Riding on a bus on my way to Kona. It is actually a large, rather comfortable bus – more of what I would call a motor coach.
I got on in Waiohinu – at the chinese store that is no longer open. I wonder why. Someday I will have to ask. I asked my neighbor Bill to give me a ride from my place to the store this morning at 8:00 AM to catch the bus at 8:25. Bill is in his late 70’s and lives about a dozen lots down from mine. He fancies himself as a kind of neighborhood organizer. He organized a group of neighbors to collectively fight an invasion of fire ants into our subdivision. They would get together every six weeks or so and spray some kind of concoction with peanut butter and a chemical called “tango” onto the trees to kill the ants. Apparently there is some kind of political disagreements going on. Some neighbors are opposed to spraying anything, and some want to go the full route with a more powerful insecticide. But a couple of months ago, something must have happened because he abruptly quit participating. Small town politics – even in paradise!
Yesterday, I got all the floor boards cut and placed for the shed floor. I have not glued and nailed the last 6 or 8 boards because I was working in semi-darkness – working by flashlight as it were – and I want to check them today before I nail them in place. Rather than install these boards parallel to one side or another, I decided to install them on a diagonal. This complicates the installation. Also, I have to select those in the same row to be the same size, and have even had to plane some of them to fit. It has been a tedious process, but it is almost completed.
Yesterday morning started out bright and sunny. I had breakfast, did the dishes, washed my feet, and then washed all my dirty clothes and hung them out on ropes strung between the trees so they can dry. Then I started to build doors for the shed. No sooner did I have all the tools and materials laid out on the deck, but it started to rain. I had not noticed that clouds had rolled in and covered the entire sky. It was just a light drizzle at first, but then it began to really rain.
I quit with the doors, gathered up my tools and materials, and moved inside the shed to work on the floor. It was well after dark before I finished and then I still had to put the bed back together. In order to work on the floor, I take the bed apart and stand it up against the walls in the corner where I will not be working or where the floor is already done. Then I have to put it all back together in order to go to sleep at night. So, when I get back from Kona later today, I will take the bed apart, move it out of the way and glue and nail the last floor boards in place.
I am scheduled to leave the island in three days – going back to the mainland. I have a flight at 8:20 in the morning. The best way I could come up with to ensure that I will be at the airport by 7:00 to catch this flight is if I had a rental car. So, I am going into Kona to pick up a rental car for the next three days. Then I can leave my place around 5:00 in the morning, drive to the airport, drop off the car, and catch the flight. Oh, the plans of mice and men . . . let’s just hope that these plans do not go astray!
The bus trip to Kona was actually quite pleasant. A more relaxing way to see the coast while someone else worried about the narrow winding road. As we came into Kona, the bus turned down Kamehameha III Road towards Keauhou Bay where the Sheraton Hotel is built out on the point. Many years ago on a trip to Hawaii I went on a night scuba dive with a man and wife from Switzerland who spoke mainly french. They had moved to Captain Cook to open a scuba diving outfitting company, and they barely spoke any english. We went out in a large rubber boat like a zodiac from Keauhou Harbor on a rainy stormy night. The ocean was quite choppy – making for a rather rough ride out to the point in front of the Sheraton. Once we got out of the boat and descended about 15 to 20 feet, the rough chop was replaced by a tidal surge moving in and out from shore. The bottom was covered in huge boulders the size of a VW bug, and the surge pushed us back and forth among these huge rocks. The purpose for the dive was to see Manta Rays. Huge, gigantic Manta Rays. 8 to 10 feet across from wing tip to wing tip, and even larger. The Sheraton had installed huge flood lights to light up their gardens along the shore line for their guests. The light shining on the water attracted the plankton . . . millions and millions of small ocean creatures . . . and the plankton attracted the Manta Rays. Manta Rays feed on plankton. They scoop up vast amounts of ocean water with their large mouths – mouths large enough to swallow a man whole – filtered out the plankton and spit out the seawater. The husband had tied four diving flashlights together to form a single beam of light and shined this beam straight up from the ocean floor. This beam would attract the plankton and the Manta Rays would come towards the shaft of light with their mouth wide open. When they got to the beam, they would turn and swim straight up at the last moment coming within a few feet of us. It was amazing as well as a bit unnerving to have these monsters coming out of the darkness, swimming straight at you with their mouth wide open, only to turn up at the last second. They were close enough to touch and I tried to do that, but was chastized by the woman. Apparently, human hands harm the soft underbellies of these creatures – you can look . . . but don’t touch!
The bus drove into the tight parking lot at the harbor and it was all familiar from when I had been there before. A few cars had to be moved so that the bus could make the turn and head back out, and we went up to Alii Drive. We drove through the heart of tourist Kona along the shore line past the billion dollar resorts and million dollar houses. There were surfers out trying to catch the waves and many of the other passengers were trying to catch glimpses of the waves as they came crashing to shore. Apparently the surf was a bit higher than usual today.
After passing through the coast area, the bus proceeded to a shopping center at the north end of town by the old airport. When the driver stopped at the shopping center, the other 7 or 8 passengers all got out, so I moved up to the row of seats behind the driver. He was a large Hawaiian who looked to weigh at least 350 lbs. I said to him, “I know that the bus stops at the airport have all been cancelled, but I need to get to the airport.” He just looked at me as I continued. “I figured that if I got out at the courthouse stop, I could call an uber from there. Would that be the best way?”
He suggested, “I could just drop you off on the highway at the entrance to the airport and you could walk down from there.”
“Wow!” I answered. “I didn’t think you went that way. I thought you turned up and went out the other highway.”
“Naw!” he said. “I go right past there. It would be no problem to stop and let you out.” He continued, “I would take you all the way down to the airport, but they’ve got tracking devices on these busses.”
“Well, that is better than I had hoped!” I said.
“Where are you flying out to?” he asked.
I told him that I wasn’t flying out until Monday morning, and my mission today was to pick up a rental car. That way, when I do fly out on Monday, I will be sure to be able to catch the 8:20 plane. “Yeah,” he added, “you don’t want to rely on the bus schedule. Always running late. It’s better now. Since they got these big new busses. The old ones were always breaking down.” He continued, “I’ve been driving the bus for 10 -12 years now. So, where you going on Monday?”
“Back to the mainland,” I replied. “Back to Arizona.” I explained, “I’ve got a place down by South Point and I try to come over as often as I can.”
“Yeah, you got on in Waiohinu.” he observed. “Your place in Discovery Harbor?”
“No,” I answered. “In Mark Twain Estates, next to Discovery Harbor.”
He nodded as he maneuvered the big bus down the highway. ‘Then he added, “I went to the university in Arizona.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “Which one?” Fully expecting he would say ASU, and hoping he would say U of A.
“The one in Flagstaff,” He offered. “NAU”
“I got both of my degrees from NAU,” I answered, excitedly.
“So, we’re both Lumberjacks” he laughed.
“Yeah” I said. “How about that?”
“I played football for them” he explained. “Transferred from Junior College to NAU in Flagstaff.”
We were approaching the intersection for the airport road and he said, “I’ll just pull up over there, just past the light, and you can walk down from here.”
As I got out, I said, “It was great to meet a fellow Lumberjack here. Thanks!”
“No problem,” he replied, “and be careful, and be safe.”
TTFN
TropicalCastaway 