Incident at Spouting Horn

Today I returned to my beloved Kauai, my favorite of the island chain.  Kauai is beautiful, green, lush and uninhabited by tourists.  There isn’t much in the way of shopping or tourists attractions on Kauai.  The attractions are natural: the Waimea Canyon, the Na Pali Coast, the Wailua River and they are all stunners. 

 

As I drove along the highway, I rolled my window down and reminisced about my birthday weekend I spent here last year.  En route to a sunrise biking tour down the Waimea Canyon, I had called and asked for directions to the site.  The stoner/tour guide extraordinaire had said to me: “whatcha need to do is get on a road that looks big enough to be a highway, roll down the window, and stick your hand out. When it gets cold, that means you're getting toward the ocean and you're close."  At the time, I was being my typical Type A personality and was annoyed by this lack of direction or landmark (and also convinced there was a man with a hook for a hand in my backseat.  Did I mention it was five in the morning and Kauai is a desolate place?)  Now, a year older and wiser, I rolled the window down, stuck my hand out, and enjoyed the ride.

(And maybe I took a picture while driving since I was the only person on the road for miles)

 I thought a lot about last year’s trip.  One of the highlights had certainly been that bike tour led by two absolutely endearing and baked out of their ever-loving mind stoners.  I remembered in particular a turn of phrase one of them had used to describe a particular heinous act of eco-irresponsibility: F-ing Motherf-ing Pigf---ing Pigf---er. 

You see?  There really isn’t an obscene phrase out there that gets it better than that.  Use it in a sentence.

Now, in between this reminiscing and the blog incident I’m about to detail, I did two things.  I hiked some falls which weren’t technically open to the public because of some mud slides in the area and all I got for my trouble were dry falls, red mud on my socks and some heightened heart racing (I was so certain that I would get caught and get in trouble).  The second thing I did was stop at the western-most McDonalds in the U.S. and pick up two apple pies.  Why, you ask, did I drive 20 minutes of my way to do this?  If you had to ask that question, then we’re not friends.  You know why I did it.  Because I’m a damn glutton and those are the best apple pies ANYWHERE because they still use the deep fryer from the sixties which has now gone out of vogue because of the war on transfats.  Fat kids are ruining everything.  

(Western most McDonalds, if you look closely, you can see a McNugget on the loose)

Now on to what shall be known as the Incident at Spouting Horn. 

Spouting Horn is a big blowhole.  I decided to stop here to break up the drive back to Kapa’a.  You drive to it, you get out of your car, walk to the fence, watch it spout water, and then get back in your car and check it off the list of things to do in Kauai.  Ideally, you do not step on wild chickens while you are at it.  They are everywhere and nest in the park up near Spouting Horn.  And it happens to be baby chick season.  

Now, I got out at Spouting Horn and the blow hole was really giving the crowd of people off a tour bus a show.  I took out my camera, lined up the shot, and inadvertently nudged the brim of Sox cap up.  Because it was February in Kauai, the trade winds were blowing like crazy, and a gust of wind carried my hat over the edge of Spouting Horn and down onto the rocks.

The guy next to me, who was wearing an “old guys rule” t-shirt, a wide-brimmed visor, and socks pulled up to his knees (just like my Dad wears them), turned to me and said, “that’s a real shame.”

I fixed him with a plain look.  Hemorrhoids are a real shame.  Fanny packs are a real shame.  Socks pulled up to your knees are a real shame.  This was a nuclear holocaust.

I’ve had that Sox hat for almost 15 years old now and it still remains the coolest gift my brother has ever given me.  I suspect it is now part of my DNA and that in the future when they start cloning me (and let’s be serious, who wouldn’t want  little snark armies of me running around) I will come cloned with the Sox hat already on my head.

My hat predates the 2004 and 2007 victories, which means, I had that hat when it actually meant something to be a Sox fan.  That hat has seen the likes of Nomar, Trot Nixon, and Troy O’Leary.  I was wearing it when they lost in the play offs in 1999.  I was wearing it when Aaron f**king Boone hit the home run in 2003.  And I was wearing it in 2004 when Keith Foulke flipped the ball to Doug Mientkiewicz and again in 2007 when Pap struck that guy out (why can I never remember his name) for the final out. 

And, I wore that hat to my LSATs and during my first year final exams, both semesters.  It hiked Mount Rainier, Diamond Head, Kahtadin and the craters at Volcano National Park with me.  I finished my first book in that hat and I was wearing it the day I found out I got into law school (true story).  And I would have worn it to the bar exam if the board of bar examiners had let us.  But you better believe that it was a constant fixture on my person during those wretched months of studying.    

To shamelessly plunder one of the quality war movies out there:

“This is my [Sox hat]. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My [Sox hat] is my best friend. It is my life.”

It wasn’t a question of whether I would try and retrieve it, it was a question of how.

Immediately, I went around to where the fence ended and there was a sign posted that read: “KEEP OUT DANGER BEYOND THIS POINT.  FOR YOUR SAFETY THIS AREA IS CLOSED.  MAXIMUM FINE OF NOT MORE THAN $100.”

 (Note, but no jail time.  This might have changed the equation.  Maybe.  Probably not.)

