Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Eleven
Honolulu and Keehi Lagoon.
We are employed.
I find a girlfriend.
Threatened with a knife!
Swap meets.
Gavin's car.
Heartache.
We left Radio Bay from the big island of Hawaii three days later after a little trip to Puna
and immediate vicinity of the harbor. It was fascinating to see all the local Hawaiians and
Americans living together as one big family. Everybody was so nice to us and had such ac-
cents! Everywhere we went and everyone we met was so new and entertaining after being at
sea for fifty days.
We went to a few local bars and were thrilled by the live Hawaiian entertainers. The singing
and guitar playing was just like in the movies, and I was greatly inspired to play my guitar
again. The girls were beautiful; we thought we were in heaven. Some of the local, Asian-
influenced people were stunning in their looks: women with willowy bodies and long, jet-
black, silky hair, their skin ivory-textured and olive complexioned and so friendly and the
men also with great physiques and long, straight, black hair. These were the original kanakas
who settled on the islands from the South Pacific. They don't like to admit it, but they wer-
en't the original inhabitants of Hawaii. As far as people can tell, the Menahunies, or “little
people,” used to live there long ago, and one can tell the descendants of these people by the
short, squat, local Hawaiians today. Their ancestral heritage is rich with old stories and tradi-
tions. They are a very spiritual people, not unlike the North American Indians, also with an
ax to grind with the white American empire after their annexing Hawaii as the fiftieth state.
It is a very interesting history still very much alive today.
The morning of our departure brought a strong, northeasterly trade, and we were advised
by the local sailors to take it easy-going through the channel to Oahu. This channel, the
Alinuhihaha channel, has “kicked my butt” twice now, and this was the first time. The wind
increased in speed to around thirty knots, and the seas were very rough and steep which was
caused in part by the reflection and refraction effect of the land mass between the two is-
lands as well as the shallow sea bed between them.
We were reaching across to Oahu, and Déjà vu was flying along and steering well though
at times the seas overwhelmed her tiller, and we had to help the old steering system. It was
