1976-1978 Hawaii PhD

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Travelling to Hawaii

It was heart-wrenching leaving our empty house in Turramurra for the last time, in the dark before dawn. But we all soon caught the travel bug. Dad and mum, as usual, had decided to do things a little differently. We had originally thought we might travel via cruise ship to Hawaii, but then discovered we could island-hop to some of the less touristy places by travelling Air Nauru and Continental Airlines.

So, after spending one more night in Australia in Melbourne, we boarded the Air Nauru flight to island hop to Nauru via Noumea and Honiara (Solomon Islands). We were surprised to hear an Australian voice from the cockpit, but soon discovered that most of the airline’s small fleet was piloted by Australians, generally former Qantas pilots! We were planning to spend one night in Nauru and then two nights on Pohnpei. But our departure from Nauru got bumped to the following day. The President of Nauru had commandeered the plane! In fact, his flight only returned just before we were due to board so they didn’t have time to reconfigure the plane (or retract the red carpet!) We wandered out onto the tarmac via the red carpet and found, to our delight, that the front half of the 737 was set up as a lounge. In addition, the plane was almost empty, with only two other passengers accompanying us. We spent much of the flight chatting with the pilots in the cockpit or lounging! 

Nauru was very flat at sealevel, then rose up inland into rocky and jagged karst formations form from uplifted coral.It was in the grips of a mining boom (phosphate). But, as a consequence, it had terrible scars in the landscape. The source of the phosphate was Guano; bird droppings from the many seabirds who lived on the island. 

Karst formation after the guano has been removed

Nauru's recent history is rather tragic now. But when we were there, it was at the peak of it's wealth. It was very evident that some of the people of Nauru had more money than they knew what to do with. Many of the men wore a watch on each wrist and ladies and girls wore diamond rings.

(More about Nauru: Wikipedia, BasementGeographer)

Pohnpei by contrast, was lush and green and steep. We stayed in an amazing resort consisting of native huts built onto the side of a steep hill. The huts had no screens, windows or doors, and an open air shower. We could see the rats walking along the exposed beams at night. But that view was amazing!

Our accommodation on Pohnpei

The person who showed us around was one of our fellow passengers from the Air Nauru flight, Conrad - a doctor from Salt Lake City. He had lived on Pohnpei and had a friend who lent him a truck so we could see the island. We all clambered in the truck watching the road wizz past through the holes in the floor and tried not to get bounced out as we crossed rickety wooden bridges or potholes on the dirt roads. Anne bought a finely carved Kapingamarangian wooden shark with most of her spending money on Pohnpei. Nestled in her arms, it survived not only the truck drive, but also the final leg of our flights to Hawaii on Continental Airlines via the local micronesian “milk run” in a packed-to-the-rafters Boeing 747, stopping at Marjuro, Kwajalein (Marshall Islands) and Johnston Atoll before finally landing in Hawaii.

Life in Hawaii

Dad got busy working on his PhD and we kids got busy with settling into our new schools. The first couple of months were a bit disappointing for us kids. We lived in a condominium surrounded by hundreds of neighbours and rode packed school buses to our respective schools - Anne and Bill to Aikahi Elementary School, and Cate to Kalaheo High School. This was a drastic change from the privacy, nature and freedom we’d had at our home in Turramurra. On the upside was the easy access to cheap clothes, household items, and toys at numerous garage sales and an amazingly lucrative Halloween haul. We were living on Dad’s meagre student wages a money from the sale of the house in Turramurra, so it was important to live frugally. 

The kids on the steps of the condominium at Yacht Club Terrace

After about 6 months at the condominium, Dad was asked if we would like to move into an old run-down termite-riddled shack, once an R&R retreat in WWII, on Coconut (Moku-o-loe) Island where Dad was based for his research. The island was (and still is) the home of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. The shack was actually one half of a duplex conversion of old WWII barracks. The other half was occupied by the Nakamoto family, the Island’s caretaker. We couldn’t move in until Dad had repaired the termite damage to the floor. But despite the risk of collapse, lack of mosquito screens, mysterious sealed doors (more toilets as it turned out) and daily (6 AM) low-level passes by the Phantom jets at the Marine Base across the bay, the place was heaven! It was 10 feet from the island’s shore and gave us all access to an amazing playground. 

HIMB buildings on Coconut Island with Kaneohe Bay in the background

Front door of the house on Coconut Island

View from the back verandah

We had very little money, but we never went hungry. Lunch was provided by the schools And there were plenty of readily available cheap food such as pot noodles that we could supplement from other sources.Dad’s network of contacts (he ALWAYS knew someone!) helped us find fruit trees that only the locals knew about - breadfruit, plantains, custard apples. bananas, multiple varieties of mangoes, guava and lilikoi (passionfruit). Dad also bought a boat and he’d often put a net on one of the reefs in Kanehoe Bay for a few hours in the evening. Being unselective about its catch meant that the net caught anything from reef fish to milkfish and stingrays to sharks. Dad hated waste, so everything that could be eaten was. Baby hammerheads were a common catch, so that became one of our staple foods. Dad was always careful to soak the meat first. Dad and mum loved trying new things and Dad loved to experiment (or course you did, Dad!), so this lifestyle was fine with them, although some of the meals were an interesting mixed bag of ingredients and occasionally a minefield of bones, usually from the eels or bonefish. Bonefish have a random array of  bones found throughout the meat making it impossible to fillet them. After several failed meals, we were told the trick was to beat the fish body with a rolling pin so that the meat under the skin was pulped. You then put a slit in the tail and rolled the meat out of the skin like toothpaste. The flavour is really quite nice and we used these fish to make fish cakes.