Now, I looked at the opening of the fence, the jagged rocks, the sheer drop off into the water below and I asked myself two questions.  Actually, the first thing I did was to ask the woman hawking jewelry if rangers and cops patrolled this area.  She said of course not, the rangers never came around this way. 

And then I asked myself two questions.

1. If she were mistaken, was my hat worth a $100 to me? Yes.  Zero hesitation. 

2. Given the rocky topography, vertical drop off, and general klutziness of my own nature, was I willing to bleed for this hat?  Yes.  In for a penny, in for a pound.

I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill here.  It’s not like I was scaling the Cliffs of Despair Princess Bride style, okay?  They weren’t THAT sheer and I wasn’t wearing a mask.  But they weren’t exactly a place I’d pick to tromp around.  So I scaled down around the edge of the fence and slid a few times on the rocks and the dirt.  Once, I really almost fell (on rocks, not down into the water or anything) and I caught myself with my hand on a rather sharp rock and I let loose that perfect obscenity: F-ing Motherf-ing Pigf---ing Pigf---er. It felt great, actually.  I’m dusting that expression off and going to circulate it around more.  And then I scraped the back of my legs on some bramble and since apparently I’m allergic to bramble, those scratched swelled up something fierce and itchy.  But I didn’t plummet to my death, break an ankle, or bite it in a major way.   

I did, however, attract a rather unhelpful audience who kept yelling at me from above and behind the fence that I was not supposed to be down there.  Yes, I had gathered that, mahalo.  And some of them took pictures of me.  Hopefully, they caught me from the right, that’s my better side.  A few actual helpful people helped navigate me to where the hat lay, easier spotted from above than where I was.  It was perched precariously on a rock, swaying back and forth as if it might blow off any minute in the ocean.  I was within four feet of my hat when I heard a loud, authoritative voice: “You are trespassing in an unauthorized area.  Get out of there immediately.” 

That’s what he said, but what I really heard was, “there goes your law license, I’m going to haul you off to a federal prison for people who trespass in our national parks.  And I’m going to call your mother, tell her what a complete dumbass you are.  And then I’m gonna take your hat and throw it back over the edge.”

So I did what any prudent person would do.  I pretended I couldn’t hear him and retrieved my hat.  I jammed it back down firmly over my head and thought, now don’t you ever scare me like that again.

Then it was time to face the music. 

I’m gonna call the Parks and Recreation guy Ranger Rick (in honor of the magazine of our childhoods).  Ranger Rick was one of those gorgeously tanned Hawaiian guys with dark eyes, dark hair, and a perfectly toned physique.  I feel ugly just being within 3 feet of him and more so because he was furious with me.

“What’s the matter with you?  You not see the sign?  You can’t go down there, it’s dangerous.  (Something, something, something about what an idiot I was), I’m going to write you a ticket.”

Now, I wholeheartedly believe that all tickets are discretionary and issued at the will of the officer/ranger/authority figure in charge.  I came to conclusion this after four years at Colby College where I received 7 written warnings from local law enforcement and staties for violating the rules of the road.  To this day, I’ve never actually received a ticket or citation of any kind.  So I believed that all tickets were negotiable until written.

When it comes to ticket disputes, I think people can be divided into two basic categories.  The first contains those people who just want to stick it to the Man.  They will get up in the cop/ranger/authority figure’s face and rant and rave about power trips and the unfairness of the law or whatever makes them feel good.  In the end, they’ve stood up for themselves, but they still have a ticket to pay.

My brother is one of these people.  I’m not.

I fall squarely into the category of people who believe that I am the exception to whatever ticket is being issued and I will do my best to make the cop/ranger/authority figure see this from my perspective.  Given my illustrious record of zero speeding and traffic violation citations issued, I’d say I have a pretty good handle on this.

And yes, as my best friend, Big once pointed out, I have two, uh, assets located between my chin and navel.  All girls have them, and apparently, these have magic powers that get girls whatever they want.  So if you want to explain it away that way (because you’re a guy and you’re bitter), you go right ahead.  This isn’t why I have the knack for getting out of tickets.  It’s a whole lot simpler than that.

I like people.  A lot.  I like watching them, talking to them, and in particular, listening to them tell their stories and experiences.  When it comes down to it, I’m all snark and no bite.  Being snarky takes efforts.  Smiling and conversing with random strangers doesn’t.  Why be miserable when you can be nice?  (Note: this doesn’t mean if some jerkwad is hitting on you or someone picks a fight with you that you have to be nice.  I’m certainly not above bringing the wrath of snark then).  But just in general, you never know if you’re going to go out and get hit by a bus.  So you may as well be nice to people.  

So the way I see it, talking your way out of a ticket is really just forging a connection with someone so that that person would feel bad actually giving you a ticket.  Spin doctor, I know.  But even if you fail, you still get a good story out of it.  And besides, I told you I thought my hat was worth a$100 to me.  I was ready to pay that price for it, but not without a fight.

