Golf Anyone?

On Wednesday we had a golf tournament. I am not much of a golfer, but when the boss says to take a half day off and swing some golf bats at the rocks, it's hard to say no. The golf course here is beautiful. So was my hat.

I also walked away with a CD/MP3 player after the raffle. All in all, I was a real winner.

No Love from Mother Ocean

I love the ocean. Every day here in Hawaii I have the opportunity to see it, be around it, and be in it. It is always the sign of good things to come when I am lucky enough to watch the wispy clouds move along the trade winds as the rising sun slowly transforms the entire sky from blackness into a deep blue to a gentle purple. Then in a matter of minutes everything changes to pink and orange just before the sun appears over the edge of the ocean and turns the clouds into a brilliant white.

In the evening, swimming in Kailua Bay, it is the same procession, only in reverse. The clouds, now full of moisture, rise so high that a single cloud may be three different colors. The top catching the last of the setting sun while the base is already a dark shade of gray. Depending on the wind, the ocean can look like a vast liquid mirror or like countless shards of glass reflecting all colors in all directions.

Every day I am left in awe of the ocean. It's days like today that I realize the Ocean's feelings towards me may not be mutual. I get hurt a lot when I'm in the water. The only somewhat major mishap was the whole neck/back injury, but it seems that every time I am out there something happens to me.

Three weeks ago we went sailing. There were six of us on board and in the seven hours we were out there, every single person ended up giving up some blood. The worst was Tabitha. She caught the boom right at the start of her hairline. The blood poured over her face as if someone poured it out of a glass. No worries, we had a doctor on board... it just so happened to be her. Self aid!

Two weeks ago we were sailing once again. More blood, bruises and stepping on sharp things. I probably had it the worst. When I was climbing on board my foot slipped and caught some of the disgusting growth on the side of the boat. I didn't notice that I was even cut until I saw the pool of blood and seawater gathering at my feet. Barnacles are sharp as razors, no joke. Hopefully my new ladder will help us avoid that in the future.

Last week I decided to admire the ocean from afar. I walked to the old pill boxes just above Lanikai. It made for some great sitting and watching and no blood was involved.

Today Derek and I took his new inflatable kayak into Kailua Bay. Lately it has been very windy (from the hurricane that hit the Philippines and Thailand?) and the waves were big for Kailua Bay. We have also been having cold weather. Of course, it sounds a little ridiculous to call 78 degrees cold, but once you are used to perfect weather, anything below 75 requires a sweatshirt. Any lower than 70 and you are looking at a sweatshirt and long pants. At any rate, we were thinking it may be too cold to go out, but we decided that since we spent all the time inflating the kayak and portaging it to the beach, we may as well use it.

The waves were fun. We got bounced and thrown in a variety of ways. Sometimes the wave would throw you in one direction and end up taking the kayak in another. Other times you would get so jumbled that you wouldn't know which way was up until you spread your extremities in all directions searching for sand or air. We did end up getting into deeper water by dragging the kayak past the shore break and only jumping in after we were in the rollers, not the breakers.

Once in the deeper water we paddled towards Flat Island for about 30 minutes, but weren't doing much besides fighting the waves. We stopped paddling and just floated for a while. I hung my legs and arms over the side. Usually I wouldn't do that. It's hard for me to shake the idea that a shark could come out of no where and take off a limb. It is extremely rare, but it does happen. In hindsight, I should have been more afraid of the Portuguese Man-O-War (which I just found out get blown into the bays when there is a lot of heavy wind).

As we for floating along I started yelling out obscenities for no apparent reason. Once my body caught up with my mouth I realized I had a mass of blue string wrapped around my left ankle. I grabbed the paddle and pushed it off, but it had long tentacles and they continued to drag along my leg for a bit. It felt like a bee sting. We paddled for home and got tossed a couple of more times on the way.

I got back to my apartment and as my leg dried it became more painful. I'm not sure if it was my imagination or not, but the pain seemed to be spreading all the way up my leg and into my abdomen and I started feeling slightly nauseous. I put some vinegar on it (and then drank some for good measure), but it didn't help. According to Claus, my scuba instructor from when I was in Thailand, all poisons originating from ocean plants and animals are destroyed by heat. I took a wicked hot shower and an hour later, I feel fine.

