Horizontal in Hawaii

Horizontal in Hawaii:

It is fully my intention that, when we leave San Francisco for the second time, I wake up in a lovely comfortable bed in a hotel in Hawaii with no plans to do anything at all for days.

Horizontal in Hawaii

I am currently waiting for Margaret to return from an excursion around the airport terminal. We arrived from Las Vegas and have a 4 hr wait to go west. We have a 5 ½ hr flight but a 2 hr time shift so we arrive at a reasonable time local time. We will be tired and bed will be a good option.

We’ve been told that there is a chance we may be able to get a ride in a Hawaiian canoe in the surf. If so, I want to do that. We are really using this next few days as an opportunity to have a really quiet time of relaxation and reading. I know!

How could I be in Hawaii and not go flat out to see and do everything? If I was on holiday from Australia for 4 days in Hawaii would I spend it sitting or lying around and reading? No! I’d be out and doing. But we are at the end of 3 months of “out and doing” and want an opportunity to “chill out”.

Our last night in Vegas was reasonably quiet and we went to a show entitled “Defending the Caveman”. It was a 1 man comedy monologue. It was a good show with great audience participation.

I couldn’t get tickets to “O” or to Celine Dion as it was Veteran’s Day. The US community do not have Anzac Day or an equivalent to celebrate like we do. I suppose in some ways Independence Day would be the national defining moment that would be the closest to Anzac Day. Anyway, Nov 11^th is it. Parades, beer, celebrations, food etc. But we don’t go over the top as they do here. Flag flying is, of course, prominent. But there is a movement to audibly and in signage thank all veterans of all conflicts. Small communities do it mentioning people by name rather than “Pizza Hut thanks all veterans”. But whatever the form, it is appreciated and common practice. There were lines for restaurants (especially the casinos that had “$7.77 buffet all Veteran’s Day” signs outside. Many more people went out for the long weekend and features like Hoover Dam (near Vegas) and Grand Canyon (near lots of places – if you count a 300 mile drive) were popular. So too, I found out, were the shows in Vegas. There were absolutely no tickets on the ½ price online outlets. Silly me! I did not realise the impact of Veteran’s Day. Ah well!

How wrong can I be?

Geoff has done us proud again. Our hotel (Queen Kapiolani – named after a member of the Hawaiian royal family) is 1 block back from Waikiki Beach.

It is literally 5 minutes from room to water, including slow elevators. The water is warm, the sand is soft and as good as the brochures describe. The views are speccy, the entertainment, food and shops are extensive. We’re eating well – too well. But what else is there to do when we cannot cook for ourselves? Maybe we’ll be thinner when we look in the Australian mirrors. Our room is a good one. It is on the 8^th floor this time. This hotel has a lovely pool to use when we come back from the beach. It has no shade but it makes a good end to the day to swim in fresh water and be able to shower soon after. It’s water is lovely and cool(ish).

Honolulu is a noisy city but the birds wake us in the morning after a very good sleep and we are re-invigorated,

It is really hard making decisions about which part of the beach to go to next. Will it be the open water where the surf comes in or will it be the protected area where the wall is 30m from shore and just high enough to stop the surf but low enough to let the big waves come over the top. I stood on a ledge next to the wall yesterday talking to a bloke from British Columbia who comes here often, when a wave snuck in, barrelled into me and knocked me “a” over “t”. That was fun. Mid-sentence then spluttering.

We spent most of the first day in the water or in shops. It is so, so easy to spend on good stuff at very good prices. We hope that the family like their presents. If they don’t we will have to come back to exchange them or get refunds.

This afternoon we spent the same way. More money, another new suitcase, less inheritance left. I do hope that DVA grant my service pension or I’ll have to go back to work sooner than I thought. At this stage I am planning to have the rest of the year off and to re-start in January. Marg has some work for me to do at home.

This morning though, we went to the Pearl Harbour memorial on a tour. It is very well run and very reverent. The memorial is built over the sunken remains of the USS Arizona where over 1000 men died in 9 minutes in the first attack in 1941. They are very well organised and the whole experience is very moving. There is a film that lasts for 20 minutes and comprises footage from US and Japanese sources and most of the audience for our showing was Japanese young people. Honolulu is a major destination for Japanese kids from schools and for tourists. It makes for interesting cultural dynamics. While we were there they put through a group of 150 every 15 minutes. Film, short boat ride, memorial tour, boat ride back. The whole thing takes 75 minutes. There is no time limit on the time spent in the museum or shop or grounds. We were only limited by the fact that our bus driver was expecting us at a pre-arranged time.

Interestingly we dined tonight in a Japanese restaurant that specialised in “New York steaks”.

We reckon that we now have our limit of 4 X 50lb bags for the two of us. No more shopping unless we throw things away.

Tomorrow we go to the Polynesian Cultural Centre for the day, for a luau and home late at night. We will still have all day Friday on the beach as our transport to the airport does not leave until 5.45pm.

I may still get to ride in or over the surf yet.

Well, the Polynesian centre was well worth the time spent. We joined about a thousand altogether as they came in buses all day long. The organisation was very good and smooth in the delivery of concerts and food in the luau and dancing etc.