So Ranger Rick and I started the “getting to know you dance.”  He got to lead since he has the uniform and one of those old school ticket pads out already (you know the one with the pink slip, yellow slip, and carbon copy).  Now, I knew coming out swinging was no way to handle this, it was better to let Ranger Rick lecture me on why it was dangerous to disobey those signs.  And he made good points.  This poor guy had to deal with countless morons who routinely ignore those signs to get a better picture angle or lose stuff over the edge, and let’s face it, I was one of them.  If I had fallen and gotten cut up or broke my neck, then I’d really have made a mess of things for Ranger Rick, so he was in the right to berate me.

So at first I said, “I wouldn’t have done it under any other circumstance.  This hat is over a decade old.  I was wearing it when the Red Sox won the World Series.  Sox fans, we’re just nuts.”  I was testing the waters to see if he was a baseball fan.  He wasn’t.  Ranger Rick remained impassive.

What we had here was a failure to communicate.

That’s okay.  I’d had plenty of training for this sort of thing.  Like everyone else, I’ve been on some absolutely awful dates where it seems like every other word out of your date’s mouth (or your own) is a conversation killer.  Here’s my best one (and no, this was not a first date, I was at a keg party on campus), guy I know says to me: “I love your hair.”  I responded politely and said thank you.  But he didn’t stop there.  “It’s so beautiful that I want to cut it off while you’re sleeping and make a braid of it so I can always keep it with me.”  YUP.  That was actually said to me by a classmate of mine in my sophomore year creative writing class and he was also a fellow RA with me, CREEPER.  So yes, like everyone else, I’ve had practice with conversation killers.  Explaining the sentimental value and sports significance of the hat got me nowhere with Ranger Rick.

So I tried again from another angle.  “My kid brother gave me this hat,” I added, “and it’s the one thing in the whole world that keeps me from being homesick when I’m away from home.”  This got me a little nod from Ranger Rick. 

I just assumed I was getting a ticket now.  But, I thought I’d give it one more try.  And in a moment of pure full circle-ness, It was the stoners from my bike ride who saved me.  Those wonderful F-ing Motherf-ing Pigf---ing Pigf---ers.  What happened was, a tradewind blew across me as I was talking to Ranger Rick, and I shivered a little and zipped my Sam Adams track jacket up. 

Me: “Sorry, I love Kauai, but man, those tradewinds.”

Ranger Rick: “You’ve been to our island before?”

Me: “Oh yes, I came out here last year by myself for my birthday.  Then I came back with my parents and here I am again.  It’s my favorite island.”  (Ranger Rick is now smiling slightly.  This is a good sign.  So I push on).  It’s such a drastic change from Oahu.  I love Waikiki, but it’s very touristy and the whole city caters to it.  What I love about Kauai is that everyone here works really hard to keep the island the way it is.  I mean, yes you guys have tourism, but it’s all eco-friendly.  You teach people about the island without exploiting it.  I think that’s incredibly responsible.”  (Okay, maybe I wasn’t quite this eloquent, but it was close and this was the gist of my message).  And yes, I really was laying it on this thick.  When you are trying to beat a ticket, you have no dignity.  You check it at the door.  That’s the rule.

Ranger Rick: “We do try to preserve the natural surroundings that have been entrusted to us.”

Okay, that’s not a slam dunk, but I sense he’s warming to me now.

Me: “When I came out here last year, I went on a tour of Waimea Canyon, a bike tour.  It was amazing, but the tourguides (and I leave out the pertinent details about them being total stoners who literally would smoke any plant on the island) told me some really troubling things (and here I was really reaching), something about how you guys blocked the ferry from making a permanent stop here?”  In chess, we call this a gambit.  We want the other person to take it, but it’s uncertain if they will go for it.  I didn’t know where Ranger Rick stood on the ferry issue, maybe he thought it was a great idea, but I didn’t think so.

Ranger Rick launches into a five minute description about how he went door to door and personally collected signatures (from little old ladies who I’m sure were grateful to have a strapping young ranger at their doors). 

And then I went in for the kill (thank you, stoners).  I said, “that’s so incredibly responsible of you.  It’s really a shame when people in your position abuse it.  I read about the reef bleaching incident with your head warden.”

Reef bleaching, the process of pulling your boat up a living reef, dumping a diluted bleach solution powerful enough to stun the fish so that they can be collected for tropical aquariums.  As you can imagine, this would be like gargling with bleach, it’s bad juju.  It kills the reef.

Game.  Set.  Match. 

Ranger Rick and I discuss the deleterious effects of reef bleaching (which, I’ve just told you my entire knowledge bank on the subject, so I let Ranger Rick really go off here).

There is absolutely zero chance that he writes me a ticket now.  You see?  I've made a connection with Ranger Rick.  We've had a good conversation, I'm not getting a ticket, and I've learned a whole lot more about reef bleaching.  Everybody's a winner.

But here’s where I almost became the world’s biggest loser.  This is akin to pushing all in on a pair of tens when there’s a jack on the flop.  You go for it, but you don’t feel good about it, because let’s face it, Big Samarel is probably playing AJ.  Jerkface.

“Will you take my picture?” I ask Ranger Rick.  “I just want to be able to tell my Dad and brother what I went through to save my hat.”  That and it will mean more to me personally if you take the picture, because I can snark all over the place about it later in my blog.

Ranger Rick eyes me carefully.  “You want me to take a picture of you?”  He gives me what might be considered a disapproving glance.

