Great wave to ride but how does one get there? When I was young I surfed Trestles. It was a hard place to get to.but a great place to ride. Ask the marines. They studied and tried to catch us at Camp Pendelton. Could only catch a few grimmies.
I don't really mean that but I do mean this. On the island of Kauai ia a wave that's kind of like Doheney or " Killer Cowells" Ha! in Santa Cruz. It is a great place to learn how to move a surfboard and at the same time express yourself..
How many wave riding locations are blocked by private property. A surfer is a trespasser. What if you are a star? Or rich?
Pakala, Kauai. was part of the Robinson (sugar cane) plantation. To ride Pakala. one had two choices for an entry point. A two mile legal walk-with your board from the Waimea River or a very quick run from the road through his land to the beach. You can see the break from the road. It isn't even a quarter mile! So here is the story.
Kieth Robinson and his paniolos actually roped some of my friends as they ran through that short pasture. This means they didn't get to surf that day because they had to go to the Lihue police dept. and pay $25 dollars and in certain cases they didn't get their surfboards returned.
Can you imagine being lassoed by a cowboy on horseback or in his jeep on your way to 6' Pakala's?
I could add that it might be really depressing if you were under the influence of psychedelics! Never happened to me. But I was there...
Lumahai Valley, KalalauValley, and the island of Niihau are still owned by a Robinson. Not many people have been to these places but I have. I think they, like all founding haole missionary, business oriented possessers of the land, have given most of what they stold back to the people. No more agriculture!
Tourism. #1.........
So it comes down to this... To surf Pakala;; Do you walk from the Waimea River OR Do you take the chance? Your call......
About Me
- Robbin
- 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!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
letter-incarcerated son
Well Son,
What can I say? " You are there and I am here"! No matter where you go, there you are.
It kind of keeps you in the moment doesn't it?
I look at life like a boat moving through the water. I am the boat. The bow of the boat divides
the water in front of it as it moves towards a destination. I know where the boat is going because I am driving. I know it will arrive but I can't tell you exactly where or when! In front of the boat are to many intangibles; weather, swells, people, physical obstacles, random events interfere with my plotted course.
My heading sometimes is changed or affected by the bombardment of random, unplanned events.
However, the boat continues with course changes which means the destination changes also....
The boat leaves a wake. Kind of like a record of it's passage. This wake has a ripple or butterfly effect.
When it arrives on shore it is like a breaking wave that little ants paddle out to on their surf boards and
either rip or wipe out, according to their abillity.
The wake of the boat is actually more important than the boat's destination. The wake of a good sized
stink boat is large enough to damage other vessels at anchor or slipped because of it's desire for speed.
If a stink boat follows-the Rules of the Road-, Maritime Law, No one gets hurt and no boats are damaged.
For instance: Sailboats under sail have right of way over any motor driven vessel. But and this is a big but!
One must always remember that even though one has right of way- the real Law of the Ocean is--
MIGHT IS RIGHT.............Never forget this son.
When my sailboat is 1,000 miles from anywhere and I am sailing through major shipping lines and
a Matsun container ship is screaming along at 25 to 34 knots intersecting with my course heading, who gives
way? Navigation 101-duh! Thus might is right. With emphasis!
As it turns out, even though I am the boat that has chosen a destination and I have the appearance
of knowing where I am going, I don't!
The wake of my vessel effects people, places and things of which I do not have an awareness of.
My hope (really) is that the ants enjoyed the ride but I can't and will not be responsible for ants in my wake!
If they didn't like the big surf at least they know it now. Ride smaller waves!
What sailing comes down to my son is-you are the boat! It's not where the boat is going and it's not
where the boat has been! It's where the boat is!
" The Journey Is The Destination" son...................
What can I say? " You are there and I am here"! No matter where you go, there you are.
It kind of keeps you in the moment doesn't it?
I look at life like a boat moving through the water. I am the boat. The bow of the boat divides
the water in front of it as it moves towards a destination. I know where the boat is going because I am driving. I know it will arrive but I can't tell you exactly where or when! In front of the boat are to many intangibles; weather, swells, people, physical obstacles, random events interfere with my plotted course.
My heading sometimes is changed or affected by the bombardment of random, unplanned events.
However, the boat continues with course changes which means the destination changes also....
The boat leaves a wake. Kind of like a record of it's passage. This wake has a ripple or butterfly effect.
When it arrives on shore it is like a breaking wave that little ants paddle out to on their surf boards and
either rip or wipe out, according to their abillity.
The wake of the boat is actually more important than the boat's destination. The wake of a good sized
stink boat is large enough to damage other vessels at anchor or slipped because of it's desire for speed.
If a stink boat follows-the Rules of the Road-, Maritime Law, No one gets hurt and no boats are damaged.
