Kauai Day 3: Pineapple Princess and the Dancers of Fire

Started the day with the same breakfast we had regularly in the Azores: sweet bread, pineapple, and passionfruit juice.

Then we headed off to Hole in the Mountain Farms/ Kauai Sugarloaf Pineapples for our second pineapple tour of the month. The sugarloaf pineapple is white and lacks much of the acid and fiber that the typical yellow pineapple has. Our tour was led by the owner of the farm, who had a great deal of scientific information for us. It was interesting to the adults, but our niece and nephew Aubrey and Dalton preferred to play near the car with Daniel’s dad.

The inside of the leaves of the pineapple contain the respiratory cells, which the farmer explained are kept closed all day and only opened at night, which leads to great drought tolerance.

A pile of “slips,” which are produced by pineapple plants and can be grown into new plants.

A cover crop of sunn hemp or Crotalaria, which is planted in used pineapple fields to restore nutrients to the soil. The farmer says that Hawaii’s soil is very poor, but that the temperature makes things grow well nonetheless.

Some pictures of the pineapple fields.

Us in the fields.

The flowers, or baby pineapples. These grow right with the mature pineapples, which is very different from how it is done at Arruda Ananás or at Maui Gold. You learn so much by touring multiple pineapple plantations.
Then we had the opportunity to plant pineapples. Some of the tour started wondering whether we had been tricked into performing agricultural labor and paying for the privilege.

Daniel’s Uncle Peter planting a pineapple.

Daniel’s cousin Gretchen planting a pineapple.

Daniel planting a pineapple.


Catherine planting a pineapple.

Daniel’s mom planting a pineapple.

Daniel’s Aunt Jackie planting a pineapple.

Us again.

We also got the chance to pick our own pineapples.

Pineapple Princess redux.

After this the farmer, Jude, cut some pineapple for us and let us try it. It was delicious. Very sweet and low-acid. Jude was convinced that we would no longer like yellow pineapple, we agreed that we still like yellow pineapple, especially Maui Gold.

They also make pineapple frosties, out of nothing but pineapple. They were pretty delicious.

After a brief rest and change of clothes at the house, we went to the luau.

Catherine with her Blue Hawaii.

A beautiful rainbow formed as we were watching the beginnings of the hula show.

Us under the rainbow.

Some pictures of the show, with dancers performing dances of various Polynesian cultures, including Hawaiian, Samoan, and Maori dances.

The fire knife dancers were very impressive. Some of them danced with two fire knives, and some crouched on top of each other while spinning the knives. It was a very impressive show.

Aubrey loved the “pink tree.”