“Please?  I just want to remember this as the day I almost lost my hat.”  And talked my way out of a state park ticket by waxing poetic on reef bleaching.  Reef bleaching.

He puts away the ticket pad slowly and carefully, comes over and takes my picture.  I’m not stupid enough to ask to take one with him, this isn’t Nam.  There are rules.  Ranger Rick reads me the riot act once more about not violating the rules of state parks (the really, really funny part about this is, it’s the second time I’ve done it THAT day, since I’d already gone and hiked the falls that were closed down).  Ho hum, ho hum.  I promise to be a little goober, Ranger Rick.   

 

 We headed off, just me and my beloved hat.  I decided to stop at the Pearl Shack, a notorious tourist trap (one of the few on the whole island) and took turns with a pair of Japanese tourists doing some super corny poses (seen here and here's a fun fact, the female tourist helped pose me by yelling 'stick your butt out'), just me and my hat (my hat did not stick its butt out, obviously.  It stuck its brim out).

 

(Baby, I'm your Pearl)

 

I Survived the Tsunami

February 27th, 2010.

6:03 AM: I awoke to the sound of my cell phone ringing. I’m usually up by 7 to go jogging (Marmot, I am working on my 8 minute mile for the 5K, mahalo), but I’d had a particularly late night the previous evening (don’t ask, not important) and so I rolled over and answered.

It was my mother.

“Jess, there is a tsunami coming. What are you going to do about this?”

First, I hate to have some fun at my mother’s expense, (no wait, who are we kidding?) but this wasn’t the first time she had called to tell me there was a tsunami coming. The last time she did so, I was living in Seattle in Queen Anne, which happened to be on the highest hill neighborhood in the fine state of Washington. I literally couldn’t have gotten to higher ground if I tried. So I did then what anyone would do, I turned on the TV to get the news about the tsunami. Then I checked the internet. Nothing. I called my friends to see if they’d heard anything. Nothing. No one in Seattle to this day knew anything about this phantom tsunami. And don’t get me started on the whole Mount Saint Helen’s smoking ash incident.

So perhaps you will better understand my reply: “Mom. It is six in the morning here.”

Second, what do you mean, what am I going to do about this? As if somehow I can prevent this? I imagined myself walking down the water’s edge, banging a staff and yelling at the oncoming waves “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”

But before I can really get snarky, a siren starts going off. Not an ambulance siren or anything mundane like that. It’s a god awful, blaring, get under your beds because nuclear atomic flesh eating zombies are coming your way and not even Bruce Campbell can save you now, kinda of siren. I sighed and told my mother I’d have to call her back. I turned on the news and yes, my mother was right. We were due to be hit by a tsunami at 11:37.

I’m not much of a panicker. There is someone in our family who does enough of that for all of us (Gatsby, obviously I’m looking at you). I’m more like my Dad. I’m a planner. So I watched the news until I figured out what I need to know. For me, it broke down into three areas: Evacuation, Safety, and Provisions.

EVACUATION: There was a map on screen showing the evacuation areas. Most of these areas were along the coastline, naturally, since that is where the tsunami wave would hit. Waikiki was in one of these areas. However, only individuals staying on the third floor of a building or below had to evacuate. I was on the 22nd floor, the highest floor in my condo building. Score one for Snarky, I wasn’t going to have to evacuate (yes, I was imagining Super Dome like conditions) nor was I going to be one of those unfortunates stranded on their roofs while the National Guard went around and rescued them and people watching CNN wondered, who are these morons?

SAFETY: Every other sentence out of the weatherman’s mouth (and clearly, this man had been up all night working on the tsunami warnings because he was wearing jeans and an excited, but tired expression) was “please do not attempt to surf the tsunami waves.” And I thought, what kind of moron would try to surf a tsunami wave? Surely, everyone has more or less heard or seen some of the devastation such waves cause all over the world? Why would you ever got on a board and try to surf it? And then the weatherman cut to scenes of the Coast Guard (in boats and helicopters) ordering said morons out of the water, either surfing or swimming.

Safety wasn’t going to be an issue for me. I wasn’t going within a 1000 yards of the ocean because I actually know what the word tsunami means. Mahalo.

PROVISIONS: This was the area of greatest concern because the two anchors and the weatherman took turns instructing us on what we need, potentially 5-7 days worth of food and water. First, we were to fill our bathtubs with water and then we were to turn our fridges all the way up in the event we lost power. I dutifully went and filled the bathtub, then I noted how disgusting the water was. So I drained it, scrubbed the tub, and then refilled it. It still looked like last resort water to me.

8:12 AM: Here was the rationale with the food. Had the tsunami hit as predicted, an 8 foot wave (which doesn’t sound very big, I mean, c’mon I saw sharks bigger than this), would hit Waikiki. An 8 foot wave of ocean would actually be quite dangerous and had the potential to knock out roads, powers, and systems for days. This I wholeheartedly believed because last year during the power outage, my building’s solution to an outage that lasted over 14 hours was to give everyone lightsticks and free drinks at the bar. So yes, I believed that the island of Oahu could be rocked back to the Stone Age for 5-7 days. Water I had. Food I did not. I went off in search of food (There was still well over three hours before the wave was due to hit us), and to my dismay, so did everyone else as all the lines to every major food store, gas station, McDonalds and Sushi Buffet were around the block. So I kept walking further and further until I saw a desolate looking liquor store with a blink neon light from the sixties that indicated it was open. I poked my head in. The liquor store guy smiled down at me, one gold tooth flashing in his leathery visage. “Everyone needs booze during a tsunami,” he said with a grin.

