Lanai

This past weekend Dan and I went to Lanai for a version of camping. It was a fun and interesting weekend.

We bought our tickets last weekend at the revival of Sushi and 40s Night. It was a good night. A couple of drinks into the evening, Dan listed us as doctors on the airline tickets. Of course, there could have been some sort of legal ramifications if something went wrong, so I set the story straight in the remarks section. "We are not real doctors" probably would have cleared us from any blame had anything gone wrong.

The flight itself was one of the highlights of the trip. We flew in a nine seat plane. It was small and our pilots, while probably the B-team, were pretty funny. Their safety speech was as follows:

Pilot 1: Welcome aboard Go! Airlines, we will be taking off shortly for our flight to Lanai City, Lanai. Your nearest emergency exit is behind you on either side of the aircraft. You can also come out our doors up-front, but you will have to get through us first. There is a fire extinguisher in the back, which could also be used as a club. If you do get clubbed by one of us, there is a first aid kit on the wall next to this plastic, terrorist proof door up here, which we ask you to stay behind. Hang on and enjoy the flight.
Passenger: When do you serve the beer?
Pilot 2: Actually, we don't serve beer on this flight, but you can bring your own. According to FAA regulations, you are not allowed to open it, so you have to pass it to us, we open it, and hand it back.
Passenger: Really?
Pilot 1: He's not kidding. Of course, a sip tax also applies to every beer we open, so you won't get a full beer back after passing it forward.
Pilot 2: It's a small tax. They just gave me my pilot's license back, so I don't like risking it as much anymore.


Following that, we flew right over Waikiki on our way to Lanai. Lanai airport was the most interesting airport I have ever been to. It was like I imagine any municipal airport being like, except we were commercial passengers. The pilot got the key to the airport from coded-key box and asked us to keep our voices down in order to avoid waking the guard. Nice.

Before describing the route we took after leaving the airport, I need to give a short history of the island. In a nut shell, someone owns the entire thing. It used to supply 20% of the world's commercial supply of pineapples when Dole owned it. At that time, every arable square foot of land was covered in Dole pineapples. Eventually the water went dry and American labor became too expensive. David H. Murdoch bought it all and put up two resorts, which is the island's only real economic engine. Only 3,000 people live on the island, all in Lanai City.

Today, the old pineapple fields are covered in grass and some small shrubs. Most of the roads are old field access roads. We tried cutting through the fields in the beginning, but the shortest distance (or at least fastest) between two points isn't always a straight line. If you are ever in Lanai, stick to the roads. All we got for our trouble was itchy legs and lost time.

We made a bee-line for the road and turned on my GPS (worth every penny). With the help of some satellites and digital maps, we made our way to Kaonolu. It was the site of an ancient fishing village and a residence of Kamehameha I. We found a spot to put up the tent for the night . The weather was great, but the ground was not. It was covered with some very large volcanic rocks, with no where to put up a tent to avoid all of them. On the bright side, we each saved $5 by not going to a campground. A fair compromise, I suppose.


The next day we looked at the sights in the area, including Kahekili's Jump (a 30m drop where Kamehameha made warriors prove their bravery. No, we didn't jump.), the ruins of the fishing village, and a couple of heiau (shrines). We sat next to one of the shrines and ate breakfast while watching the crabs and fish in the pools below, as well as the occasional humpback whale in the deeper water. After breakfast, we made our way up the dirt road towards Hulopo'e Beach.


The beach was nice. By that time we had walked about 13 miles (I just mapped it out on Google Earth) since our arrival on Lanai. It may not sound like a lot, but much of that was up hill on rough roads. Ok, even that it doesn't sound bad, but the point is, the water was nice. It was next to one of the resorts, so we got an eye full of the rich European looking people with their small knit caps, oversized designer sunglasses, and not-quite-Speedo swimsuits. The water was full of locals and dolphins, so that was fun as well. We ate lunch on the beach and began walking up hill towards town. A little more than a mile into the walk, a passerby offered us a ride. We weren't about to say no.

Our new friend was a teacher who had been living in Hawaii on and off since the 1970's and had recently decided to make Lanai her home for good. Luckily for us, she both wanted to show us around the island and also really wanted to take her new xTerra off road. Again, we weren't about to say no. We got to drive the entire Munro trail, which took us across the spine of the island and made for some wonderful views. Lanai, Maui, and Molokai are all very close to one another, and that is even more obvious from 3000 ft.


Later in the afternoon we picked up a grill and some chicken on a stick. We headed down to Polihua Beach, just past the Garden of the Gods, and grilled out. We watched some whales swim nearby and the green flash of the sun setting (I didn't see it). A few beers into the evening we talked about all of the high brow philosophical topics you talk about while in front of a fire on a beach in Hawaii, namely, how sweet it is to live in Hawaii and have a fire on the beach. This is also known as 'the good life.'



We went back to Lanai City and made some lumpiez (Filipino pork wraps dipped in hot and sour sauce) and passed out pretty quickly. The next morning it was straight to the airport, a long bus ride home, some doughnuts from Kaneohe Bakery, and a full day of trying to think of something to do. We didn't come up with anything, so it ended up being a day of eating and TV watching. I think it was our feet that led us to that decision.

Maintain

I have a history of ignoring maintenance on everything I own. After a few minutes of reflection, I think I have narrowed down the top 5 reasons for that:

1. I am not very mechanically inclined.
2. I procrastinate. A lot.
3. I have a natural flight response whenever a project becomes more difficult than what I originally signed up for.
4. I don't operate in the realm of exactness, just approximations (I am currently holding my car together with marine adhesive, steel epoxy, and a killer combo of disassembled pens and super glue).
5. I don't trust anyone who charges $75/hr plus the cost of parts to have my best interest in mind. Right or wrong, I assume that they don't care about addressing the actual problems as much as they care about maximizing their profit by recommending questionable, expensive, and unnecessary procedures.

