After spending a week in Hawai’i in September of 2018, we were scheduled to return on a flight out of Kona at 10 PM on United Airlines. We arrived at the airport around 7:30 PM and returned the rental car. The shuttle dropped us off at the terminal and we proceeded through the TSA gauntlet and out towards the gates. As we passed from the central patio area in the terminal where the shops and the restaurant are located into the section for gates 1 – 4, we passed through an agriculture checkpoint.
When you arrive in Hawaii, you are given a form (one per family) that you must fill out while still on the airplane. The flight attendants pass them out (but they do not provide pens or pencils) and you indicate if you are bringing any agriculture products into the state. . . anything such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, plants, soil, – the form even asks if you might possibly have soil on your shoes from a farm or agriculture location – need to be declared. Theoretically, once you have declared these items, someone from the State Agriculture Department will inspect them and if they are safe for the ariculture of Hawaii, you may bring them in. If not, they will confiscate them. ( just a word to the wise – they confisgate everything) If you do not declare them, then it is a major violation and you get fifty lashes with a wet noodle, or a ten thousand dollar fine, or six months in jail, or any combination of the three. I have yet to see any Agriculture inspector at Kona when we arrive, but I have seen them in Honolulu.
I tell you this, because I am aware that Hawaii stresses the need to protect their fragile environment. What I was not aware of, was the need to protect the environment of everywhere else. But apparently there is. As I said, when we went into the gate area, there was an agriculture inspector there and we were told to put all our bags through their conveyor/scanner. Apparently, you cannot take any fruits of vegetables with you from Hawaii. Anything that you had purchased at the duty free shops in the airport did not need to be checked, because when you purchased it, part of the purchase price was funneled to the state as payola. . . no, wait, I didn’t say that out load did I? It has been disinfected – yeah, . . . that’s it.
Anyway, as we passed through this checkpoint, we had two apples that we intended to eat on the trip back home along with four guavas. Major violation! They took these away from us and gave us a lecture about the dangers of infecting agriculture. OK, Alright, already! Take the damned fruit. Add it to your stash that you have taken from other passengers. Spare me the lecture! My wife was not so forgiving. She wanted to argue the point.
As we sit at the gate, I notice that there is a line of people standing at a little building next to the gate openings. My wife is giving the agriculture guys the evil eye! The announcer says over the loudspeaker that our flight has been delayed for an hour due to mechanical difficulties. Now I want one of my apples back for something to eat during the next hour’s wait. No such luck! So we sit and we wait. The line at the little building grows longer. My wife and I discuss the lack of information, and she suggests that we go back out to the front through the security and check with the people at the check in counter to see if they have any better information. I suggest that I stay there with the luggage and she goes out, that way it will be easier to come back through TSA without luggage. She agrees and leaves.
5 minutes after she has gone, the announcer on the loudspeaker tells us that our flight has been cancelled. We need to go out to the check-in desk where they will give us a voucher for a taxi in to Kona, a room at a hotel in Kona, and a meal voucher along with booking us on the next flight out in the morning. People began scrambling like roaches when you turn on the light. I just sit there. I have two rolling carry-on suitcases, my backpack, my wife’s purse, and her computer bag with her computer. I gather them all together, putting some on top of others so that I can drag them out to the street. As I struggle towards the front of the airport, an agent for the airlines comes up to me and asks, “Are you Mr Andersen?”
“Yes” I reply.
“Your wife asked me to come and get you and help you with the luggage. “
I get out past security and meet up with the wife, and thank the girl from the airlines, who leaves. My wife tells me that she approached the front counter and there was no one else in line. The airline employee greets her and asks how can she help her. My wife explains that she was wondering about the status of our flight. The agent says, ” Let me check that for you.” Then she continues, “Oh. it looks like that flight has been cancelled.”
“Oh,” my wife replies, “Well, my husband and I were scheduled to be on that flight, so what now?”
The agent says, “We will book you on the next available flight, . . . which is tomorrow at 12:45 PM. That means, we will issue you a voucher for a room in Kona, a taxi ride into Kona and back to the airport in the morning, and a meal voucher for breakfast in the morning.”
“Where is your husband?” she asks.
“He’s at the gate with our luggage.” my wife explains. “Should I go get him?”
“Oh, that’s alright.” the agent responds, “we’ll send someone to help him.”
Then the agent makes a quick phone call and proceeds to print out the vouchers and the boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight.
By the time my wife tells me all this, there is a long line at the counter, so we decide that we had better get a cab while they are still available, and go out to the curb. Then my wife sees the Agriculture inspector walking out towards the parking lot and hurries over to him. She demands her fruit back. He just looks at her disgustedly and sets down the two large bags he is carrying and sorts through the bag until she points out the two apples and the guavas. She comes over in glorious triumph!
There is one cab, way down at the end. I stay there with the luggage and my wife goes down and talks with the cab driver. They get in the cab and drive down to me. We load the luggage in the back, and off we go into Kona.
We get to the King Kamehameha hotel, right on the shore in the bay, and check in. It is almost midnight, and the lobby is empty. As we are checking in, another couple arrive. They tell us that they were also on our flight. We go up to our room – facing kind of away from the ocean and more towards town, but whatever, we just want to go to bed.
In the morning, we walk through the hotel where they have a display of paintings and a history of Hawaii. Then through an ABC store ( kind of like a corner convenience store similar to a 7-11, but with more tourist souveniers) and out on to the roadway alongside the sea wall at the edge of the bay.
We go down the sidewalk a ways to a restaurant and stop in there to use our meal vouchers for breakfast.
After breakfast, we become tourists and walk along the road next to the shops. Then on down the road past the Kona Inn and then out to the bay at the back of the Inn.
As we head back towards the hotel, we walk along the sea wall with the waves splashing against the wall and spraying over onto the road. I climb up on the wall. Looking down, I see something in the water. It is a large turtle.
I watch it for a while as it washes back and forth with the waves right next to shore. Then it swims away from shore a ways and I look a bit further out into the bay, and there is another one.
After watching the turtles a while, we go back to the hotel, get our luggage and go back pout to the airport and off we go. Back to the real world.
TropicalCastaway 