Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dee loved people, and they loved her; she was a happy, good woman, and often I would be
invited up to her house for a meal and just sit and talk; she was always very kind and sweet
to me. She was a fantastic chef and took pride in culinary skills. Sometimes there would be
guests that would get together for a few drinks and play guitar and sing or bash something
percussive. I contributed by making a double bass from an old, galvanized basin and string
attached to a stick that rested on the edge of the upturned basin. I would attempt to play
bass at these impromptu soirées. We had loads of fun, and I became good friends with a
number of locals through these musical evenings. Sometimes on a Friday night we would
get together at the picnic tables in the harbor, everyone contributing something towards a
barbecue, and out would come the guitars and little conga drums. We would have a grand
time entertaining the visiting yachties in for the weekend.
There was another live aboard in the harbor in a small boat; he had visited from neighbor-
ing Maui and had fallen in love with the place and decided to stay on. Joe was a profession-
al trumpeter, and I would hear him playing sometimes in the evening. He had temporally
retired from music, burning out in various nightclubs and bars in Maui. We could never at-
tract him to our musical soirées with a trumpet, though he was around for the booze and the
fun, especially if there were ladies from visiting boats present. We became well acquainted,
and I ended up doing a few alterations to his boat for a little extra cash.
I was in for a little shock when, around mid-morning a few days after I had arrived, I
heard and saw three huge chartered trimarans loaded to the gunnels with tourists wallowing
through the entrance of the quiet little harbor. At first I thought they were just there for a
visit, and they were, but, I was informed by the harbormaster, they would be back the next
day and the next. This was the daily charter from Maui, breaking only for the weekend.
They would arrive at around 10 a.m. and pull up to a large allocated dock, reserved spe-
cifically for the Coon brothers whose father had started the Trilogy Yacht Charters some
twenty years earlier. It was now a thriving business. The guests would disgorge and flock
off to the toilets and then down to the beach where they would swim and snorkel and paddle
about in the sun. At around lunchtime, a local Filipino couple would cook the day's bar-
becued chicken and noodles and salad, and the guests would feast on this under the Kiawe
trees at the picnic tables spread about.
At first I was dismayed by this noisy intrusion but later changed my mind and actually be-
nefited greatly from it. Murphy did well out of their visits too; he was always the center of
attraction and would actually sit every morning at the Coon's dock awaiting their arrival.
They all loved and made a great fuss over him, and I never had to feed him as there was
always someone throwing him pieces of chicken. I too was invited by the local couple to
eat there at lunchtime, and I dined well on noodle salad, chicken, and rice virtually every
day.
