Hawaiian Adventure

I went to Maui this summer for a kiteboarding trip, and just dug up some of my notes from the trip. I figure I'll post them for those who are interested in Maui, kiteboarding, or just humorous antidotes about me.

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The first three days I kept an actual journal, as follows:

Day 1 - The airport

Today I flew to Hawaii. Since I slept only two hours last night, sleeping on the plane was easy. When I did wake up to look out the window, the earth looked like a giant blue sphere dotted with puffy white clouds. Oahu appeared at last, a solid cloud with a volcano sticking up out of it, like a fire hydrant in the snow. We landed, I took a quick flight to Maui and was there. Kiteboarding here I come.

I've never seen as many gorgeous Filipino girls as in the Maui airport. It turns out there is a Miss Filipino beauty pageant in town. I fumbled around a bit with my luggage and took a taxi to the house. I am impressed by what Ben was able to find.

Having the afternoon free, I jogged a couple miles to Paia. Some girls were selling lemonade so I bought some for a $1. $1 for lemonade! Either the price of lemonade has gone up since I was a kid, or Hawaiian kids learn about upselling tourists early. The lemonade was delicious. Paia was a small relatively quiet town with a bit of a hippie influence and much more local than some of the Hawaiian tourist traps. It reminded me of Carmel in California, with a slightly schizophrenic clash between local, franchise, and tourist. The organic Mana foods stood next to the 76 gas station, across the street from a place where you could buy wooden boats and postcards to send home.

I headed to the beach and watched the windsurfers, who were racing, and then back home to meet a freshly arrived Ben, complete with his red convertible Mustang.

We headed downtown to one of the Saturday night clubs, and were greeted by a bunch of dicks in the parking lot yelling "Look at the gay boys!" The people inside weren't such asses, but I didn't enjoy the scene that much. It was impossible to get a drink, and although the band was good, I found myself with my guard up and feeling uncomfortable. There were a few people dancing, but most were just standing around feeling socially awkward. I don't like clubs in Hawaii much more than I do in San Jose.

Back home Ben and I opened a couple beers and planned our trip a bit. Kiteboarding is the order of the week. We need lessons, I need a kite, and the trade winds are blowing strong.


Day 2 - Kite in a tree

Ben has a nice tear in his kite courtesy of a tree. He went body-dragging this morning while I watched, and a nice gust of wind took him far too close to the shore when landing his kite. The wind in Maui averages much stronger than the wind on the bay and we need practice.

We found someone to repair Ben's kite, signed up for kiteboarding lessons, and then headed out of town for a long drive down the Kona highway to the end of the island. It was a slow winding road with lots of traffic and one lane road, but the views of the ocean were gorgeous. We explored a couple trails on our way and found an empty pond at the bottom of a waterfall. We also stopped at several fruit stands. The fruit had a euphoric effect.

Ben: I've got mango on my mind!
Nassar: That sounds like a good song title - "Mango on my Mind". It would need some sort of reggae beat.
Ben: (imitating reggae) I've got... got Mango on My Mind
Nassar: Mango, mango. Mango on my mind.
Ben: We need to go raid some more fruit stands.
Nassar: Yeah, let's go up to the next fruit stand and tell them, "Give me all your mangos or else. And your banana bread too."
(a bit later at the next fruit stand)
Nassar: This banana is the sweetest banana I've ever tasted. Too sweet to deserve being in my mouth. I wonder how you say banana in Hawaiian.
Ben: hanahanabananananana
Strange guy: (waving a strange looking banana) Look, it's a retarded banana!
Strange guy: (being scolded by his girlfriend) Yeah, the bananas we eat are the retarded ones. These bananas are perfectly normal.

Tonight we ate dinner at a sushi / sports bar / fish fry restaurant (speaking of skitzo) and then turned in for bed

Day 3 - Body dragging upwind

This morning we busted out of the house early and made our way to Kite Beach for lessons. Leim was our instructor, a long haired surfer dude from the island. He got us out on a 6 meter Naish kite with super short lines, and taught us how to body drag upwind by steering the kite with one hand and using the other had as a rudder. We managed pretty well, and he lengthened the lines and had us take out boards.

I didn't fair so well with the board. For starters, I am used to having a leash on my board, and the Hawaiian guys insisted that that was a bad idea and that we needed to learn without. I very quickly lost my board, and spent most of the lesson trying to body drag back to it. In the end, I was pretty successful going upwind, but the most frustrating part was trying to relaunch the kite from the water. The wind kept dying, I got my lines tangled, and I couldn't seem to focus on not letting go of my board and controlling the kite at the same time. By the end of the lesson I was doing a bit better, but I need to practice. Ben fared a bit better until the end of the lesson, when the wind seemed to lull.

We picked up Ben's patched kite, grabbed a pizza and then went to the kite shop where I bought a new kite, an 11 meter Best Waroo. It is a high performance kite with a 1 to 1 line to kite movement ratio that will give me lots of control over the kite. I really like the simplicity of the bar and how much power range the kite has, although I'm a bit worried that 11m may be too much for Hawaii. Deja sold it to me, and she was one of the nicest, most talkative people I have ever met. Deja says that learning to fly with this kite is like learning to drive with a Porsche, but that if you can learn to drive with a Porsche, good for you. At least I got a used Porsche, so I paid very little for it.