Having just eyed his ample snack selection, I was actually thinking: “everyone needs pork rinds during a tsunami.” So I bought: chips, salsa, a Snickers Bar, a bag of Peanut M&Ms, sour cream and onion Pringles, Cool Ranch Doritos and a package of Oreos (non Double Stuff, but beggars can’t be choosers). It was enough food to last me at least 3 days, then I could forage for food and eat exotic birds or whatever.

9:38 AM: I more or less spent the rest of the time until the tsunami was due to hit watching the weatherman and g-chatting my mother down off the ledge. I’d left the balcony door wide open so I heard the policemen driving around in their cruisers advising people to go indoors. At 10:00 AM, whomever is in charge of oncoming tsunami damage control announced their plan to to shut down all the major routes into Waikiki. I started to feel a little bit like Will Smith in “I am Legend.” The major arteries into the city would be empty and the zoo animals would run loose and I’d get to hunt them. The Honolulu Zoo had flamingos. I’d always wondered what a flamingo would taste like. Instead I opened up the chips and salsa and went to town.

10:00 AM: True to their word, law enforcement closed the road and sounded another siren. Oh good. Was pretty certain at this point my mother was hyperventilating. I got up and peered out the window. It looked like this. I was quite skeptical. I was expecting dark skies, torrid wind gusts, or a bell ringing atop a Buddhist temple in the movie 2012. I had my way with the Oreos. This was the one hour, the hour of waiting, where I actually felt a little apprehension, a little adrenaline. Sure it was sunny, but I kept waiting for the Seventh Seal darkness and gloom to descend upon us.

11:00 AM: The weatherman was quite excited. They’d set up a live cam on a harbor in Maui. The tsunami was due to hit Maui first and work its way up the island chain to us on Oahu. The weatherman was very excited about what looked like a whole lot of nothing. He kept referring to dramatic changes in the tide levels. I just saw a lot of rocks and some brownish red water. This was the moment I realized the tsunami was going to be a dud. I opened up the Pringles to celebrate.

11:37 AM: The sun was shining brilliantly and though the weatherman seems a little defeated, but he keeps stressing what a historical, meteorological event this is. He sounds a smidge defensive. I look outside. The surf did look a little rough, I guess. I broke into the Pop Tarts to celebrate properly and informed my mother she could breathe again. She informed me under no circumstances was I to go in the water or the near it, kind of a funny concept actually considering I was on an island and staying at Waikiki Beach.

(This is the extent of the waves and the coast guard helicopter)

12:20 PM: The weather alert people at the tsunami prevention were trying to save face. Better safe than sorry. And you know what? I completely agreed with them on the whole ounce of prevention theory. Having studied the law for three years (and people watched my whole life), I’d come to the conclusion that people were morons and if the weather people hadn’t put the fear of god in us all, people would have been out in the surf swimming and surfing and then there actually would have been loss of life. (And oh believe me, in Chile where the earthquake hit that caused all of this alarm in Hawaii, there was a staggering amount of loss of life). So I was not going to be mad at the weather alert people. This was just silly.

2:10 PM: The all clear signal sounded and people went back to walking their travel Kleenex-sized pets in the park across from my place. Now, my mother had expressly forbid me to go near the water, but the weather alert experts had given the all clear. I weighed their opinion against my mother’s, then I went out to explore down at Ala Moana. Now this was cool. The water looked more dramatic down there, grayish and green and swirling with debris. The harbor looked swollen, both with water and boats, I’d never seen so many boats moored in the marina before. In the park, more birds than I’d ever seen were grounded and hunkered down in the grass. I felt like an extra in “The Birds” and made a point to tread carefully lest I step on one. Finally, the harbor inlet was full of fish that were not usually there. I knew this because I jogged there every night and liked to look over the edge and watch the herons pick off fish. Now there were brightly colored tropical fish, including some large angel fish. They looked confused. So again, nothing dramatic, some cool, but subtle shifts down at Ala Moana, but I still I felt like turning cartwheels in the grass. I didn’t have to evacuate or drink any dodgy water from my tub. Win win.

(Al

 

  

  

  

 

5:12 PM: Decided to celebrate my miraculous survival of the tsunami at the 31.99 crab leg and prime rib buffet over the Oceanarium. The Oceanarium looks just like the tank at the New England Aquarium. There I pretty much ate my weight in crab legs, oysters, and sushi. You hate me. That’s fine.

6:18 PM: The sunset was one of the strangest I’d ever seen and it was certainly one that bears mentioning here just so I can post some pictures. The clouds were funnel shaped with the sun streaming down and people were out in droves, lined up on walls and rocks to watch it. It was one of the prettiest ones I can remember.

 

  

 

So this is how I came to survive the February 27th, 2010 Tsunami. It was tough, subsisting on Oreos and crab legs, but I managed.

