Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
at Kaumalapau harbor, where he presented me with two ripe pineapples. He was also the
president of the Lanai Archery Club.
He asked Gavin and I if we would like to join the club, which we readily agreed to do. We
were lent two old compound bows from one of the members to see if we took to the sport.
We enjoyed it very much, particularly when we found out that it wasn't limited to men only.
We even caught a little four-seater plane back to Oahu, sought out the recommended sports
shop, and flew back to Lanai armed to the ears with compound bows, practice arrows, hunt-
ing arrows, amulets, aiming devices, quivers, the whole nine yards. After a weekend or so,
we were both hauling arrows from our quivers and shooting at the bales of hay like the best
of them. It was a lot of fun mingling with the locals. Some of them were a little standoffish,
or perhaps a wee shy, but most of them were friendly and helpful. We made many friends
from the archery club.
One Saturday afternoon, we had a shooting tournament, to see who “da best shot” was. I
speak for myself when I say that I have always hated tournaments, competitions, matches,
round robins, whatever they are called; they leave me in a state of neurosis stemming from
my childhood at school where I recall getting four of the best for not winning a rugby
match. Half drowning at a swimming gala still has not left my mind, and I also painfully
recall my awkward falsetto squeak when it was solo time at a huge choral eisteddfod at the
intimidating town hall in Johannesburg. I brought shame and disgrace to the school. I was
all but eleven years old.
The shooting tournament, or torment, in this case was actually quite low-key. It was won by
a slight and bespectacled sixteen-year-old Filipino school girl, much to the embarrassment
of the tough, bronzed deer hunters and big mouths. There was a barbecue with refreshments
at Ken and Minnie's garage afterward, where most of us headed with our tails between our
masculine legs. We made up for our archery defeat by consuming winning amounts of beer
and sound back-slapping on the lesser bowsmanship achievements.
Wooden doors balanced on trestles became tables and were decorated with spotless, white
sheets and festooned with meat and vegetables and snacks fit for royalty. The local Hawaii-
ans were very partial to meat, which constituted a large part of their diet. There were plates
spilling over with barbecued ribs, beef steaks, sausages, pork and pork crackling, chicken,
pigs trotters, and venison (from the Axis deer that roamed about the pineapple plantations).
This venison was so sweet, due mainly to the pineapples they ate, and so tender you could
literally cut up the meat with a cake fork.
A rather dubious trick was played on Gavin and I when we were given some rather red
looking “pork” to eat. The meat was stained with food dye for some reason, but after a few
ales, it all seemed good to look at, and we wolfed down the proffered plates. It was only