Ben grilled steaks for dinner and I picked up movies and a case of Negro Modelo. We are both sunburned and tired, but ready to go out without an instructor tomorrow.

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Since I slacked off with my journal, the remainder of this post is just a few interesting antidotes I remember from the trip.

Teabagging on the Waroo:

On day 5 the wind picked up, and I took out my new Waroo to give it a go. The biggest kite on the water was a 9 meter, but caution be damned, I launched my 11 and bounded out into the ocean. What followed was probably one of the most scary body dragging session ever.

I quickly discovered that I was overpowered, but hey, at least there would be no problem keeping my kite in the air. Then a gust jerked me out of the water and then dropped me back in like a teabag. Then it happened again, and again. Each time I would madly kick my legs to try to keep my balance, so I must have looked hilariously out of control. Ben, standing on the beach, was asked by some of the locals if he was friends with the "jumping guy out there". I finally figured out my power lines and got things under control, and as I hauled through the water things were starting to feel OK. Suddenly, I felt a burning sensation on my hand and wrist, and looked down to see a purplish gelatinous substance streaked across my skin. I had just blown through a Portguese Man-o-War!

I wiped off my arm as best I could and kept going, not thinking much of it, but a few minutes later my situation deteriorated. My armpits began to swell up as my lymphatic system kicked in, and I felt pretty sure I was going to puke. I flagged down Ben and made my way quickly back to the beach, where they gave me an ointment that was supposedly an antitoxin. I sat on the beach for a while, through for the day.

Visiting Haleakala:

On day 6 we took the afternoon to visit Hawaii's tallest peak, Haleakala. At the top was a beautiful barren landscape of reddish volcanic rock. At 11,000 feet we were high above the condensation point, and through the cool air it looked like we were on an island in an ocean of clouds. It reminded me a bit of the scene in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" where Xi finds the end of the earth.

There were lots of roped off sections to keep the tourists away from the massive telescopes; apparently the thin, dry, air of Haleakala makes an excellent observatory of the night sky. Next time I'm in Maui I will come up here before the sun rises to see for myself.

More kiteboarding lessons:

Ben and I tried kiteboarding a few days on our own, but then enlisted Leim for lessons 2 and 3. Our second lesson was excellent - Leim got us out on two kites, which in itself was well worth the money. He had good advice, but was mainly interested in keeping us on the water. Ben was able to get up and going a few times for a good 30-60 seconds, and I also had a few good runs.

Our third lesson was much worse, as the wind was erratic and weak, and we spent much of the time with our kites on the water. I had one scary moment where I had to release myself from my kite and then self rescue. My body got so tangled up in lines that I could barely move, and I spent so much energy trying to untangle myself that I barely had the strength to pull myself up the slippery rocks once I hit shore. Thankfully no bodies (or kites) were injured.

Friday night on the town:

On our final weekend, Ben and I went back to the club in Paia, and once again had a drab experience. I tried starting up a conversation with a couple people, but twice I got a snobbish response indicating that non-islanders were not particularly welcome. Oh well. This was supposed to be a kiteboarding trip anyway, not a clubbing trip.

Ben and I got had several Vodka shots, and in our drunken state the walk home was quite fun. As we neared home at 3 in the morning, a group truck full of guys and girls pulled up to a convenience store and made their way inside. "Hey, your robbing the convenience store!", Ben shouted. "Hey your the guy who needs to put on sunscreen!" one of the girls shouted back. Apparently she recognized him from an earlier shopping excursion.

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I enjoyed being in Maui, and Ben was awesome to hang out with. The trade winds were strong, and I could see spending an entire summer on the island doing nothing but kiteboarding. As for this trip, there are few few things I wouldn't change, and a few that I probably would.

Fantastically done:
* Kiteboarding! I'm glad we spent so much time on the water. I got better, and enjoyed the ocean.
* Lessons. I think that signing up for lessons ad-hoc worked pretty well, and that we got a good deal.
* The condo rental. Ben did an awesome job finding a nice place for a good price.
* The excursions. I'm glad we did trips to Kona and Haleakala. They were fun and a nice change of pace.
* The food. We had a good balance of eating out and buying groceries. The highlight was a dinner of deliciouly grilled burgers, courtesy of Ben's chef skills.

Some things to do differently:
* Don't lose my wallet. Um, like, dude, you lost your wallet. Yeah.
* The car rental. The car was too small and got filthy fast. The convertible top was nice at times, but was often a pain to deal with. Next time we should get an SUV or jeep. Also, I have the navigational abilities of a deaf bat.
* Invite more people. Others would have enjoyed this trip too, even if they weren't planning on kiteboarding.

Next year I'm going to try to put together a North Carolina Outer Banks trip and invite as many people as possible. If you read this and want to come, you are 100% invited. We'll make sure there is plenty of kiteboarding, swimming, frisbee, volleyball, good music, games, fun people, and relaxing beach front to enjoy. I'll post more about dates later.