And here’s a fun parting vignette. Check out this t-shirt. Baller, right?

A few days prior to the tsunami warning, I had ventured out for 10 cent buffalo wings, Olympic hockey, and trivia at a local watering hole. Three gentlemen visiting from down South were gracious enough to let me join their team. We won and there was a really nice gift basket for our team, including a gift certificate to Haleiwa t-shirts, which the guys told me I should take (because I got the final question). So I did and a few days after the tsunami I saw this shirt. Limited edition. Entirely free. 1/3rd of the proceeds going to Chile earthquake victims. And as I walked around Waikiki in it, I was stopped by people of all ages and general attractiveness, all inquiring about where I’d gotten such an awesome t-shirt because the ones they were hawking at the souvenir stands were so cheesy. So basically, I was cool for like, a good twenty minutes.


And I know you’re all dying to know what the final trivia question was.

Category: Sports
Question: The only Yankee to win both Rookie of the Year and MVP, this all-star catcher was killed in a plane crash in 1979.
Answer: (will be posted in next blog should you need it)

Why Snarky knows this: My Dad used to tell me stories about this catcher who helped kindle the Sox/Yankees feud in the 60's and 70's, he really had it in for Carlton Fisk. My Dad has just come out of the woods on a hiking trip when he heard this player had died and he was shocked. 

Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Disclaimer: this is going to be a disappointing blog for most of you.  First, the good pics won’t come back for awhile from the underwater camera (which was a disposable and may not be any good anyway since there was no zoom).  Blow.  So instead, I grabbed some pictures from the company’s website of the kind of sharks we saw (Galapagos and Reef sharks) that were close in approximate size and proximity to the cage.  When my own come back, I will post those (as long as they come out okay and the sharks look big in them).  Second, there’s not going to be a whole lot of snark here.  Nothing particularly snarky happened (other than a few barbs traded with babetastic Captain Chris) and I just love sharks too much to do anything other than gush about them.  Deal with it or get rent Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. 

So, the two great loves of my childhood were dinosaurs and sharks.  I wanted to be a paleontologist quite badly, live out in the desert in tents with goofy Panama Jack hats and little brush tools.  I even slept with a red plush dinosaur (his name was Crystal Moonbeam)  But ever fickle, even at a young age, I dropped dinosaurs for sharks  and from then on I wanted to be a marine biologist (until I learned this profession involved math.  And not the sexy kind of math, but actual math.  Gross).

Still, a love of sharks stayed with me.  Even now, even in the age of DVR, I seldom leave the house during Shark Week on the Discovery channel.  You know, just in case the DVR doesn’t work or heaven forbid, I run into someone who already saw the new documentary and they ruin it for me by revealing some major plot point.  You know something like: Jess, did you see the part when the abalone diver bled out from his femoral artery after the first ever hammer head shark attack caught off the coastal waters of Florida?  

 And of course my answer would be no and I would hate that person henceforth.  Forever.

I’ve read all the Peter Benchley novels, naturally.  And seen all of the Jaws movies even the bad ones.  (I’m looking you at Jaws 3-D.  Dennis Quaid, you should be ashamed of yourself).  And speaking of being ashamed, I’ve seen Shark Attack 3: Megaladon and Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus (don’t snark it, til you’ve tried it).  But, I’ve also read most of the accessible scientific books on the subject out there as well.  And I follow shark blogs and the like online.  I will take shark information however I can get it.  So if you ever find yourself wondering about the migration patterns of great white sharks off the coast of California, or why certain sharks breach, or which sharks can be found swimming in the Nile River, I’m probably the person you want to talk as long as you have a few hours to spare. 

But last year in Hawaii, though I talked a good game, I just couldn’t bring myself to go in the shark cage.  Even though it was billed as a 100% safe and no one had ever actually been eaten by sharks while on a shark excursion, I just couldn’t.   It’s one thing to worship sharks cerebrally and from a safe distance on land.  It’s another thing to get in the water with them.   And let’s face it, nothing is 100% safe.

My reluctance to get in the water with sharks was due in large part to the fact that I value my life.  A lot.  I have a good time, a really good time in life, but I don’t jump out of planes for the adrenaline rush.  I don’t ski off of cliffs for the heck of it.  I don’t dive down to unsafe depths for the thrill of it.  I like my life a whole lot. 

And I just want to point out that sharks aren’t like kayaks.

But it’s a new year and a new Snarky, so I convinced myself to sign up.  And then I felt vaguely queasy about it for two days, mainly because I signed on with the one shark encounter company that had actually seen a great white shark (once, like 8 years ago) and had the pictures to prove it.   

Now, why praytell is the Great White shark so much scarier even though a bull shark or tiger shark is far more aggressive and more apt to be actually be a maneater?  Because of the publicity, lore, and Hollywood treatment that the Great White, and the Great White alone has received.  When we think of sharks, we think of Carcharodon carcharias, the brutish body, that ghostly white underbelly, black eyes rolling back into its head, and that permanent grimace of teeth: The Great White Death.  And in this moment we are reminded that monsters are real. 