It took us until late evening. We drove back into the hotel at 10.30pm quite tired and ready for our last day.

Well an early morning swim was on the agenda and the water was really inviting. It was full tide early so we enjoyed a different swim from the ones we’d had before. Then a really quiet relaxation on the beach, in the grounds of the Zoo which was nearby, took pride of place. A brief lunch, some last minute shopping (will it ever end?).

But….. what about the surf? I hear you ask.

AT about 3pm Marg made it clear that she wanted some time to draw and stuff like that. So, I looked at the clock and realised that I could hire a boogy board and some fins from the place at the beach and give it a go.

Could I ride the Hawaiian surf scene?

Hurriedly I borrowed a towel from housekeeping (I really had checked out by this time but no one asked me) and I headed for the soft sand of Waikiki and the rumbling surf of a declining tide.

Down I went to the beach, hired the gear, 1 hour to make up for 40 years of surfing absence, 1 hour to cover myself in personal glory, no one to take any notice of this older, lily-white, balding, sunburnt footed person in blue bathers. Down to the edge of the wet sand, breakers rolling in, down with the dacks, AHHHHH! No bathers! I forgot that I’d packed because we were flying out and this was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Shorts UP! Instant decision! Who cares? No-one except those 3 policemen who’d posed for a photo earlier. I wasn’t going to be indecent, just differently attired. Decision made! Dacks down!

“Wrap the connecting strap to your wrist!” an internal voice said to me. So I did.

Take the fins and the board and I’m off. Down to the water! Get feet wet, look at shadow. “Who is that wearing a hat into the water?” Opps! Back to the clothes pile.

Back to the water. Into the small waves. Start to put on a fin. Oops! Glasses still on. At $950 for this pair I’d better go back to the clothes pile.

Times a wasting! I only have 55min left.

Back to the water. Fell over 3 times trying to get small fins on!

Success! Paddle! Big waves! Washed backwards! Paddle again! Over and out to where the big boys play!

But where are the really big waves? They went home. I was left with 1 ½ - 2 metres only. Ah well! Have to make do.

Watch others, don’t leave too early, watch how they paddle and kick, they can catch waves and ride them in to the shore you can too. Rubbish! I spent 40 minutes being washed 5 metres and then had to paddle back out a bit.

“Paddle over to where they are. Get on waves with them. Don’t sit over here trying to copy them. Get with them. Go for it.”

“Shut up voice in head.”

But I do heed good advice so I paddled over and tried to make conversation with this 30 something, orange T-shirt wearing, dreadlock-covered, brown skinned person I saw catch some good waves. I said that I’d been waiting 40 years to try to do this. He mumbled something in Hawaiian about me not having any rights to be in his ocean and to please remove myself from the path he wished to take in catching this next wave to the shore as he pursued his dream of becoming a truly wonderful boogie boarder. Those are not his exact words but you get my drift. Having been spoken to so sharply I demurred and, with a raised salute with all of my fingers but one in the clenched position, I paddled back to my inadequate wave-breaking area.

More of the same.

But!!!!! Then along came Jones! I caught a beauty. It ran me to shore and left me to crawl over the broken coral that was now exposed at the lower tidal level. Who cares? Salt water heals cuts doesn’t it? I was a bonifide (how do you spell that?) boogie boarder at 60. So what do you do in theses circumstances? I had 10 minutes left of my hour, I was back on shore, the cuts would heal, I had done it.

So I went back out to have another go. Prayers get answered. With 2 minutes to go Jones came back and I had a better ride than the first but this time I knew where the rocks were.

That was so much fun! Or as kids here would say, “ So fun dude.” To each other not to me. No one had called me dude although one bloke from Arizona thought my hat was awesome.

But!! I was soaked in salt water. I had towels and a dry shirt. Marg by now was back at the hotel. So I did as any already-checked out guest would do. I acted as if I wasn’t, took a lift to the pool, had a swim in fresh water to rinse my hair, shorts and undies, cool off and relax before borrowing the key to the lobby restroom where I could put on anti-DVT skins, jeans and as much heavy clothing as I could to keep the weight down in our now 6 pieces of luggage.

It is a pity that hotels don’t offer scales to guests so they could avoid the embarrassment of having to transfer luggage items from 1 case to another to keep below the “anything over 20kg (50lbs) costs $50” implementation which had threatened us so many times.

We made it. I reckoned all would be under and we were with Air NZ so they’d be nicer than those fuss pots we had met before.

This will probably be the last blog.

We will be travelling around the Coramandel Peninsula near Auckland for a few days in a motorhome and I reckon we may not get Internet access. So, whenever you receive this we will be home on Friday night. Don’t ring. We’ll be asleep. See some of you over the weekend. Don’t forget to vote on Saturday.

If you’d like to Email me a potted political message encapsulating the election promises and who we should vote for, please feel free to do so. There was absolutely NO mention of any Australian election in any media we have seen.

So, there you are, almost over.

3 ½ months of a wonderful time together.

I think we’ll do some more of this sometime.

But we’ll both have to go back to work to pay for it.

Anyone need a renovation done or a wedding dress made?

Love and hugs

Don and Marg