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.