And yes, that’s what I was thinking about:

And this:

Now the night before I was to go, I laid out my bikinis for the next day and tried to think about the following: if the cage were to break and I became the first person to ever die in a shark cage off Northern Oahu and bits of me were found months later by a scientist in the belly of the shark (naturally a great white) that had devoured me, which bikini should I be wearing?  I ended up going with the pink ruffled one because I thought it was classier than a string bikini.  If I were going to be a shark meal, then I wanted to at least be a classy one, the Sel de la Terre of bikinis, and not a trashy string one, aka the Taco Del Mar of swimsuits.  And yes, that was my thought process, and no, I didn’t get much sleep that night.  You know why?  Because the mind can splinter this way: on one hand you know rationally that if people were being eaten by sharks on shark tours, there would be no more shark tours.  On the other hand, accidents happen, maybe your number is up today, today is the day the cage splinters, you are eaten by a shark, what are the odds, and you become an overnight sensation on youtube for all the wrong grisly reasons.

Anyway, having slept, oh about forty-five minutes the entire night, the morning arrived and I found myself sitting at a marina out in Haleiwa reading over a waiver for death and injury from shark bites.  In general, I’m like every other lawyer out there.  We laugh at general release of liability forms.  Seldom do they hold up in court and gross negligence can never really be signed away.  But it’s still cute to watch companies try.  My eye kept coming back to the words “shark bites.”

I had only told a single person I was going beforehand, just in case I chickened out.  I reasoned that this person, while he would certainly taunt me for backing out, would at least have the common sense to call someone if he hadn’t heard from me in two or three days (hopefully sooner).  I loved the movie, “Open Water,” the little indie flick about the couple that went snorkeling and were left to die out in the deep blue sea.  A real heart-warming feel good movie (made seriously cooler by the fact that the actors were actually divers and the footage with the sharks is all real).  But there was also an important lesson to be learned from that movie: if you’re going out into the ocean/the Amazon rainforest/ancient Mayan temples or other places from which you may never return: tell someone responsible so you have a chance of being rescued.

I grew even more apprehensive when I saw how small the boat was.  Obviously, you’d want something roughly the size of the Titantic to feel safe.  This boat was probably smaller than the Orca  (if you don’t know what that is, stop reading this blog, rent Jaws, or check TNT for it because it’s always on, and thank me later), although, at least this boat wasn’t manned by a crazy, drunken sailor named Quint with a penchant for singing sea shanties.  The captain’s name was Chris (pictured below on the top) and I was instantly smitten.  Not because he was one of those perfectly, “I’m not even trying for a tan” islanders with shark white teeth of his own and fabulously, naturally highlighted by the sun golden hair. Nope, that wasn’t why, that would be shallow. Snarky was smitten because anything and everything he said had to do with sharks.  Yes, he swam with them all the time.  Yes, he swam with them OUTSIDE of the shark cages.  Yes, he had swam up close and personal with some of the most notorious species: tiger, bull, and mako.  Yes, he actually described them all as “cordial” and “intelligent” creatures. And yes, he actually made an “Open Water” reference.  He said, “oh there are twelve of you?  I thought there were only ten today.  That means we can leave two of you behind and not get in trouble.”  Nervous laughter and glance exchange.  Yeah, that one actually wasn't funny, Chris.  You're good looking, but not that good looking.

His assistant, First Mate Phillip, was a different kettle of fish altogether (haha, bad pun).  Phillip (pictured above) was one of these perpetually happy, chill people.  He had an uncanny way of scuttling all over the boat (one minute he was beside you, the next minute he was on top of the boat and his head was hanging down through the window).  I’m pretty sure that if Phillip had fallen into the water and his leg been chewed off by one of these cordial sharks, Phillip would have shrugged, continued to smile and act chill about the entire thing.  The one thing he asked of us was if we were going to throw up, please not throw up on him.  I got the feeling from the way he wrinkled up his nose that this had actually happened to Phillip in the past.  He spent most of the time on the boat fishing.  Not for sharks, but for the fish that travel with the sharks, or rather behind the sharks, because let's face it, behind the danger is the best place to travel.

Anyway, we headed out about three miles out of the harbor and let me tell you, three miles is a long way to swim home if the boat sank.  The water was choppy and the swells high (as Haleiwa is known for and frequented as a surfing mecca as a result).  Of the dozen people on our tour, several threw up over the side of the boat.  Phillip, I noticed, positioned himself strategically downwind from these people.  I was not one of these tossers, mahalo very much.  I spent most of my summers in or around boats as a Nokomis girl.  No weak stomach here.  At least not with boats.

I’d done my research ahead of time on Galapagos sharks and reef sharks.  They’re not maneaters, although, any shark will eat you if they’re hungry and you’re already dead (sharks are scavengers).  They’re found all over the place and prefer tropical warm waters.  I also found this helpful fact:

“When provoked or threatened, this shark will exhibit a "hunched back" posture, bowing itself up as if it was hunched at the shoulders. Then it will swim at you in a classic figure 8. pattern.  Imagine a fish pressed up against the glass of an aquarium, swimming in little figure 8's as if it was trying to press its nose through the glass. This is the display of a Galapagos shark when it is trying to warn you to leave its territory. So if you see this display and the shark is moving in your direction, vacate the area!”

