On a bright July afternoon, as the birdsong swelled and the tide started coming in, I drove down a dirt road in my grandfather’s old silver SUV. The road led me through a farm gate, past a sign that warned ‘KAPU’ – restricted – in bright red, down a steep incline, along a grove of papaya trees, past a small green shed, and eventually, to Moliʻi Pond.

Moliʻi Pond is a 128-acre fishpond in the northern fold of Kāneʻohe Bay, on Oʻahu in Hawaii. Its water is translucent green. Its shoreline is muddy and viscous. Mangroves grow along the fishpond perimeter, and their pneumatophores drive ripples in the pond’s surface. A thin scum of yellowish algae floats on the southern side of the pond. Stout palm trees and elongated coconut trees rustle, and the sweeping canopies of hau trees print a kaleidoscope of shadows on the ground. The Koʻolau mountain range hugs the pond. Its ridges dip and swell. The mountains directly behind the pond are jagged and severe. The mountains in the distance slope gently.

I had come to this pond many times before. My father grew up on Oʻahu, and he lived on the same block as phycologist and aquaculturist Vernon Sato. In 2006, the Oceanic Institute asked Sato to write a book about Moliʻi Pond. He titled it The Keeper of Moliʻi Pond, and it recounts the life and work of the former fishpond caretaker, George Uyemura. In the years since his book’s publication, Sato has returned to the pond often, and, when my family was in town for the summers, he’d bring us along. We’d fish and talk. To me, Vernon Sato is Uncle Vernon, and the trips we took to Moliʻi Pond were formative and enchanting.