For instance: Sailboats under sail have right of way over any motor driven vessel. But and this is a big but!
One must always remember that even though one has right of way- the real Law of the Ocean is--
MIGHT IS RIGHT.............Never forget this son.
When my sailboat is 1,000 miles from anywhere and I am sailing through major shipping lines and
a Matsun container ship is screaming along at 25 to 34 knots intersecting with my course heading, who gives
way? Navigation 101-duh! Thus might is right. With emphasis!
As it turns out, even though I am the boat that has chosen a destination and I have the appearance
of knowing where I am going, I don't!
The wake of my vessel effects people, places and things of which I do not have an awareness of.
My hope (really) is that the ants enjoyed the ride but I can't and will not be responsible for ants in my wake!
If they didn't like the big surf at least they know it now. Ride smaller waves!
What sailing comes down to my son is-you are the boat! It's not where the boat is going and it's not
where the boat has been! It's where the boat is!
" The Journey Is The Destination" son...................
Friday, August 27, 2010
Letter June 14, 1863. Sutter Creek to San Francisco, California
Dear Mother, Father and sweet sister Robyn,
Though I have sorely missed the honor of being in your gracious company, I have much to share with you in the way of experience. First, I am in need of thanking Father for surviving the trials placed before him. Know I am your most respectful son, father! Though I am but a small seed, I proclaim here and now that I have come to a great understanding of what men will do when they are faced with matters beyond their experience to forbare.
Fearsy, your loyal friend and mine, speaks little. When he speaks, I listen as did you while stolen from us, as a family for but a short while! And yet, Father, I thought never to see you again. Mother! He returned from the edge of the world for us! Wealthy? Yes. What is wealth, father? Without love? It does not exist!
Fearsy is a teacher. But father that is why you gave him to be my watcher. Mother, father did not leave me alone at his claim. I know that when we riverboated to Sacramento you knew that your husband, my father was going to wean me as a man allows his son to become what he will become. Mother, you also knew he would place me in harm's way but with a comforter or protecter! In Fearsy's silences I have learned more than all the books I have studied, read and shared and yet! I still read. Wisdom seems to be a balance between emperical knowledge and love.
Sister, this is a harsh daily existence. San Francisco is dancing, good food, balls and gala events, small talk and you. I am sure no letter can return the way this traveled to you but if possible I would take a life to not miss a moment of you and I discussing anything small or large in the way we have done from the very beginning! How we analized any society; brats or bluebloods! Scoundrols, the lot! All the same! To be dealt with in the areas of our minds, where people and ideas reside. I miss you but I am near to coming.
My man on horseback is ready to carry this writting to you all. I know the claim has added to our foundation. Father, no man knows or can know the reality of what holds our family together. I would but hope that I and Fearsy beat this letter home so that I might with family give a fare rendition of all that has transpired in this two years that I have been absent from the center of my well being!
Father, I must confess. After being land locked these two years past, if it be in the stars, may I sail on a business junkett, maybe to Hong Kong? My hands have been in the frozen, cold waters of the Mother Lode and need the warmth of the Pacific Ocean and a different kind of isolation that only Mother Ocean can provide to heal the wounds that man's greed when revealed turns a warm heart to ice.
Fearsy says, " You know"!
Respectfully, your son and servant,
R. Luke Rhodes
Though I have sorely missed the honor of being in your gracious company, I have much to share with you in the way of experience. First, I am in need of thanking Father for surviving the trials placed before him. Know I am your most respectful son, father! Though I am but a small seed, I proclaim here and now that I have come to a great understanding of what men will do when they are faced with matters beyond their experience to forbare.
Fearsy, your loyal friend and mine, speaks little. When he speaks, I listen as did you while stolen from us, as a family for but a short while! And yet, Father, I thought never to see you again. Mother! He returned from the edge of the world for us! Wealthy? Yes. What is wealth, father? Without love? It does not exist!
Fearsy is a teacher. But father that is why you gave him to be my watcher. Mother, father did not leave me alone at his claim. I know that when we riverboated to Sacramento you knew that your husband, my father was going to wean me as a man allows his son to become what he will become. Mother, you also knew he would place me in harm's way but with a comforter or protecter! In Fearsy's silences I have learned more than all the books I have studied, read and shared and yet! I still read. Wisdom seems to be a balance between emperical knowledge and love.
Sister, this is a harsh daily existence. San Francisco is dancing, good food, balls and gala events, small talk and you. I am sure no letter can return the way this traveled to you but if possible I would take a life to not miss a moment of you and I discussing anything small or large in the way we have done from the very beginning! How we analized any society; brats or bluebloods! Scoundrols, the lot! All the same! To be dealt with in the areas of our minds, where people and ideas reside. I miss you but I am near to coming.