In the end I still argue that my relationship with the ocean is a very healthy and non-abusive one. The only reason Ocean hurts me is because she loves me so much.

Gaoburu Gaoburu

The title, of course, is Chinese for "gobble gobble" (I'm serious... That's really how it translates).

Yesterday was yet another Thanksgiving, come and gone. I was originally just going to hang out in my apartment or maybe go to the beach, but some friends invited me over for a full Thanksgiving dinner. It was delicious. We had all of the classics, plus home brew. One of the new guys out here brews his own beer and is happy to share. I even volunteered to be his underling. The beer is that good. I think some good times are ahead of us.

My sister and one of her friends flew in last night. We are all going sailing on Saturday, so that should be a good time. The two of them are in a sailing club in Madison, so they are all about the nautical terminology. They even asked my what sort of rig my boat was (sloop). Hopefully they aren't upset with me if I use the motor during the second half of the returrn trip tomorrow instead of tacking three or four times into the wind. It's just so much easier. Then again, if they know how to sail I'll let them work the lines and tiller while I just kick back. That would be ok too.

In other news, I found my first grey hairs yesterday. I'm only 25. I'm sure it's just the natural progression of things, but I'm going to blame it on all of the time spent in front of a computer. Electrons. They'll get you every time.

Pics coming in the next post, I swear. Reading is less fun than looking, but I have been avoiding the camera.

Alone and Unafraid

My first weekend roommate-free went off without a hitch. One hiccup I will need to figure out, though, is how I will post pictures on here. I no longer have internet in my apartment (I actually read a book made out of paper for entertainment this weekend), so I can't just upload whatever I want. Right now I am typing on my work computer, but it's after hours, so I don't feel too guilty about it.

Anyway, Friday night I went to see Borat with Derek. It was hilarious. The only disappointing thing was that I was so excited to see it that I watched dozens of clips and read as many articles about the movie. When I finally got to see it, I knew all of the jokes already. Still, my throat was sore from laughing by the time I left.

Saturday was cleaning day. I went crazy. I scrubbed the shower and sinks, cleaned the toilets, vacuumed all the carpets, swept the floors, shook out the rugs, dusted all surfaces, tidied up all of the rooms, and de-grimed the kitchen. The only thing I didn't do was mop the floors. I was hindered by the lack of a mop. Besides cleaning, I ran a bunch of errands in the afternoon. Basically, Saturday was a work day, but it was worth it. I now live in a spotless apartment, for at least the next day or two.























Sunday was the fun day (awesome rhyme, I know). I went with a couple of guys from work on an organized mountain bike ride. Next weekend there is a triathlon, and the bike ride is at Kualoa Ranch. This was the familiarization ride for next weeks race. I'm not doing the triathlon, but I happily paid my $5 for the trails yesterday. It was hands down the best mountain biking I have ever done. The views were incredible and it was difficult enough to keep it interesting and exciting, but not so difficult that I hurt myself. I took some pictures, but they don't do the place justice. Most of the ride was in a valley between two mountains. We rode on jeep trails and a little single track. There were some killer hills and shallow stream crossings. It had such a great mix of everything. From looking at the price lists for the ATV, horseback, and movie tours, I'm sure it is a very rare opportunity for a group of 30 bikers to get the whole place for an entire afternoon for a mere $5 each.























The ride definitely reminded me of how much I enjoy mountain biking. You may be seeing more postings on mountain biking, especially since there was a sewage spill in the bay. Sailing in human waste is less than ideal, but biking through cow pies is more than acceptable.

Visitor

My good friend from high school, Sheng, was here for the past week and a half. Unfortunately, I had to work quite a bit during the week, but on the bright side his arrival was the impetus behind me finally fixing my car. It had been out of commission, on and off, for the past couple of months... side story: Midas quoted me $1790 to fix it. In the end, all I had to do was pull off the spark plug caps and dry the one connector that was wet. Problem solved. It took me two minutes once I actually worked up the courage to start pulling my car apart (and after Adam suggested to do that). Midas is bad news. Very bad news. Anyway, Sheng was able to find his way around the island with the GPS acting as a guide rather than me during the week.

