Sunday, May 8, 2011
Plane Tickets Bought
We have bought the plane tickets. As I typed the last entry, Mom and Dad were busy arranging how we were going to come back to Swarthmore. We are stopping in Seattle, and visiting Rachael and Brianʻs new home there, for four days, starting August 7th (the plane leaves Honolulu the 6th). Then, on the 11th, we fly back in to Philadelphia airport, which I guess I still call home. I love it here, but I wont be too sad to come back.
Surfing--Trial 2
This is finally working. We have an 8 ft board (from a leaving UH student bought for $300) that my dad and I can finally stand on. Success! We went to White Plains beach on the Ewa side of the island and the waves there were perfect. No, not big. Tiny, actually, but very surfable, and yet somehow not boogie-boardable...weird, I know, because im better at boogie-boarding than surfing. They just donʻt curl over, but they still have some power behind them. Over the course of at least a month and 4 or so Sundays at White Plains, I stood up maybe 10 times. Dadʻs stood up less, but thatʻs because he lets me use the board most of the time. I can now almost consistently catch and ride the wave into shore. Finally! :) Thank you to the random people who have given me pointers about what and what not to do.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
A Land (VERY MUCH) in Motion
I wrote early on about these islands and why they exist. To recap, there is a “hot spot” in the earth’s mantle here in the mid-pacific. As the pacific plate moves over that hot spot, at the not-so-snail-like pace of 4 inches per year (your fingernail’s growth rate), volcanic islands are successively born.
Of the ~8 inhabited Hawaiian islands the oldest is about 6Myrs of age. But the complete geological record of volcanic islands produced by this hot spot extends way back in time, and actually shows many, many “islands” that lie (or did lie) in a great arc from the northwest (the very oldest) to the southeast (to the very newest). Many of those older masses are now but atolls, sand bars, or simply “seamounts”, disappearing back under the ocean from whence they came eons ago.
One of the very newest of the Hawaiian islands, the “Big Island” of this chain, called Hawai’i, is but a baby, at ~1Myrs old. (To be accurate, there is a new baby already born, called Lo’ihi, just southeast of Hawai’i, but it has not risen above sea level - - yet).
Being so young, Hawai’i still has quite active volcanic action: Mauna Loa and, especially, Kilauea (see the inset above, from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory). The latter is the cause of the lava flows on
e can see right now. I should mention that these volcanoes and their lava flows are distinct in kind from the explosive, very destructive volcanoes that usually come to mind. The Hawaiian islands are comprised of great “shield” volcanoes. Take a look at Mauna Loa (“Long Mountain”), off in the great distance in the photo, with its gently sloping profile. Mauna Loa stretches so that it makes up about half the size of the Big Island. These mid-pacific volcanoes emit lava deficient in silicates and dissolved gases, and produce that lava at very high temperatures. Thus, the lavas flow well, and form gently sloping surfaces. That is not to say there have not been “great”, land-shakin’ events. And, of course, the path of the flowing lava has wreaked havoc on homes in its path over the years.
We spent our Holiday Season on Hawai’i, and
traveled the island starting in it
s east, counterclockwise back to its southeast, ending in Volcanoes National Park (where Abby became a Junior Ranger). (Hawai’i is about the size of Connecticut, for you main-landers). All of the above wordy preamble is simply to say, “WOW”!
We found this island to contain the most dramatic, stark, beautiful and desolate landscapes we have seen. We did some horseback riding through an exquisite valley, some awesome snorkeling, and some kayaking. But, I’ll stick to the hikes through the active volcanic landscapes.
Our photos simply cannot do this justice. Too much depth is lost to appreciate the magnitude of much of what is pictured below. It was really amazing: There are few opportunities one has to walk on ground that was formed just three weeks ago!
Have you ever walked across a caldera? If you look back at that labeled photo, Kilauea Iki is down in the foreground. It erupted last in the late ‘50’s for a short time. The slightly sculpted hump in the middle distance (just above the tree branch) is Kilauea Iki’s now-defunct ash and cinder cone, Pu`u Pua`i (Gushing cone). That cone produced spectacular fountains. The flat expansive area below the cone is the Kilauea Iki caldera – a lava filled pool long ago.