My man on horseback is ready to carry this writting to you all. I know the claim has added to our foundation. Father, no man knows or can know the reality of what holds our family together. I would but hope that I and Fearsy beat this letter home so that I might with family give a fare rendition of all that has transpired in this two years that I have been absent from the center of my well being!
Father, I must confess. After being land locked these two years past, if it be in the stars, may I sail on a business junkett, maybe to Hong Kong? My hands have been in the frozen, cold waters of the Mother Lode and need the warmth of the Pacific Ocean and a different kind of isolation that only Mother Ocean can provide to heal the wounds that man's greed when revealed turns a warm heart to ice.
Fearsy says, " You know"!
Respectfully, your son and servant,
R. Luke Rhodes
Friday, July 30, 2010
A Man Finds Himself
The only reason it took me two weeks to travel from my diggings to the riverboat that would deliver me into the presence of my dear wife is a story onto itself! Yes! I entrusted Hearsy to watch over my son, Robben, while extracating all that is rightfully ours on a claim, duly filed and legal in the State of California.
Rich it is beyond my simple expectations. When the side of a mountain collapsed, changing the waterway and releasing hiden bounty, geologically buried until an act of Nature released a natural buried organic treasure pushed up by the forming of the Earth itself! Gold, measured by pounds became ours. So Fearsy, my compatriot and friend and yet-more. Brother, like no man has experienced. My life for him is but a small address. Now, he guards my son from a wilderness of greed, avarice, and selfishness, where all people doubt that when help is asked for and delivered it is done without a price! Friendship, fellowship and comradrie? All doubt! I am living testimony that friendship found is real and everlasting.
Downstream on the American River would, under a normal sun, have brought me but one week and a day to the Sacramento River and town itself if I hadn't been waylaid by miscreants whose soul purpose here on this wonderful planet is to gainsay themselves at the expense of another that they rationalize that all people of wealth, stold the lifestyle they live off the backs of thieves just like themselves! I have no mercy for this kind of thinking! They boarded,without invitation or any friendship, our simple vessel with only one thing of mind! To rob, steal and maybe kill for their lack of creative skill to come into their own in the way of financial gain! They made an honest attempt to kill me and the passengers on this very small river vehicle that was bringing us down to the river that would bring me home to my wife in San Franscisco, Robin. The Sacramento River.
I was sorry I killed two of them. They wanted more than I could give. The surviving two were conscious by the time I gave them to the sheriff of Sacramento. Everyone aboard thanked me in abundance for being a kind of protector. I didn't see it that way. I saw effeminate men whose wealth was made off the backs of people like me. If I had not been aboard, they would have been free of their money and their life. I felt sorry for the distressed highwaymen. Not for the rich double speaker! Thieves, not only of hearts but when the law doesn't work for them they express vigilantism! Why do manipulators appear to victorious always?
I paid the bail and did goodspeak for the surviving two. They trusted my word and found their way to Fearsy and my son. Those surviving two are with me to this day. One never leaves my wife's side. The other never leaves my son's. I have Fearsy and he has me. We all have the truth in us. Gold is in our hearts for those who can bear it!
My re-union/re-acquaintance with my wife at our new house on Nob Hill is another story! And so is what my daughter brought to my attention on the day of my return from the Forgotten Claim of the Motherlode that did nothing but quadruptle the wealth of a simple man who gladly walked his way! ARRRAGGHHHHH! Matey!
Rich it is beyond my simple expectations. When the side of a mountain collapsed, changing the waterway and releasing hiden bounty, geologically buried until an act of Nature released a natural buried organic treasure pushed up by the forming of the Earth itself! Gold, measured by pounds became ours. So Fearsy, my compatriot and friend and yet-more. Brother, like no man has experienced. My life for him is but a small address. Now, he guards my son from a wilderness of greed, avarice, and selfishness, where all people doubt that when help is asked for and delivered it is done without a price! Friendship, fellowship and comradrie? All doubt! I am living testimony that friendship found is real and everlasting.
Downstream on the American River would, under a normal sun, have brought me but one week and a day to the Sacramento River and town itself if I hadn't been waylaid by miscreants whose soul purpose here on this wonderful planet is to gainsay themselves at the expense of another that they rationalize that all people of wealth, stold the lifestyle they live off the backs of thieves just like themselves! I have no mercy for this kind of thinking! They boarded,without invitation or any friendship, our simple vessel with only one thing of mind! To rob, steal and maybe kill for their lack of creative skill to come into their own in the way of financial gain! They made an honest attempt to kill me and the passengers on this very small river vehicle that was bringing us down to the river that would bring me home to my wife in San Franscisco, Robin. The Sacramento River.