The Hawaiian fishing boat from which we set our nets

It was during this time that our meal roster started. Each of us kids (even Anne at 10 years old) were assigned a night a week to cook. Mum and dad each cooked two nights a week. This was mum’s idea, and it was a brilliant one. It taught us creativity, discipline, responsibility, and efficiency (no one likes a late meal). Even later when we kids had grown up, it was a family rule that if you were at home you cooked. Mum and Dad still rostered their own meals into retirement.

Cathy: “For me, Hawaii was the two of the most memorable years of my life.Dad and I would take out our boat and place nets to catch fish and shark for food. Dad taught me to handle boats and shared his love and respect for the water. He also taught me to drive. I wasn't allowed to even take the car on the road until I could parallel park in a space as long as the car plus three feet. 

Dad and I ran the after hours and Sunday boats that ferried the scientists from the mainland to Coconut Island. I had permission from the Institute to drive the boats. At first dad and I took the boat together, but after he had given me the skills to dock in some awful conditions on the mainland side, I was allowed to run the shuttle service myself. In return for running the after hours boat, we had free accommodation on the island.“

Dad with one of the Institute boats, similar to that which we used to run the ferry service

Shark Derby win

Anne: "I was 9 when we got to Hawaii and 11 when we left - For me Coconut Island was the most amazing adventure. Cate and Bill thought themselves too old for my sort of fun, but.I had always been happy with my own company. So having an ENTIRE island to wander around was just paradise! On the weekends or after school I’d just disappear up into the scrub on the hill, hang a hammock in a tree or out over the water with a book and a snack, or walk out along the man-made peninsulas into the coconuts or she-oak groves finding places to sit and make things out of the leaves and sticks. Sometimes I’d just grab my mask and snorkel, borrow Paul Jokiel’s (RIP Paul) long board and head off around the island using my flip flops as paddles. Dad, with his usual insight into my imagination, resurrected two spare pontoons, a large piece of plywood and a long bamboo pole into a Huckleberry Finn raft that I poled up and down the lagoon, parking in the shade of the mangroves to enjoy the quiet or feed small fish and barracudas.” 

Dad's PhD research focussed on Kaneohe Bay, where a sewer outfall fed into the southern end of the bay and then the treated effluent travelled north with the current flow over a period of 13 days to finally discharge out to sea. This study highlighted how reefs respond to heavy nutrient load, and how they recover as long as they are not subjected to further stresses. When the sewer was turned off, Kaneohe Bay became once again a healthy reef system. Dad was very happy to see his beloved Kanehoe Bay showing signs of recovery when we travelled back through Hawaii in 1982 on our way back to Australia.

More photos of Hawaii

Departing for Georgia in 1978

Assisted by dad's wealth or experience, a recent appointment as Scientific Co-ordinator at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, and no doubt, by several letters of reference (some of which are quoted below), Dad was offered a position as Research Director of the University of Georgia’s Marine Institute on Sapelo Island. The Research Institute on Sapelo Island, which had had a proud history of ecological research, needed a director, especially one with established management skills. He was ecstatic and accepted immediately. Dad was an incurable romantic, and the South was, for him, one of the most romantic and exotic destinations imaginable. His favourite movie was Gone with The Wind and Sawanee River was one of his favourite books. So we packed our meagre belongings into 20 cardboard boxes and headed for the airport to take unfair advantage of a $4 per item checked luggage offer by Braniff Airlines. We departed for Georgia on August 19, 1978, the same date we had arrived in Hawaii two years previously. Dad was still finalising his thesis in his evenings while Director at Sapelo. But eventually he did, and was from then on Dr. Donald Kinsey, a title he was immensely proud of!

Exerpt from a letter of reference from his colleague and PhD supervisor Steve Smith:

“......Without much doubt, he is the best student the U.H. Oceanography Department has had, and in fact it is somewhat ridiculous to evaluate him as a student.“,

And another from colleague Bob Johannes at HIMB:

“..I'm very Impressed with Don both as a researcher and person. (I have no first hand knowledge of his administrative abilities although I know he has considerable experience in this area). As a researcher Don is inventive, imaginative, highly skilled and highly motivated. He has an exceptionally analytical mind even by scientific standards. His research places him, in my estimation, in the top 5% of coral reef scientists working with energy and chemical fluxes. He is turning out some really important reef geology work as well. And all this while he's going to school and holding down a part-time administrative job.

On top of it all he still finds a fair amount of time for family and hobbies, yet he seldom seems rushed or under pressure. Personally I find him to be congenial, thoughtful, tactful and knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects. He strikes me as a person who is unusually secure within himself and thus probably able to handle the difficult problems that sometimes face an administrator without feeling personally threatened or acting out of insecurity.

I suspect my description makes him sound almost too good to be true, in that I have not mentioned a single negative or at least dubious quality. But I'm afraid I can't think of any.”

Next 1978-1982 - Sapelo Island, Georgia