Our first day’s hike was across this stea
ming caldera. You can appreciate t
he old lava bed up close, broken up due to uneven cooling and buckling. No photo can communicate the feeling one has walking across what was once a roiling lake of lava. To this day, steam vents pock-mark the caldera, and placing your hand near that steam can give you severe burns.
But, Kilauea Iki means “small” Kilauea, so what about Kilauea?
In that first photo, behind and to
the right of Pu`u Pua`i (the Gushing cone), is Kilauea. This is the most active volcano on earth. Its caldera is about 3 miles long x 1.5 miles wide. The sulfurous plume rising from its midst emanates from the pit crater within the Kilauea caldera, called Halema‘ uma’u (House of the ama’umu’u fern). Of course, Halema‘ uma’u is the current home of Pele, Goddess of Hawaiian volcanoes.
This pit crater is about a half mile in diameter (visible in the daylight photo), and the series of recent eruptions (started in 2008) created a vent that is a few hundred feet in diameter. At night, one is mesmerized by the eerie orange glow cast upwards on the sulfurous plume (photo). Yes … that glow comes from the pool of lava flowing “underground”, a few hundred feet below the Halem’uma’u vent.
Whither goest thou, lava?
Great shield volcanoes have action not only at their summits, but along zones, or rifts, leading away, usually in three symmetric directions - though, as the plate carrying the island moves northwest, the major active rift trails to the southwest of the original shield volcano. And, for Kilauea, this is so, as the current surfacing lava action comes along a zone that proceeds east / southeast away from the caldera itself. The action surfaces some 17 miles away from the Kilauea caldera, as the Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent has been emitting lava continuously since 1983. That lava has flowed in a number of episodes south to the sea. It is that flow on the way to the sea that has been a mix of devastation and creation. The lava has taken (evacuated) towns with it along the way.
Here is an example of a too-common site: the “end of the road”:
Another too-common site: someone has re-built a home on their “property”. This whole area was destroyed in the early ‘9
0’s, and the land, as you can easily see, is completely covered by thick lava flows. Sometime in 2004 or so, the Hawaiian government gave the owners permission to re-build – they owned the land; there was no longer an imminent flow threatening to re-take anything built on that property. So, a few “intrepid" folks re-built. Now, why one would do that, is anyone’s guess. I would like to have asked them (politely – really to understand).
Lets return to that flowing lava: Once the lava reaches the en
d of the island, it explodes as the hot lava meets the (cooler) sea. Those explosions create "Black Sand" beaches – made of fine, round-ish mini-pearls of exploded lava. The lava flow into the sea has also created several square miles of new coastline (some of it is unstable, and undergoes catastrophic crashes intermittently into the sea).
If we move back “inland” a bit, back to the end of that road, you can walk out on that new lava and see for yourself, as land is being created. You see the lava glow in tunnels within the relatively recent flows, just 20 yards from where you stand. And, at night this glow makes for another eerie site, as many little “lava eyes” look out at you from amongst the flows.
During the evening we were there, county workers went out at intervals beyond the warning tape, and sampled the lava – why, I really do not know; it was not clear it was for any scientific or safety purpose; cynically I think it was just to help put on a show. They bring you back “lava on a stick”, and wave it all just a little too closely to us in the crowd…..
So, you take all this in, and then, as you are walking on that short path from the end of the road to the current lava viewing area, it dawns on you, and you really finally get it: This is land that is only a few weeks old.
To prove it, I opened our water bottle and poured some water down a crack. Immediately, I was “rewarded” with a burst of steam. The subsurface is quite hot, still, and will be for some time to come. Liz said she already knew that ground was hot, since our butts got quite warm as we were sitting on the lava watching. (Still, I was actually quite surprised by how vigorously / quickly the water was turned to steam – that is, how close to the surface the temperatures are well above boiling. I really almost got burned by that steam the first time I poured in the water).