We did get some weekend sailing in as well as some swimming, snorkeling, tennis, and the like. After his week here going to different attractions, I'm pretty sure Sheng has seen more of the tourist sites on this island than me. I still haven't gone to Ala Moana, the swap meet, Diamond Head, or even Pearl Harbor. I really need to be a tourist some time and see what this island has to offer besides beautiful beaches, bays, forests, and waterfalls. Then again, maybe I can just wait until the rainy season for those other things. They will still be there even when the sunshine is not.


In other news, this is my last week with a roommate. For the first time... well, for the first time ever, actually, I will have an apartment all alone. On the one hand it will severely detract from my weekend socialization. Danny was the only other single guy at work, so we hung out quite a bit. On the other hand this could be an opportunity to try new things and meet new people. I am unplugging the TV and even canceling the internet. I figure by doing so there are two likely paths for me: 1. I find things to do outside the house in the evenings and all day on the weekends, or 2. I go crazy. No matter what happens, the important thing to remember is that I don't have to wear pants anymore. That in itself is a gold mine of an opportunity. Trust me.

Breakfast & Earthquakes

It was a good weekend. On Saturday Danny and I had some friends over for breakfast and football watching. There's nothing like giant pancakes and blue hash browns (not sure how that happened) to get the morning started. Breakfast spilled over into some body boarding/races around the buoys at Kailua beach.

This morning began with a little earthquake. A little after 7:00am the house started shaking. No serious damage, just some pictures falling over and about 37 seconds of shakiness. I was pretty surprised that the clock hanging in the bathroom fell from the wall to the top of the toilet and not into it. It's a big clock (about a foot across) and couldn't have been flushed. Someone would have had to go in for it.

Fifteen minutes later the power went out and stayed out for 12 hours. It made for a pretty good day. We went to Kailua Beach for an hour and on the walk home got some free ice cream from the wiki (wiki = convenient store). Instead of throwing it away they gave it away. Free ice cream tastes way better than bought ice cream. Maybe it wasn't that it was free, but the fact that all I had to eat all day was cold Spaghetti-Os and uncooked muffin batter that made it good. Doesn't matter: it was good either way.
















All in all we had some good times. Between swimming and scrounging for food we had some time to entertain ourselves with some guitar playing and napping.

It was starting to seem like we may have an evening of candlelight and quiet reading, but around 7:30pm the power came back on to the cheers of all the neighbors. In the end, electricity isn't so bad. It kept me from eating a dinner of condensed cream of mushroom soup out of a can.

A Return to the Water

It had been a while since I last made it out on the water. In fact, our trip to Molokai on Labor Day weekend was the last time Madeline & Nine got to stretch her legs. We finally made it back out this weekend.

On Sunday we went to the sandbar. Within five minutes of starting, our adventures began. Somehow when I was rigging the boat, I didn't securely fasten the line that hoists the jib up the forestay. As I started to hoist the jib, it took me three pulls to realize that it was way too light. By that time, the line was already dangling 25' up the mast, out of our reach. Normally, that wouldn't be the end of the world; however, a little while back the same thing happened and the line actually totally came out. Therefore, we didn't have any spares and were out of second chances.

The wind was very light this weekend, so with only one sail we were crawling our way out to the sandbar. That gave us plenty of time to try to come up with solutions for getting the line back down. We went from the boat hook only to the boat hook with a loop of string attached to the end. From there we made it so that we could tighten the loop via a line extended to the bottom. The boat hook was just a little too short, so Jason attached it to a 5' length of PVC pipe. We still couldn't get it to grab, so we attached a gaff hook on top of that.

Now in order to picture what this looked like, imagine a 6'6" man standing on a boom 4' up a mast with a 15' contraption pointed to the sky, swaying dangerously in one hand while using his other arm to grip the mast tightly. Add all of that up and you begin to see why it was so hard to capture this line swinging freely back and forth in the light breeze. All the while Erin is laughing in the background trying to get me to shimmy up the wires or climb up the sail and Patrick is trying to get her to stop with the jokes, to no avail.