All in all, I think it has just been a bad couple of months. Allow me to list my problems:

1. My Toyota station wagon suffered an exploded radiator (technical term) 5 days before I left Japan. The result: no return on my original purchase price. In the end, that's not so bad. The cost of the vehicle averaged out to about $9/day plus fuel, which is way less than the $55/day car rentals over there.

2. My sailboat got reamed by the Kona Winds right before I returned to Hawaii. My mast is still waiting for me on the bottom of the marina floor. While it is true that I ignored most maintenance on the boat, the actual piece of the boat that failed is not something I would have replaced during routine maintenance, anyway. The winds were so strong that the metal clasp holding the 1/4" wire to the boat sheared. Nature is strong.

3. My Honda Accord is limping badly. Despite feeding her $250 in parts (CV axle, distributor cap, spark plugs and wires) and giving her hours of TLC (oil change, brake bleeding, and tender words of encouragement motivating her to overcome her old age) these past two weeks, she is getting very poor gas mileage and shutters while driving. Per the mechanics advice back in 2003, I am going to try replacing the oxygen sensor this weekend. Maybe that will help.

4. My BMW K75 motorcycle is sluggish on the acceleration and overheats. I think it may be due to a clogged fuel filter. I didn't come up with this diagnosis on my own; internet discussion boards aren't just for the video-gaming crowd and desperately lonely. Also, I remember a seemingly related event from a few years ago while traveling. We were driving to Mt. Everest and our Tibetan driver stopped to clean the fuel filter (really dusty roads) because the Land Cruiser was very sluggish. His cleaning methods were pure: he simply took out the fuel filter, put the thing up to his mouth, sucked out the problem, gagged and possibly puked, put the filter back in, and pressed on. I think I will spend the $25 for a new filter and skip the middle steps, but I hope to have the same results.

As the old aphorism commands: "Know Thyself." This weekend if I can overcome reasons 1-3 from the top of the post, I shouldn't have to worry about #4. As for #5, I think Robert Persig had an admirable way of looking at it all in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Basically, even if I exacerbate my original problem and have to pay someone to fix it plus the additional problems I cause, at least I will have learned something along the way.

When all is said and done, it's simply a matter of perspective. As long as I can come to the end of this project and write off expenses under "education" rather than "I have no idea what I am doing and I should have paid someone else to do it in the first place," I will consider it a success.

Kauai

This past weekend, I went to Kauai with a few friends. Kauai is a beautiful island and the trip was the perfect length to see everything we wanted to see without having to spend the whole holiday there.


We arrived on Sunday morning and made our way to the Na Pali Coast. Na Pali translates to "the cliff(s)," which is an accurate description of the hike. I have heard from a lot of people that Na Pali is the most beautiful part of Hawaii. While it was a great hike and had some beautiful scenery, I can't say that it was the most beautiful thing I've seen in Hawaii. I think it is pretty difficult to rank different parts of Hawaii against one another. There are so many things here that are so impressive, it is nearly impossible to make a definitive list. I will say that it was impressive, but with the build-up preceding the trip, I was expecting a little more. Another thing that may have affected my perception was the crowds. I am willing to bet that the whole ordeal would have been more pleasant and tranquil had the trail not been so heavy with traffic, but on a holiday weekend, it is to be expected.

Of note, the girls think they saw Sarah Jessica Parker in the parking lot by the start of the trail. It may or may not have been her. If anyone knows how to track down celebrities, it may be worth looking into. Also, we didn't take any pictures because we thought it would be rude (i.e. we have no proof.)

Yesterday we slept in, got some breakfast, and headed for Kipu Falls as our first destination. The falls there are unlike the majority of the falls that I have seen in Hawaii. Usually, the water cascades down a rock face in a thin stream. In Kipu's case, the face of the falls was about 25 meters across and 10 meters high. The pool at the bottom was quite large and deep. One of the added bonuses of the falls was that on a ledge at the side of the pool the owner's of the land (the falls is on private property, but the owners don't try to keep people out) installed a ladder and rope swing. Depending on what point of the swing you released the rope, you could get a pretty good drop into the water.

The rapids leading up to the waterfall were very strong. In order to get to the pool, the best way was to jump from the top of the waterfall, swim to the ladder, and play on the rope swing. The return trip was a little more difficult. I almost lost it in the rapids and would have been pushed over the falls. After my first failed attempt at crossing, I decided to walk upstream until I found some rocks to climb across. I do better with climbing than swimming.

After the falls, we went to Waimea Canyon. This is one of the places that, if I were making a list, I would definitely have up there with the most beautiful places I've seen. It's called Hawaii's Grand Canyon. I wish I could give an good representation of the canyon, but I am not the best with words and my pictures never show the things as I saw them at the time. The best description I could give of the canyon is that it seemed to be dripping with light from both the sky and the reflection off of the nearby ocean. The way that the sunlight drenched everything was the most alluring aspect of it all for me. I wouldn't even describe it as bright or clear, but instead thick and full. It was as if the light was a liquid coating covering the entire scene. It was beautiful. I'm not sure how else to describe it.

After the canyon, we all got some shave ice (not shaved, mind you) and headed back towards the airport. Despite my car having some troubles with the brakes and a really bad shake in the front right tire, we all made it home by 9:30pm. It was New Year's Eve, but I decided against going out. I was in bed by 11:00 and not even the constant sparkle and boom of the fireworks (they people here really love fireworks) interruped my sleep. I slept in until after 8:30 this morning. I think that is the most I have slept-in since getting back from Japan. Today I am finally getting my day of sleeping in, sitting around, and doing nothing. Hooray for the holidays.