"So what", you say. There are many things one could propose as a moral or lesson in all this. The lesson I got came from the stark contrasts I have seen over these few months. Liz had a vision about the order for us to take our trips to neighbor islands. Our family first spent time on Kauai, the oldest of the inhabited Hawaiian islands (that one can visit), at ~6Myrs. Lava flows, just like those we saw so clearly, and so freshly on the island of Hawai'i, also cover her older sister, Kauai. But, Kauai, the "Garden Isle", looks very different - superficially. Most of the flows have been covered by reclaiming flora (we did not even think about lava floes when we visited Kauai back in October). Much erosion has occurred over those eons of time to carve great valleys, and the volcanic calderas have died out long go (Kauai having "moved" ~180 miles away from the "hot spot"), and those great shield volcanoes have also now sunk under their own enormous weight, with their calderas now lying about at sea level.
These mid-pacific islands scream out at you that the earth is very old, that lands change, that the environment is mutable. The change is generally slow, but can sometimes be cataclysmic. You experience these islands and you feel these truths. Would that everyone who believes the earth to be only 10,000 years old could see this for themselves.
I wrote early on about these islands and why they exist. To recap, there is a “hot spot” in the earth’s mantle here in the mid-pacific. As the pacific plate moves over that hot spot, at the not-so-snail-like pace of 4 inches per year (your fingernail’s growth rate), volcanic islands are successively born.
Of the ~8 inhabited Hawaiian islands the oldest is about 6Myrs of age. But the complete geological record of volcanic islands produced by this hot spot extends way back in time, and actually shows many, many “islands” that lie (or did lie) in a great arc from the northwest (the very oldest) to the southeast (to the very newest). Many of those older masses are now but atolls, sand bars, or simply “seamounts”, disappearing back under the ocean from whence they came eons ago.
One of the very newest of the Hawaiian islands, the “Big Island” of this chain, called Hawai’i, is but a baby, at ~1Myrs old. (To be accurate, there is a new baby already born, called Lo’ihi, just southeast of Hawai’i, but it has not risen above sea level - - yet).
Being so young, Hawai’i still has quite active volcanic action: Mauna Loa and, especially, Kilauea (see the inset above, from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory). The latter is the cause of the lava flows on
e can see right now. I should mention that these volcanoes and their lava flows are distinct in kind from the explosive, very destructive volcanoes that usually come to mind. The Hawaiian islands are comprised of great “shield” volcanoes. Take a look at Mauna Loa (“Long Mountain”), off in the great distance in the photo, with its gently sloping profile. Mauna Loa stretches so that it makes up about half the size of the Big Island. These mid-pacific volcanoes emit lava deficient in silicates and dissolved gases, and produce that lava at very high temperatures. Thus, the lavas flow well, and form gently sloping surfaces. That is not to say there have not been “great”, land-shakin’ events. And, of course, the path of the flowing lava has wreaked havoc on homes in its path over the years.We spent our Holiday Season on Hawai’i, and
traveled the island starting in it
s east, counterclockwise back to its southeast, ending in Volcanoes National Park (where Abby became a Junior Ranger). (Hawai’i is about the size of Connecticut, for you main-landers). All of the above wordy preamble is simply to say, “WOW”!We found this island to contain the most dramatic, stark, beautiful and desolate landscapes we have seen. We did some horseback riding through an exquisite valley, some awesome snorkeling, and some kayaking. But, I’ll stick to the hikes through the active volcanic landscapes.
Our photos simply cannot do this justice. Too much depth is lost to appreciate the magnitude of much of what is pictured below. It was really amazing: There are few opportunities one has to walk on ground that was formed just three weeks ago!
Have you ever walked across a caldera? If you look back at that labeled photo, Kilauea Iki is down in the foreground. It erupted last in the late ‘50’s for a short time. The slightly sculpted hump in the middle distance (just above the tree branch) is Kilauea Iki’s now-defunct ash and cinder cone, Pu`u Pua`i (Gushing cone). That cone produced spectacular fountains. The flat expansive area below the cone is the Kilauea Iki caldera – a lava filled pool long ago.
Our first day’s hike was across this stea
ming caldera. You can appreciate t
he old lava bed up close, broken up due to uneven cooling and buckling. No photo can communicate the feeling one has walking across what was once a roiling lake of lava. To this day, steam vents pock-mark the caldera, and placing your hand near that steam can give you severe burns.But, Kilauea Iki means “small” Kilauea, so what about Kilauea?
