they were installing the drip system and adding mulch to our newly planted mound, a few of us took the opportunity to visit Burney’s latest innovation. Since there were large flightless birds (now extinct) on the island that were ground grazers (some even developed a turtle-jaw for grazing) he has brought in land tortoises to help weed the extensive native plant nursery on the property. I was skeptical about the introduction of non-native critters until I learned they were living here because people had abandoned them as pets when they tired of them. These are rescue animals then, given a job.

By far the largest of the eight tortoises, this African spurred variety is a little sleepy here, siesta time in the heat of the day

Clearly a realtive of the sea turtles I swim with all summer, he has the same gentle demeanor and deep ancestry in his eyes

About a third of the size of the one above,

this leopard tortoise is also catching some shade in his patch of the garden
(the raised bumps likely indicate he was malnourished while growing)

Back in the cave, everyone agreed so many hands had made the work easy. We were done by lunchtime! The Burneys (David and his wife Lida) might be used to having whole classrooms of students to do projects but this was the largest single turnout for Kauai Native Plant Society. These three photos were lifted from the KNPS website – mahalo!

BEFORE