Long story short, once we got to the sandbar we had a more stable platform and some luck. We got the line back down.

Today, Monday, "Discoverer's Day" (sorry Christopher Columbus), we went into the ocean in search of fish. We didn't catch any, but it was a good time anyway. Today there was even less wind than the day before. We motored all the way from the marina to about 3 miles offshore. By that point I could no longer take the drone of the motor. We killed the power and raised the sails. There was such a lack of wind that the sails wouldn't even fill with air. The closest thing to wind we had was when the boat would pitch left and right the sails would slightly catch the air and make luffing sounds. Weak.

We sat out there and bobbed up and down for a couple of hours before we caught sight of a grey blue sky coming our way. "Is that rain?" was the question that brought the wind. We went from no wind what-so-ever to a nice, steady 15 knot breeze. We used that to sail home and called it a day. No fish and a little sunburn. All told, a good day on the water.

New Apartment

My roommate Tara is moving to Colorado. That means two things for me: 1. I'm losing a great roommate who really made Hawaii seem like a welcoming place for me and, 2. I need a new place to live.

Tara is a local Hawaiian and is ready for a change of scenery. Too much of a good thing, as the saying goes. Not only that, but she is moving closer to family, a better job, and near a vet specialist for her hypochondriac dog. Tara, I wish you the best and thanks for being such a great roommate!

As for me, I have already moved into my friend Danny's place. It works out well seeing that we are the only two single guys from work. Oddly enough, that isn't an exaggeration. We are literally the only two single guys out of twenty plus. Anyway, the new place is across the street from the old, so moving wasn't as painful as it could have been. That's not to say that it wasn't painful. I don't understand how I can have so much junk at such a young age. I think it stems from my "just in case" mentality. Of course I can only recall a couple of times that I actually used any of the items in that category, yet here I am carting college text books and clothes I never wear into a new place. Maybe when I try finding places for all of my junk I will apply the teachings of Henry David Thoreau and simplify simplify simplify. Here's hoping.



The new place isn't quite as nice as the old, but it's a little bigger. The carpets are faded and the walls are mismatched colors, but who really cares? It is a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom place. The thing I really like is that there is an upstairs. It makes the place seem so much bigger. The best feature of all is not the fact that we face a parking structure with bright fluorescent lights, but that we are less than a mile from Kailua Bay and the trade winds never stop blowing through the apartment. It just goes to show how perfect the weather is in Hawaii. We don't have A/C, we don't use fans, and there is obviously no heater. All we have to do is leave the windows open and the temperature is always perfect. Gotta love that.



Hopefully next weekend I can get some sailing in. It has been way too long...

2,100 ft is HIGH

This Saturday the plan was to go sailing, but beforehand we went on a quick 4 mile hike. We thought it would take about an hour. It took over 5. Why so slow? Well, when you are crawling on your stomach for about a mile and fighting the jungle for about 2 miles, the time begins to stretch out a bit. It was a good time, but there were moments that I was wishing for the safety of the water.





Only after I shimmied 20 feet across a cliff face and climbed a vertical face 10 feet to a wind-blasted ledge could I read our hiking guide. I found out that the hike was listed as being for Expert climbers and that the danger level was High. I guess it wouldn't really have made a difference anyway. Who can say no hiking in Hawaii? These pictures may not look so intimidating, but as you watch the airplanes and helicopters fly below and you can only make out the cars by the reflections of their windshields, the thought of falling tends to sneak up on you.





Today we went surfing. We had some pretty big waves, so once you rode a wave in it was pretty difficult to fight the waves to get back out. I quit after less than an hour. Still, it was a good time. Quitting can be fun too.

