So much to do, so little time

 

Now that I have your attention, let me just say that we had to pay money to go out, and then TRY to see sharks to find them.  I know people get scared about them being in the water, but for the most part, they don't care about you.  Unlike what Rob Schneider says in 50 First Dates, sharks are not like dogs. sharks are like cats.  I feel like dolphins are the golden retrievers of the sea, and sharks are the cats, they kind of prowl around, take care of themselves, and will even curl up if you pet them right.  They are apex predators, but unless they are bigger than you, it would seem to be a calorie deficient activity to attack a human when there are so many more bite sized fish around. .  When the engines on this tour boat were revved, the sharks frenzied around playing in the bubbles.  As soon as we got in the water with them: crickets.  The sharks were 50-60 feet down.  It was amazing and we want to go back. The experience was a little disappointing, but at the same time it really helped Kenzie's apprehension about having our babies in the water.  They love to adventure, and we love to share with them.

One thing we love to do is paddleboard.  Kenzie found a good deal on inflatable paddleboards in Wisconsin at Costco, and we've had them ever since.  We have bought this brand for 3 generations of board now.  There's a new model out, but we don't need more.  We bought a total of five inflatable stand up paddle boards so I can run tours as a side gig.  It works out well when I have a set schedule, but lately my schedule has been fluctuating so much, and Kenzie has had so many extracurricular activities, that I don't get to do many tours anymore.  When we were first getting started on Airbnb, we brought friends along to see what they thought.  We go up a peaceful river, and swing from a rope into the cool fresh water.  When we go as a family (and not for a tour) I will usually have Fjord on my front or back, and Finn on the board.  He's got some pretty good balance now.

I love taking people out to share a bit of the history and the culture of the area.  I'm always surprised by who will choose to do the rope swing, and who will skip it because they're chicken.

Kawela Bay (In Hawai'i, the "W" letter is pronounced with a "V" sound.  Haleiwa is pronounced hall-ay-ee-vah.  Kawela Bay is pronounced Kah-vell-ah), is one of our all time favorite hidden gems on the North Shore.  The sunsets here are the best by far.  Kenzie does a tour here where I take people paddle boarding, then she teaches them how to paint the sunset, and they conclude with a little yoga session.  Since she has been officially certified as a yoga instructor, we try and sprinkle it in wherever we can.

At first I didn't even know this place existed, but when I was in school I did a mini-internship here and they took us on a property tour in golf carts so we could see the 1300 acres Turtle Bay has to offer.  It was amazing, and this spot was particularly pristine.  They filmed some episodes of LOST here, a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and even the fancy water circle cornucopia scene from Hunger Games 2.  

Turtle Bay has changed a lot since my mini-internship, and now I actually work here.  It was a goal I had when were first starting out on the North Shore.  You tend to get used to the beauty of a place if you visit it enough, but every now and then I walk in to my place of work, and see the sun rising over the infinity pools, and see the palm trees swaying in the wind and I think, 'man, I am one lucky son of a gun!'

Kawela Bay is a go-to spot for seeing turtles.  We never fail to see at least 3 of them popping their heads up as they munch on the seagrass that grows on the coral heads.  The water is fairly murky because of the shallow depth and sandy bottom.  It's not the best for snorkeling, but once when paddleboarding I saw turtles 18 times!  Twice I even saw a big one pull up on the shore next to one of the beach houses.  Ahh how lucky to have those homes.  I guess the bar is always raised as to what would be nice.  (oh to live in Hawaii, oh to live in Hawaii and have a job, oh to live in Hawaii and have a job and a house...etc.)

When we first got here, we had to move out of our apartment for 4 days before moving 100% in.  We decided to go camping with our 2-month old Finn.  It was so fun, and we got to check out two new campsites.  Malaekahana (close to home now on the North Shore), and Aiaia (one of the hardest words to pronounce just by looking at it).  We camped on the ground and put in an air mattress to stay comfy.  The mattress was great but it took up a lot of vertical real estate, and now that we have two boys, we need a bigger tent.  One of my favorite purchases was this tree tent by tentsile.  I've had my eye on these for years, but I always thought they were too expensive.  Kenzie found on on craigslist for cheap and it was very very used, but still functional.  It is so fun to sleep up in the trees and not worry about roots and mud in your back.  I started renting it out on Airbnb, but it was a lot of work to set up, and I had to hike all these people to the free site that I know of in the backcountry.  I would wash the stuff after it got used, and I think I washed the waterproofing off of the rain fly.  We had one pair who put me through the ringer.  They got rained on, and left their stuff and my stuff up in the middle of the night.  I had to go up and clean up their rubbish and then hike down with almost 100 Lb of gear.  It was crazy.  The next couple broke the tent poles, so I decided, NO MORE rentals from me.  I want to fix the poles because I love this tent.  I want to try camping in it over the river some day.  Finn loves it too, it's like a trampoline, slack line, and hammock all in one.