In that first photo, behind and to
the right of Pu`u Pua`i (the Gushing cone), is Kilauea. This is the most active volcano on earth. Its caldera is about 3 miles long x 1.5 miles wide. The sulfurous plume rising from its midst emanates from the pit crater within the Kilauea caldera, called Halema‘ uma’u (House of the ama’umu’u fern). Of course, Halema‘ uma’u is the current home of Pele, Goddess of Hawaiian volcanoes. This pit crater is about a half mile in diameter (visible in the daylight photo), and the series of recent eruptions (started in 2008) created a vent that is a few hundred feet in diameter. At night, one is mesmerized by the eerie orange glow cast upwards on the sulfurous plume (photo). Yes … that glow comes from the pool of lava flowing “underground”, a few hundred feet below the Halem’uma’u vent.
Whither goest thou, lava?
Great shield volcanoes have action not only at their summits, but along zones, or rifts, leading away, usually in three symmetric directions - though, as the plate carrying the island moves northwest, the major active rift trails to the southwest of the original shield volcano. And, for Kilauea, this is so, as the current surfacing lava action comes along a zone that proceeds east / southeast away from the caldera itself. The action surfaces some 17 miles away from the Kilauea caldera, as the Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent has been emitting lava continuously since 1983. That lava has flowed in a number of episodes south to the sea. It is that flow on the way to the sea that has been a mix of devastation and creation. The lava has taken (evacuated) towns with it along the way.
Here is an example of a too-common site: the “end of the road”:
Another too-common site: someone has re-built a home on their “property”. This whole area was destroyed in the early ‘9
0’s, and the land, as you can easily see, is completely covered by thick lava flows. Sometime in 2004 or so, the Hawaiian government gave the owners permission to re-build – they owned the land; there was no longer an imminent flow threatening to re-take anything built on that property. So, a few “intrepid" folks re-built. Now, why one would do that, is anyone’s guess. I would like to have asked them (politely – really to understand).Lets return to that flowing lava: Once the lava reaches the en
d of the island, it explodes as the hot lava meets the (cooler) sea. Those explosions create "Black Sand" beaches – made of fine, round-ish mini-pearls of exploded lava. The lava flow into the sea has also created several square miles of new coastline (some of it is unstable, and undergoes catastrophic crashes intermittently into the sea).If we move back “inland” a bit, back to the end of that road, you can walk out on that new lava and see for yourself, as land is being created. You see the lava glow in tunnels within the relatively recent flows, just 20 yards from where you stand. And, at night this glow makes for another eerie site, as many little “lava eyes” look out at you from amongst the flows.
During the evening we were there, county workers went out at intervals beyond the warning tape, and sampled the lava – why, I really do not know; it was not clear it was for any scientific or safety purpose; cynically I think it was just to help put on a show. They bring you back “lava on a stick”, and wave it all just a little too closely to us in the crowd…..
So, you take all this in, and then, as you are walking on that short path from the end of the road to the current lava viewing area, it dawns on you, and you really finally get it: This is land that is only a few weeks old.
To prove it, I opened our water bottle and poured some water down a crack. Immediately, I was “rewarded” with a burst of steam. The subsurface is quite hot, still, and will be for some time to come. Liz said she already knew that ground was hot, since our butts got quite warm as we were sitting on the lava watching. (Still, I was actually quite surprised by how vigorously / quickly the water was turned to steam – that is, how close to the surface the temperatures are well above boiling. I really almost got burned by that steam the first time I poured in the water).
"So what", you say. There are many things one could propose as a moral or lesson in all this. The lesson I got came from the stark contrasts I have seen over these few months. Liz had a vision about the order for us to take our trips to neighbor islands. Our family first spent time on Kauai, the oldest of the inhabited Hawaiian islands (that one can visit), at ~6Myrs. Lava flows, just like those we saw so clearly, and so freshly on the island of Hawai'i, also cover her older sister, Kauai. But, Kauai, the "Garden Isle", looks very different - superficially. Most of the flows have been covered by reclaiming flora (we did not even think about lava floes when we visited Kauai back in October). Much erosion has occurred over those eons of time to carve great valleys, and the volcanic calderas have died out long go (Kauai having "moved" ~180 miles away from the "hot spot"), and those great shield volcanoes have also now sunk under their own enormous weight, with their calderas now lying about at sea level.