To Molokai and Back

We made it. It was a lot easier than one would expect. The trip to Molokai took exactly 12 hours. From 6:10am to 6:10pm. On the way there the seas were at about 4 feet and we had pretty good wind. We reefed the main sail (tied off about 2 feet of the foot (base) of the sail to the boom) in order to catch less wind because the waves were hitting us from the side and the gusts were strong. The combination of tilting down a wave and a strong gust could potentially push the boat over, although it would have been unlikely. Our plan, based on the chart, was to sail at an azimuth of 115 degrees. Once we rounded Mokapu Peninsula, we could see Molokai, so we just pointed on it. After about 4 hours of holding onto the tiller, I put a bungee on it so that all I would have to do is keep pressure on it with my foot. Two hours after that, I had an epiphany (i.e. I remembered reading about it somewhere): if we put the proper tension on the bungee cord, the boat would steer itself. Viola! We were sailing hands and feet free! It was amazing, but it steered itself. If we went too far away from the wind, the tension would be reduced and the water would drag the tiller back until the bungee stopped it. If we went too far into the wind, the tension on the bungee cord pulled the tiller back to neutral. The tiller was constantly moving a few inches either direction, but the bungee never failed to bring it back neutral. The bungee was a better pilot than we were.





Once we got to Molokai, we tied off to the dock. Until we got the bumpers in the right place, we had a few scrapes against the cement. Luckily for me, my boat is already a bit beaten up (beauty/character marks?). No real harm done.





We got settled, walked to the beach, and watched the last of the sunset. When it got dark we returned to Madeline & Nine for our dinner of fresh fish. On the way down we were dragging a line and caught a Skipjack Tuna. It was fairly small, which was good because those things are spiny and it flopped around a lot on the boat. At any rate, I was the one to clean the fish. This was a big deal for me because I had never done that before. I was a bit hesitant at first, but once I got going it was actually kind of neat to see all of the parts of the fish. We had a little sashimi there on the spot and cooked the rest for dinner. It was just the right size to feed three. Afterwards we did a little star gazing and settled down for the evening.





The next morning we set off a little after 8:00am. Our friend Bungee steered Madeline home in about 10 hours. We didn't have to reef the sails, so we moved a bit faster. Unfortunately, we never saw the world's tallest sea cliffs up close. They were too far from where we stayed the night and we slept in a little too late to try to go see them. We will have to save that for a future trip. The trip was too short, but other than that it was beautiful. It was a great trip with some great people. 'Thank you' to Juliet and Patrick for making our first inter-island sailing trip such a success.

Molokai or Bust

It's on. We are going. The trip to Molokai, after looking like it was getting called off, is still on. We leave tomorrow morning. It will be about 50+ miles each way, but the furthest from land we will ever be is about 15 miles. A long swim, if worse comes to worst, but we are all healthy people. I also plan on bringing a flashlight, so I'm pretty confident things will go well.

In other news, I made it the the Glen Phillips show last night. He was the lead singer for Toad the Wet Sprocket back in the day. I saw the band play once in college and it was a great show. Last's night show was great as well. Definitely more somber than the Toad show, but if you have the chance, you don't want to miss seeing him solo. Plus, there were only about 60 people there in a restaurant type setting, so it was very chill and relaxed. It was almost like someone pulling out a guitar around the camp fire and singing away.

I am off to work. Soon I will be sailing at the foot of the world's tallest sea cliffs. I can't wait.

Not So Bad

Here's what I look like with a neck brace on. Pretty pathetic. Of course, the whole tongue out, droopy eyes set-up is a bit of an act. It's really not that bad. I dented my skull (concussion) and schwacked my neck (sprain). All in all, not a great combo, but I can live with it.

I'm supposed to wear that neck brace at all times, but I am convinced that it only makes things worse. I wore it the whole first day, but it was hard to sleep and my neck was super tight and sore. After that, I took it off and I have felt much better. The last couple of days I worked on a little flexibility and today very very light lifting. All I know is, I feel much better compared to when I had that brace on. I still only have limited mobility, but at least I don't look like a walking accident.

On a side note, about 15 people asked me if I crashed my motorcycle when they saw me with the neck brace. Apparently they don't realize that sailboats are way more dangerous than motorcycles.

Fishing/Ouch

Today we went fishing on the high seas. The ocean was at 4-6 feet today, which wasn't too bad, but definitely some decent sized rollers (2 cases of sea sickness with one guy throwing up about 4 times- crazy). We didn't catch anything, but it was a pretty good time none the less. Not only that, but now we know that we can, in fact, sail and fish at the same time.