Someday I'll have my own catamaran anchored in a tropical bay. 

We love coming to Waimea Bay in the summer.  The water is flat and clear.  You can usually dive right off the beach.  There is a great big rock for cliff diving, and some great spots to anchor.  I miss sailing so much. I put an ad out on the interwebs to see if someone had a sailboat to share.  Lo and behold I found someone willing to share the boat for half the dock fee.  At the time I was a poor student and I couldn't afford even that, so I offered to do some chores on the boat.  Anyway, we took it out sailing a couple of times.  The first time we went out and the owner zipped by with his family on his other boat to go see the sharks (see video 1).  After we were all back in and tied up to the dock, they asked, "Did you guys see those whales?!"  It was whale season, but we didn't see any, and we assumed they must have seen them way out where they could get to on their much faster speed boat.  "There were about six of them following you guys." They said.  I couldn't believe we missed it!  I can't wait to get out there on my own boat so we can go as far as we want.

The second time we took it out, I brought a buddy along with us.  Kenzie swears that the swells were like mountains and she thought the waves were too big.  My buddy got seasick and threw up.  *Side note* if wondering which side of the boat to puke off of, it's the side where you're not vomiting into the wind...that's the correct side.  

We sailed about an hour from Haleiwa to Waimea Bay.  I dropped anchor, and dropped the sails.  It was then that I started to feel queasy.  I went below to check the bilge since the boat had an annoying habit of leaking like a sieve whenever the engine was running.  I did have to run the engine to get out of the harbor, and then to speed up our progress when we were about 10 minutes out of Waimea.  As such, the sea was sloshing over the floorboards.  That was an uncomfortable feeling.  I prefer the water to be on the outside of the boat.  When I was down below, I got my first bout of seasickness ever.  It was not fun.  I did end up feeling better after throwing up, but in the end I just had to try and take my mind off of it by working.  I hopped in with a scraper and went about cleaning the hull.  Where I anticipated a month or so of slime buildup, I was greeted by 3 inches of coral growing on the keel!  I had never seen anything like it.  This boat hadn't had the bottom scrubbed in so long, it had become a reef.  Scraping and chipping was made more difficult by my seasickness, and by the fact that the boat kept lolling and bobbing on top of me with each swell.  Kenzie had made the suggestion to anchor further in to shore, closer to the cliffs.  Since it wasn't my boat, and I wasn't sure of the depth all around the bay, I didn't want to risk running into the rocks.  Now that I know the area better, I will definitely pull closer in for more protection.  The boat rocked and rolled while I chipped, and the bilge pump worked happily away draining the cabin.

When it was time to pull the anchor and head home, I turned the key in the ignition and *click*.  Dead battery.  The bilge pump had sucked the floor, and the battery completely dry.  Looking back at it, I don't think I isolated the batteries correctly.  Typically you will have an engine battery for starting the motor, and a house battery for running lights and pumps and such.  You rotate a selector switch to make sure you are on the right battery.  Left for the engine, right for the house, and center for both.  I think I left it in the center position.  Either way, I called the owner, Paul, and told him of the predicament.  He said he had a spare battery on his other boat back in Haleiwa.  We were worried for a bit, then I kind of shook myself and thought, 'what the heck am I worried about, this is a sailboat after all.  I put up the main, unfurled the jib, and headed back the way we came.  The going was much easier, not pounding into the waves.  Once we got close to the harbor I furled in the jib to scrub off some speed.  When we were in the harbor I had my buddy, McKay, get on the bow with the anchor ready to drop.  The wind was still blowing pretty good, but I did not want to try and make it into the cramped slip at the back of the marina at full speed.  I spotted an empty dock right where I needed it to be.  I quickly threw the tiller to the side, pulling off a tidy U-turn, and pointed straight into the wind.  Once we had stopped, I gave the order to drop the anchor.  We were held fast for a moment, but we were right in the middle of the channel.  I did not want to block traffic.  We eased out the anchor line, and slowly (using the wind on our nose) backed into the empty dock.  In the end it worked like a charm.  I had to grab the spare battery, and then use jumper cables from my van and about 30 minutes of time to charge it up enough to start the diesel engine, but then I chugged over to the proper slip and put it all away as if nothing had happened.