These mid-pacific islands scream out at you that the earth is very old, that lands change, that the environment is mutable. The change is generally slow, but can sometimes be cataclysmic. You experience these islands and you feel these truths. Would that everyone who believes the earth to be only 10,000 years old could see this for themselves.
Friday, November 12, 2010
A Honolulu Halloween
Come, oh, Labor Day or so, all our local stores started featuring Halloween-wares. Maybe that does not seem so different than 'back home", but, as Liz pointed out, this is a place where missionaries came early and worked hard to eradicate all worship of spirits and multiple gods, etc.
So, it is a bit interesting that Halloween is a such a big deal here.
Many of you were asking, "What will your kids be for Halloween"? We were asking that, too, and we got performance artists in a manner of speaking:
We got one "Abby Montana", and one Joker-like Zachary. They each had fun, as they have friends with whom they were able to go around trick or treating.
That was Sunday evening, but there was also Sunday AM at Zach's soccer game - no, Zach could not dress up, but Liz and Abby did (Steve had to coach). You see, here, when parents supply "snacks" for their kid's soccer game, it is NOT simply orange slices at half-time and donuts at the end.
No ... it is a full blown, four course meal. No one bothers with half-time snacks. Apparently, the feeling is that the kids can do with just water at the break.
But, toward the end of the game, the parents break out the collapsible tables, and all the necessary accoutrements.
So, given that the Sunday game for which we were one of the snack-supplying parents landed on Halloween, we decided that our contribution had to have a special Halloween flavor.
Well, for one, Mummy Dogs. Yes, that's right; don't they look treaty?
A particularly frightening one - just staring back up at you, yeah? I do not think this one went down all that easily......
It just takes some dough, some dogs, and two earnest cooks wrapping them up for a quick bake, and ....
Voila, a platter of mummies!
But, that was not all we decided to make for our post-soccer game goodies. I was the brains behind this one (stolen recipes from the Web, not an original idea here).
To prepare brains, like below ....
You must start with a nice round watermelon, and peel it. Yes, peel it (I never had done this before.......). It seemed so, un-carrot-like:
Then, take your favorite CARVING knife ..... with deft handling, incisive manipulations and not too much surgical precision ...
You got something to move into cold storage 'til the morrow:
Hope you had a Happy Halloween!
Steve, Liz, Zach & Abby
So, it is a bit interesting that Halloween is a such a big deal here.
Many of you were asking, "What will your kids be for Halloween"? We were asking that, too, and we got performance artists in a manner of speaking:
We got one "Abby Montana", and one Joker-like Zachary. They each had fun, as they have friends with whom they were able to go around trick or treating.
That was Sunday evening, but there was also Sunday AM at Zach's soccer game - no, Zach could not dress up, but Liz and Abby did (Steve had to coach). You see, here, when parents supply "snacks" for their kid's soccer game, it is NOT simply orange slices at half-time and donuts at the end.
No ... it is a full blown, four course meal. No one bothers with half-time snacks. Apparently, the feeling is that the kids can do with just water at the break.
But, toward the end of the game, the parents break out the collapsible tables, and all the necessary accoutrements.
So, given that the Sunday game for which we were one of the snack-supplying parents landed on Halloween, we decided that our contribution had to have a special Halloween flavor.
Well, for one, Mummy Dogs. Yes, that's right; don't they look treaty?
A particularly frightening one - just staring back up at you, yeah? I do not think this one went down all that easily......
It just takes some dough, some dogs, and two earnest cooks wrapping them up for a quick bake, and ....
Voila, a platter of mummies!
But, that was not all we decided to make for our post-soccer game goodies. I was the brains behind this one (stolen recipes from the Web, not an original idea here).
To prepare brains, like below ....
You must start with a nice round watermelon, and peel it. Yes, peel it (I never had done this before.......). It seemed so, un-carrot-like:
Then, take your favorite CARVING knife ..... with deft handling, incisive manipulations and not too much surgical precision ...