Since the seas were a bit rough, and we were only out in the ocean for about 2 hours, we decided to go to the sand bar in the bay. While out there we were doing our typical swimming, grilling, and messing around that we usually do. Since the tide was ebbing (this is important in a little bit), the keel started to rub against the sand as the water level lowered. I wanted to go out and move the anchors to avoid the scraping, but they were still pretty deep, so I took goggles with me so that I could find and plant them a bit easier. As I prepared to jump off, I made the awesome decision to hold the goggles behind my back and jump head first in order to avoid dropping the goggles. Well, the water had gone down a bit and I smashed my head into the sand. From there, I'm still a bit fuzzy. I somehow climbed onto the boat (I don't remember) and made my way to the V-berth. I laid down for a little bit. While I was down there Derek asked me some questions. One of them was, "what day is it?" and I had no idea. I was trying to put it all together in my head, "well, I played softball during the day, so it is the weekend." For the life of me I couldn't figure out if I had played the day before or that same day. I didn't even remember that we were fishing. That has never happened to me before. I was pretty out of it for a while.

Right now I am feeling a bit better. My memory started coming back after about 30 minutes. I still don't know how I got from the water to the V-berth, though. They said that I climbed up, which is pretty crazy because I don't have a ladder and it takes a bit of struggling to get out of the water. I must be a better climber when I'm dizzy then when I'm not.

At any rate, my back and neck are shooting with pain and my right arm is slightly numb, although the feeling is coming back quickly. My friend, Dr. Mike, told me to go to the hospital to check it out. I would like to, but when I called the emergency room, they said not to come in until around midnight (almost 7 hours from the time I called) because they are really backed up. Good thing I'm not choking, because I am terrible at holding my breath and, at most, I could only hold on for half that time without dropping. On the bright side, I do have an appointment open to me at midnight, on a Sunday--before I have to be at work at 4:30am tomorrow.

Somehow I don't think I will be awake at midnight.

Sunrise, Sand, and Potential

This past week or so, some friends from Wisconsin were visiting. I am a bit weak and go to bed at 7:30pm, so I didn't hang out much durning the week. On the weekend, however, we were busy. We caught a sunrise (the picture is really weak... just imagine how great it was) and went sailing on Saturday. We were the second boat out there and got actual sand! That was a first for me. I was so excited, we stayed too long and were a little late for the Polynesian Cultural Center luau. If you are ever in Hawaii, it's worth the $62. Be sure to get there at noon so that you can have a full day.

At any rate, everyone is gone now. The big plans for this weekend is a fishing trip in the ocean. We aren't sure how well it will work off of a sailboat, but we won't know until we try. Lots of potential for good times and fish steaks. Still planning for the trip to Molokai. From the sounds of it, no one wants to go on the first inter-island trip. They all want to wait until the second one to see if it's safe. Weak.

Touch and Go

Today Danny and I went sailing. My big goal for the day was to get by without using the motor. Since I am on a mooring ball and not a slip on the pier, it is a big hassle if I use the motor. The reason being that I don't have a salt water specific motor, so I have to flush the system after each use. I didn't even know they had salt water motors before I bought mine, but seeing as they are twice the price of regular fresh water motors, I probably wouldn't have bought one any way.

We made it to the sand bar without motoring, but we had some trouble landing. On the second pass I got the anchor out, but it didn't grip and we ended up almost T-boning another boat. We didn't hit the boat, but we had the anchor dragging behind us and it was a little weird, truth be told.

We tried once more to hang out on the sand bar, but it wasn't to be. We made our way back to the mooring ball and landed on the first try, without the motor. Funny how that works. A mile strip of sand isn't do able, but a 12" floating ball is.

After that we returned to the fine tradition of sushi Sunday. Good times.

K Bay

K Bay
Originally uploaded by Come to Hawaii.

More sailing on Sunday. I didn't get to sleep in yet again, but we went to Maunawili Falls early and then to K Bay later in the morning. It was a good time, although the Sandbar was very crowded and our neighbors on the left were really snobby. At least the neighbor on the right lent us his ladder. Note: I need to make/buy/improvise a ladder.