Warm Water Pools

[nnickle]

Hey Cindy went yesterday to the warm pond you are asking about. Park at the boat ramp walk by the little house along a path and you find the pond. It is very clear you can see the bottom. 10 people at the tops can fit in.

[Green]

The problem i have champagne pond is that there is no public toilet facilities. I have noticed that people end up relieving themselves in the jungle/trees only a few yards from the ponds. I would think that this would likely seep into the ponds,like during rains?

[Cindy Blankenship]

Thank you all for the information! Being gone so long from the forum, I didn't expect so much kokua right off the bat :-)

Reading that article you linked Wyatt spooked me a bit, but then like Glen said, I wouldn't enter with an open wound. I think the fish may have been nibbling on the man's psorisis scabs and this caused the opening for the bacteria.

Interesting about eels. I've read in Hawaii marine life books that they do feed at night, but like Punagirl points out, they come out by day too. I saw a moray eel while snorkeling at Richardson's poking its head out of a crevice, but in the hundreds of times I snorkeled on the reef there and over the rocks, I've only seen an eel outside of its lair, swimming around, once. It was almost dark. And I quickly swam to shore lol even though the books and locals say eels only attack if cornered or by mistake, like if you're spear fishing and trailing a string of fish behind you. We taught the kids not to put their feet down on rocks under the water or reach into crevices, like when they're climbing up from the water to the jumping rock, etc..

The poopy diaper thing has me a bit worried, especially the way Glen described the mom dipping her baby with diaper like a tea bag LOL but what Les shared about the microbiologist's take is encouraging.

When you guys say you won't go in if babies are in there, but you will another day...does that mean that the bacteria clears out after
so many hours? Since my son's homeschooled and my work can be done at any time, we'll try weekdays.

The 90 degree warm pond would be a great subsitute for the warm, salt water pool at the health club in Grants Pass. We thought after moving to Ashland,we'd drive over,but it's just too far,and we didn't want to move back over that way. He'd float there for an hour or two, just relaxing. He has
migraine and this helped a lot! He misses it, and I'm hoping Ahalanui and the other warmer ones will be helpful...so much better too because of the surroundings..the surf, fresh air and beautiful trees we can't get inside some health club!

Thanks Jody for the reassurance. You probably don't take your kids in when they have any open cuts or scratches? It sounds like that's the key.

Thanks nnickle- yes we parked at the boat ramp and walked past a little house (i'd forgotten that part.

And yes I agree, bacteria's everywere. We have lepo and other stuff in our streams and river, but we just don't go in with open cuts. Good point Les about the cause and effect...I bet it was the food that made them sick.

So I guess this viro can't enter through the
ears or nose..one article did say it can through the mucous membranes in the mouth..but then we're not planning on drinking it lol. You could do so when snorkeling or splashing and playing. Jordan doesn't like snorkeling..he'll just be floating on his back. We'll have a pool and the beaches for playing. I love snorkeling, but I don't think I would there just because I don't want to get that water in my mouth.

Adias, I'm sorry your daughter got sick.
Do you know if she has any open wounds? Or was it like you said, it helps to be used to the stuff...build up a resistance?

Green, I wonder if the nature of the lava
ground would prevent ground water from seeping into the pond before the bacteria dies? Doesn't the lava act as filtration?
We buy bottled water from Hawaii that says its naturally filter by the lava. But then kids pee in the water whether there's restrooms or not :-(

Well, all in all, after reading all your posts and thinking it over, I feel if I let go of some of my anxiety and just take these precautions, we'll be fine and my son will have a nice place or two to relax in the water.

Thanks again for all your replies!



Cindy
http://www.CoconutRoads.com

[Cindy Blankenship]

PS Punagirl, what kind of eels have you seen? I just remembered we did see the small, snowflake eels swimming around in the daytime but they just have those pebble like teeth. Maybe it's just the moray that predominantly come out to feed at night?

Cindy

[Cindy Blankenship]

I had the the Vibrio bacterium and Lepo ones mixed up...Vibrio may not enter through the mouth at all, like Lepo. And Lepo's the one we have here also, not Vibrio (our river and
creeks are too dang cold!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrio_vulnificus

Cindy

[Les C]

Regarding the eels, we saw a small moray in Champagne Pond swimming near the bottom. It eventually ducked (eeled?) into the rocky bottom. I've seen large morays swimming in the daytime at Hanauma Bay before it became so ridiculously popular with the touri. In my childhood, I used to fear the large morays after hearing stories about divers being grabbed by a securely fastened moray. Their only option to drowning was to force their latched-on body part further into the eel's mouth to get the greedy critter, with its rear-slanted teeth, to loosen its jaws to take another bite. Later in life, after seeing large free-swimming ones flee from me, I figured out that, like rattlesnakes, they are more afraid of me. I wonder if the bitten woman in the news article actually got a good ID of the biter at 2:00a?

Also regarding the story, I wonder if anyone actually went back to Alahanui pond to test for the Vibrio bactierium? I dislike stories that put out two separate factoids and assume that one led to the other.

Cindy, does "Lepo" = leptospirosis?

Edited by - Les C on 01/28/2007 13:08:05

[Cindy Blankenship]

Thank you for catching that Les!
I should have typed lepto, and better yet taken the time to look up the full name as you did: leptospirosis

Cindy