You got something to move into cold storage 'til the morrow:
Hope you had a Happy Halloween!
Steve, Liz, Zach & Abby
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, wonderful Spam......
October 4, 2010
There is another key Hawaiian treat we had to try, "SPAM Musubi" with the accent on the first "oo".
First .. a little interlude, to establish atmosphere ....
So, why SPAM, you might ask? Liz looked it up: During WWII, it was quite difficult to get meat in Hawai'i. The military stationed here received SPAM as part of their rations ("Meatloaf without basic training"), and then frequently traded it on the black market. Islands in and around the Pacific consume the most SPAM per capita, and recipes abound. It does not have the negative perception that it does on the mainland. Much more info can be found on the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(food)
Steve here: My cardiologist makes me post the following: "One serving of SPAM contains 50% of your daily "requirement" of saturated fats". My response is, "Dr. Dan, we sometimes do buy 'SPAM Lite' ".
And, now:
Welcome to .....
The Chef Abby Show
Starring Abby
with Assistant chef Boyardee (Liz)
The Toolkit
Fry 'em up!
Lookin' good
A little Soy Sauce / Sugar seasoning
Meanwhile .... on the nori (wrapper), place the Musubi packing tool:
A small scoop of rice; some seasoning (Wasabi, some other goodies...); the Spam; some more seasoning; finished with another small scoop of rice
That says it all!
One cannot end a post on "SPAM" without this, of course:
There is another key Hawaiian treat we had to try, "SPAM Musubi" with the accent on the first "oo".
First .. a little interlude, to establish atmosphere ....
So, why SPAM, you might ask? Liz looked it up: During WWII, it was quite difficult to get meat in Hawai'i. The military stationed here received SPAM as part of their rations ("Meatloaf without basic training"), and then frequently traded it on the black market. Islands in and around the Pacific consume the most SPAM per capita, and recipes abound. It does not have the negative perception that it does on the mainland. Much more info can be found on the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(food)
Steve here: My cardiologist makes me post the following: "One serving of SPAM contains 50% of your daily "requirement" of saturated fats". My response is, "Dr. Dan, we sometimes do buy 'SPAM Lite' ".
And, now:
Welcome to .....
The Chef Abby Show
Starring Abby
with Assistant chef Boyardee (Liz)
The Toolkit
Fry 'em up!
Lookin' good
A little Soy Sauce / Sugar seasoning
Meanwhile .... on the nori (wrapper), place the Musubi packing tool:
A small scoop of rice; some seasoning (Wasabi, some other goodies...); the Spam; some more seasoning; finished with another small scoop of rice
That says it all!
One cannot end a post on "SPAM" without this, of course:
Friday, November 5, 2010
So far behind....
I know...... it has been FOREVER.
We can promise to be better, but, that might be tough. I'll drop a few short posts to catch up (hopefully), and then get on with more current things.
Here's one from August.
We were invited for a Saturday afternoon boating. It was an invite from an acquaintance of Zach's that he met through soccer, named Tyler. He was at the time an acquaintance, but now a good friend. We did not know exactly what to expect, nor exactly what to bring.
Whoa! Way cool.
They have a house that opens out the back to a Marina; not a ton-of-boats type of marina, but a dock from their house (and each house around this island). The dock opens onto a bay (that opens to the ocean, but who needs that!). You see, they have a nice speed boat, and the pictures tell it all. What a blast!
There are the boys,Tyler (standing) Zach (to the left), and Bobby and Michael, loaded on a floating, spinning thing, towed by the boat. They are already being pulled through the boat's wake.
Gettin' wet:
So, the idea is that you stand up on this thing, and hold on (for dear life), then Uncle Tre guns the boat, and also serpentine's it, so you start 1) spinning like crazy and 2) are flying back and forth across the wake. So, it is water skiing, but with four people latched together, AND turning around as fast as you can, AND bumping up and down with the swells of the wake.
Let me give you a little better sense of this (if I can upload this.....):
Then this sequence happens:
So, what do you do next? Scramble back on and go again, of course!