Okay, helpful survival note to self: if a shark goes all Quasimodo on you, it’s time to move to the other side of the shark cage, avoid eye contact with the shark, or exit the cage (preferably into the boat and not the water where said provoked or irritated sharks are).

As far as interspecies mingling go, they are cordial and mix well together.  They don’t swim around and bi**hslap each other like some species (looking at you, penguins).  Captain Dreamy, I mean, Captain Chris pointed out that for the most part groups broke down by size and gender.  6 foot sharks did not hang with 12 foot sharks, nor did the genders mix.  The group we ended up seeing was predominantly female Galapagos (females being the larger of the breed) and after seeing some of the mating scars on them, it was perfectly clear why the genders did not mix: love hurts. 

Finally we approached the place in the middle of the ocean where the sharks were (oh hi fun fact, sharks are anywhere and everywhere about 3 miles off land in Hawaii.  Good to know, thank you, Chris).  Chris asked for volunteers for the first six to go in.  The Corrections officer and the newly weds put their hands up (we’d done that whole, who are you, what do you do for a living chat while waiting at the marina).  Chris looked directly at me and said, “since you’re a lawyer, you must be used to swimming with sharks.” 

Good natured laugh all around.  Hardy har har. 

But this relaxed me, my hands stopped shaking and I straightened my spine.  It’s amazing what a well-timed taunt can do for you.  I finished peeling off my t-shirt and yoga pants to reveal my “in case of death by shark” bikini.  And as I passed Chris, about to descend into the cage, he said, “Nice bikini.  Is that considered business casual?”

Oh ha ha ha.  Pick on the shark bait.  I see how it is.

I called upon the gods of snark to say something witty.  But it was like that scene in Jaws when Hooper is about to go into the shark cage and the otherwise cocky know-it-all himself looks down at his mask, gets ready to clear it and instead looks up at Chief Brody with fear and vulnerability in his eyes.  “I got no spit,” he says.

Yeah, well I got no snark at this moment.

Then I looked left and saw a dark rippling shadow, just before I climbed down into the cage.  I couldn’t make out the specifics of fins and gills and teeth, but its form was unmistakable.  Sharks in the water.  

You’d better believe I got into the cage as fast I could after that.  No way was I going to linger in any area that was not the boat or the cage.  Given my sense of balance, this just seemed dangerous.

 For a moment, I couldn’t even put my face in the water.  What the heck was I doing in a stupid cage in a stupid ruffled pink business casual bikini being circled by sharks three miles off shore? 

And the answer was simple.  I took a deep breath and blew it out through the snorkel.  I had come to see sharks. 

I submerged into perfect silence and deep blue nothing.  There were six or seven sharks by my first count.  They were moving gracefully, but  not with any haste.  Their movements were fluid, thousands of years of evolution showing in each effortless turn of the fins.   I was mesmerized.  No more fear, no snark, just pure admiration for these animals.

(Yup this is how big and how close they came at various times.  No, my abs don't look like that).

Okay, so there was one exception to the “no more fear” feeling and this came when the biggest shark passed under the cage for the first time and I realized (and who knows, maybe it was a distortion caused by the glass, but I swear to you, I absolutely swear to you that one of the sharks was longer than the cage we were in.  When it passed beneath us and I saw how damn tiny my feet looked (my feet, my freaking canoe paddle size 9 feet), I almost passed out.  The shark was so big and there was just something about it being beneath you.  Chris said they’d been seeing 12 footers all week.  I’m telling you this animal was either a 12 footer or just shy of it.  That’s a big shark.  That’s two of me and then some.

(This is taken from the bottom of the cage (clear glass, no bars).  I actually took a bunch of pics like this, only my shark was bigger,  But this was the feeling of looking down, watching your own two feet fluttering ineffectively as something like this silently slid by)

Of course, even though I wasn't scared, I did keep my eyes peeled for any sharks exhibiting signs of irritation or the "hunchback" posture.  You know, just in case. Also look below and keep your eyes peeled for signs of irritation caused by the "plumber's crack" posture.

Finally, in case you’re wondering how it is that the sharks came up to the cage, well, the reason Phillip gave was that the shark boats look like the crabbing boats.  And the crabbing boats dump the excess bait/crabs/marine rejects back into the water.  The sharks associate the boats and the people in them with a free meal (the crabs, not the people).  Did you follow that?  Yeah, me neither.  I got the distinct feeling that Phillip was leaving out some crucial piece of the explanation.  But since chumming had been illegal for two years in Hawaii, I decided to leave well enough alone.  And you should too.

And that was that.  Nothing too exciting and nothing but love for the sharks.  This definitely was one of the coolest things I've ever done, in Hawaii or anywhere else.  Being that close to something that lethal and perfectly designed in an evolutionary sense is humbling and awe-inspiring (and yes, I literally mean, it inspires awe and makes you feel like an insignificant speck of dust as a result, which I kinda like.  It makes any problem you're having seem a whole lot less important).  Also, this was great practice for when I really grow a pair and decide to go see the Great Whites off Gansbaai in Africa.  Don't worry, Mom.  I won't tell you about it until AFTER I get back.  It works better that way.

So now as I depart from shark infested waters, let me leave you with the climatic scene from Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus.  Yes, that is the Golden Gate Bridge.