Oahu, Hawaii

I'm writing this blog on Sunday October 14, exactly 7 weeks after these events occurred. Those 7 weeks have been incredibly intense and emotional. I will try to tell the story now, but the tone is undoubtedly effected by the experiences of the past 50 days.

We left Seattle for Hawaii under the threat of Hurricane Lane. It was a category 4 heading toward the islands. It was projected to pass closest to Oahu on Friday and continuing on into Saturday which was the day we had tickets from Seattle to Oahu via Maui. The airlines were encouraging people to reschedule. We certainly considered it strongly, but in the end decided to go ahead.

The storm stalled near the big island and we actually arrived to Maui about 20 minutes early without seeing any impact, even after leaving Seattle late. Unfortunately, all the gates were full and we didn't arrive to ours until 15 minutes after the scheduled time. This caused us to miss our connection, but Hawaiian Airlines had re-booked us and we had to run to catch our new connection.

From there things went pretty smooth. There was a bit of a "oh shit" when I realized I didn't complete the car reservation. Fortunately for us, people had cancelled or delayed their trips to Hawaii and we were able to get one. It was through a local company that we didn't know but in fact, they were great. This would be echoed in Chiang Mai in a few weeks, but we didn't know it at the time.

We got our car, checked into the Fairway Villas, had dinner and called it a day.

Sunday, we drove out to see Mary and Shawn and meet Brielle for the first time in person. It was a welcome relaxing afternoon, just visiting and enjoying each other's company. As with all our closest friends and family, it was if we had never left.

Sunday afternoon on the north shore.

Brielle is really a character, but then again given who her parents are, it's not that surprising.

She enjoyed playing with Barbara and was very attracted to her bracelets.

They also have a beautiful saltwater aquarium. It is very much what you see when you dive here. This video looks like it could have actually been one of our dives.

The picture above is a tiny baby starfish, which is something I've never been aware of seeing in the wild.

After our initial visit with Shawn and Mary, we went back to the airport to pick up our friends Lawrny and Sharron who were coming most recently from a wedding in Denver.

Considering what had been predicted with Hurricane Lane, it was a very calm evening on Sunday.

There had been concern about flooding on the Ala Wai canal which was just below our window. In fact, congress has now approved funds for a renovation of the canal. As you can see, though it was all normal and the paddlers were practicing on it as usual.

We took Lawrny and Sharron to the big tourist attractions like Hunama Bay.

And of course to enjoy the taste delights of the islands.

But also to our favorite lesser known spots like the last of the original tiki bars, called La Mariana.

Taken just outside La Mariana.

Some of what we saw was new to us too. This part of the skyline is all new in the last 4 years in the Kaka'ako neighborhood in Honolulu.

We were invited to the Waikiki Yacht Club by our friend Tai Okumura who recently became the head coach of the outrigger canoe club there. His impact is amazing, raising membership levels and turning the canoe club from the bottom of the league to a top contender in his first season. One of the founding members of the Waikiki Yacht club was Duke Kahanamaoku.

Duke is known for resurrecting Hawaiian surfing and surfing in general around the world. He was instrumental in bringing focus on all Hawaiian sports including outrigger canoe paddling. They are rightly proud of Duke at the club. They keep his boat restored and ready to go. They said every famous butt in Hollywood at the time sat in that chair.

I think Tai will be held along side him in the history of paddling at the club.

We saw many sunsets as always, but we also saw them from some different vantage points. Here we are at the end of Sand Island looking back at Diamond Head.

From the same spot on Sand Island but looking Eva toward the west and Kapolei.

Speaking of Diamond Head, Lawrny and I walked up. I took a wrong path (yes that's possible) and ended up inside a bunker. You had to crawl through a gun turret to get out. I'm sure glad Barbara wasn't on this hike or she would have thrown me off Diamond Head.

It's good to work up an appetite. This trip was the perfect transition to Thailand. We get all the same ingredients you see in the dish above here in Chiang Mai.

The conditions weren't great for spending a lot of time in the water, but we did get some very limited beach time. Here we are on the windward side in Kaneohe looking out toward the Marine Corp base.

A very special part of the trip for us was a small ceremony we held for our dear Chloe. She was lost on this island when we took her home from the Humane Society. Although she disappeared without a trace in Washington State, Barbara had some of her hair and we bought a lei. We went to the small lagoon behind Paradise cove and sent her back to the sea. We watched for a long time as her lei headed off to sea. It was very cathartic for us and I thank Barbara for organizing it.

After one last visit with Shawn and Mary it was time to go home. In this picture everyone is waiting for Dad to come home. We will miss them all.

One footnote to this trip was I had to leave for a few days and fly to Los Angeles for a court ordered mediation session. It was a total waste of time, but you have to do what you have to do. Hopefully I'll be talking more about that in a later update.