About Me

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Sacramento, California, United States
so salty pieces of coral from surfing Hawaii in the 60's and 70's getting reef pounded living in my body fall through my skin from time to time!

sailing to Oahu

Jimi Hendrix was playing on Oahu. I had never sailed. Surfed Mexico, California, Hawaii! Aw, how hard could it be to sail 90-110 miles from Kauai to Oahu? Piece of cake, right? Remember it was the 60's! This is so bad. We thought we were looking at Kaiena Point,Ohau, knowing we weren't going to make the concert! But at least we were in site of Oahu-wrong! Coy, who had never sailed before, me,who had never sailed before, jeff and Abbott etc. We were looking at the sleeping giant on Kauai! We had done three-sixty's in the night! We sailed on the only tri-marran I've ever sailed on ( except later ) in my life, missed the concert! It was at the Waikiki Shell Ampitheater ( Moon eclipsed . We finally made Nawilwili Harbor! The Skipper tried to give us his boat saying, " It's trying to kill me"! We watched him go stark raving mad not even realising that had we got caught in the channel current we were on our way to Japan! Remember it was the 60's and we were going to see Hendrix. I left out some of the good stuff but I will make up for it later!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Don't need no stinking lighthouse!

We were sailing to Kieta, Bougainville from Gizo after clearing customs. We got word that someone we had sailed with had been forced to buoy an anchor to mark it's location as they could not free it from the ocean floor. We thought we might swing into this little island, pick up the anchor, have a little relaxing dive and brunch. One half of the Solomon Navy didn't agree. They had this little gun boat smaller than President Kennedy's PT boat! They let us know that we had cleared customs in Gizo ( after spending three months in the Solomons) and were not welcome in their territorial waters any longer! There were no tense moments. We invited all four of them aboard for lunch ( they liked my bread ) while they checked with the proper authorities to see if we could be allowed to dive for our friends anchor. After a lot of posturing and a wasted four hours we were told in no uncertain terms we were persona non grata! It was a disappointment not to be able to bring our friends anchor to Kieta. We had the abillity and the technology but Governments love to exihibit their power. I loved paying the light bill in the Solomons. All the lighthouses were built by the U.S and maintained through WW11. After that they were maintained by the country itself for about a month! In the entire Solomon Islands we found one of twenty-one lights working. They charged us in Haniara $ 210.00 for light fees! I wonder what it is now? As far as I know that anchor is still sitting in that bay waiting for someone to come and get it! The island can't be accessed because it belongs to the Solomons and there is no way to clear customs. You only can clear at Gizo or Honiara ( Guadacanal )! This island is only about 8 hours from Bougainville. Sticky wicket! When we arrived at Keita they had a perfect Jap Zero mounted like a model a kid might have in his bedroom. Royal and I later found one in 15 feet of water in a channel. You could free dive it and actually sit in the cockpit! Both wings were attached and all the gages in place. It was really erie! Royal took one gage as a sovenier which I am sure he still has to this day. Thus his name Royal Gage! Ha!

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