Not just the "boys" did this, of course. We even got Abby on:
The family is ready:
We've launched:
We are spinning:
We're in the "thick" of it:
We can promise to be better, but, that might be tough. I'll drop a few short posts to catch up (hopefully), and then get on with more current things.
Here's one from August.
We were invited for a Saturday afternoon boating. It was an invite from an acquaintance of Zach's that he met through soccer, named Tyler. He was at the time an acquaintance, but now a good friend. We did not know exactly what to expect, nor exactly what to bring.
Whoa! Way cool.
They have a house that opens out the back to a Marina; not a ton-of-boats type of marina, but a dock from their house (and each house around this island). The dock opens onto a bay (that opens to the ocean, but who needs that!). You see, they have a nice speed boat, and the pictures tell it all. What a blast!
There are the boys,Tyler (standing) Zach (to the left), and Bobby and Michael, loaded on a floating, spinning thing, towed by the boat. They are already being pulled through the boat's wake.
Gettin' wet:
So, the idea is that you stand up on this thing, and hold on (for dear life), then Uncle Tre guns the boat, and also serpentine's it, so you start 1) spinning like crazy and 2) are flying back and forth across the wake. So, it is water skiing, but with four people latched together, AND turning around as fast as you can, AND bumping up and down with the swells of the wake.
Let me give you a little better sense of this (if I can upload this.....):
Then this sequence happens:
So, what do you do next? Scramble back on and go again, of course!
Not just the "boys" did this, of course. We even got Abby on:
The family is ready:
We've launched:
We are spinning:
We're in the "thick" of it:
Monday, August 30, 2010
Everybody's been surfing ... Surfin' USA
It was time. Slick-looking board, eh?
The particular board we got is 6' 4", with a "soft top" covered with that yellow vinyl. The soft top is because it is safer - when you lose it, and it comes crashing down on you, the soft top might save you.
Like I said, it's slick. Too slick, actually, to stay on. You might need to view our You Tube video to see just how slick (unless I can post it here). The vinyl atop that soft top is the thing that is super slick (a downside - definitely).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-bR390i5lQ
Anyway, like I said, we learned some things. Board wax, for one.
Yes - Parafin, and you apply it to the **top** of your board to keep you from slipping into the deep. Here, Zach is working hard to get his board sticky.
Well, to make a long story short, trial #2, Sunday August 29th with this board was a bust, too. But, for a different reason. Because, see, we're smarter now (more on that below). We realized the board is too short (6' 4") for stability.
Now, how did we get so smart? Because our wife / mother read *every* review on surfing lesson places around Honolulu and presented us (Z and I) with a gift of a lesson this past Tuesday with the: "Hawaii Fire Surf".
I know, it sounds like it is part of a Luau or something. But, it's not.
It is a group of Honolulu firefighters, who, on their off days, run this surfing lesson enterprise. You have to see these men and women - you just cannot feel safer, I must say. They are big, and trained. They supply the boards, they drive you to the place, and give you a 45min on the beach and on the board lesson (both in safety and how-to), and then and hour and a half in the water, with them right there helping. (That is the feel safe part).
They pretty much guarantee you'll get up on the board ... and we did!
Here's a couple of the old guy:
And, ... look at him grabbing this board like a snow boarder:
Not to be outdone, look at Zach's form:
So, at the end of our lesson, the photographer goes over to Zachary and says, "You know, kid, you know how when your playing basketball with your dad and you just beat him, but you're not sure whether he LET you beat him or it was legit? You know that feeling? Well, let me tell you something ... today, you ain't gotta have that worry. You killed! Outdid him at every turn. I know, and I got the proof in pixels".
We had a total blast.
A SHOUT OUT to Liz for that experience!
So, we know our own board is tough (right now). It is too short - those boards we were ridin' last Tuesday were 10 footers; no measly 6'4" popsicle sticks. Our plan -- well, Liz' idea, go down to Waikiki, and rent long boards for a few turns. See if we really can do it. Then we buy the big(ger) ones.
Meanwhile, I have been pricing car roof board carriers (we cannot fit more than this 6-footer in out Prius' hatch). But, two big boards we can carry on top with the right carrier!
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