Just like her father, she combines science with beach fun.

Shayne's first science fair experiment. Although the erupting volcano was considered, I was happy that she decided to do an original research project bsaed on her own curiosity. Shayne has always noticed how coarse or fine the sand is when we go to a new beach. I asked her to try to figure out what determines the qualities of a beach sand. It is a great science fair project because it requires we go to the beach to collect data. This is some of the sands that Shayne has collected and she is about to determine how coarse the sand is by measuring how much of a fixed amount of dry sand will flow through a tea strainer. She (with my help) then converts it to a percentage score of 'fineness'.

Shayne at Lumahai beach. Notice the black coloration on the sand. This is oviline, a green mineral that is heavy and is left behind during the heavy winter surf conditions.  

View of the river flowing into Hanalei Bay. A freshwater river flowing into the sea, the best of both worlds. Play in the ocean and when you are done, walk over and rinse yourself off in the fresh cool water. This is the beach the kids call Coconut beach.

These are two different sands - left is Lumahai sand that has larger grains and the beautiful green 'glassy' chunks of olivine (Magnesium Iron Silicate). Notice the grains have been rounded and polished by the big waves. On the right is the finer grain sand of Hanalei Bay. This seems to be formed from a combination of both large waves and river runoff.

This is the waves breaking on the reef just off od Sea Lodge beach. I have not digitally altered this picture, the blue green color in the wave is there naturally. I took about 12 pictures of waves trying to time it so that the color would show. I could stand and stare at these waves all day. They were about 5-8' in height.  

Shayne collecting sand and data (wave count, wave size, reef location, beach direction) for Sea Lodge beach. This is a great place to snorkel, many fish to see just in shallow water 6 feet off of the shore.  

Quick..can you see the crab? Notice how coarse this sand is from Sea Lodge beach. This is Etel's favorite beach for Kahelelani shells