I was sorry I killed two of them. They wanted more than I could give. The surviving two were conscious by the time I gave them to the sheriff of Sacramento. Everyone aboard thanked me in abundance for being a kind of protector. I didn't see it that way. I saw effeminate men whose wealth was made off the backs of people like me. If I had not been aboard, they would have been free of their money and their life. I felt sorry for the distressed highwaymen. Not for the rich double speaker! Thieves, not only of hearts but when the law doesn't work for them they express vigilantism! Why do manipulators appear to victorious always?
I paid the bail and did goodspeak for the surviving two. They trusted my word and found their way to Fearsy and my son. Those surviving two are with me to this day. One never leaves my wife's side. The other never leaves my son's. I have Fearsy and he has me. We all have the truth in us. Gold is in our hearts for those who can bear it!
My re-union/re-acquaintance with my wife at our new house on Nob Hill is another story! And so is what my daughter brought to my attention on the day of my return from the Forgotten Claim of the Motherlode that did nothing but quadruptle the wealth of a simple man who gladly walked his way! ARRRAGGHHHHH! Matey!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Razor Reef
Who even know where it is or what it could mean? A very small lagoon? Nay, a tidepool. Across the street from my house, for a time. That ancient era is bygone and yet the memory still refreashes and instills
a radiant peace, tangible, touchable with it's substance.
Is it the days and hours spent witnessing God's pryrotechnical explosive tropical sunrise and sunsets by myself and with only a few real friends? Even cameras not able to properly capture the overlapping and ever changing kaleidoscopic pastels generated by sun rays dancing with cotton candy clouds, shimmering emerald green waters and a forever sky dipped in plumeria? Changing moment to moment, like waves, traveling so far to fall and break on a foriegn shore, unique. Manifesting itself and then returning into what it has always been and always will be.
How many times and with how very few did we ride that silly little nothing wave laughing as our fins hit the reef, knowing it wasn't even a ridable wave but riding it anyway and in the doing both were defined. We made it surf and performed and Razor Reef joyously conformed. The tidepool and the surfer smiled together as if at a private joke!
Was it because the teeth the reef revealed as Waimea Bay's back door during winter's swells was so majestic with upside down waterfalls. explosions with sound, water reaching heavenward then falling; raw, natural power not allowing all the ocean to return to her body, suspending her in the air to breath, taste and smell? To know her intimately. To become one with her. To submerge!
From snorkeling the Razor, her cooling me off on those lazy, hot, intoxicating summer daze, I can see her bottom as if it were yesterday. How many moods have I seen her display? How many ways have I made love with her? Does she remember me? Yes, I believe she does. Who could forget?
a radiant peace, tangible, touchable with it's substance.
Is it the days and hours spent witnessing God's pryrotechnical explosive tropical sunrise and sunsets by myself and with only a few real friends? Even cameras not able to properly capture the overlapping and ever changing kaleidoscopic pastels generated by sun rays dancing with cotton candy clouds, shimmering emerald green waters and a forever sky dipped in plumeria? Changing moment to moment, like waves, traveling so far to fall and break on a foriegn shore, unique. Manifesting itself and then returning into what it has always been and always will be.
How many times and with how very few did we ride that silly little nothing wave laughing as our fins hit the reef, knowing it wasn't even a ridable wave but riding it anyway and in the doing both were defined. We made it surf and performed and Razor Reef joyously conformed. The tidepool and the surfer smiled together as if at a private joke!
Was it because the teeth the reef revealed as Waimea Bay's back door during winter's swells was so majestic with upside down waterfalls. explosions with sound, water reaching heavenward then falling; raw, natural power not allowing all the ocean to return to her body, suspending her in the air to breath, taste and smell? To know her intimately. To become one with her. To submerge!
From snorkeling the Razor, her cooling me off on those lazy, hot, intoxicating summer daze, I can see her bottom as if it were yesterday. How many moods have I seen her display? How many ways have I made love with her? Does she remember me? Yes, I believe she does. Who could forget?
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Gold, an old claim!
A river off another river drove me to a claim that I had recorded as mine. It had not been visited for a length of time! I was distracted by a hard desire to find a dream that would free my family from the bondage of a world that forms people into a desire of wealth. I found wealth and lost it but for a minute.
I understand, now, a greater thing. In the course of my life, to lose and win a fortune is in the eye of
the beholder? What is wealth? It is for you to decide. I lost and won back my wife and children.
As I returned to the Columnes River, past Latrobe, which wasn't even a city but a far cry from
even a country house, positioned by a railroad track, where a train never passes to ship the unshipable!
My gold is not far from Latrobe in California. A place of scrub oaks and very little water.
I hired a new hand to replace Mr. Donner. They're five of us and two horses and three donkeys.
I am having a hard time recognizing my claim.
Admittedly, I am so wealthy, I would never have to work a day of my life, again!
I have never thought that that is what life is about! How about yourself?
I can not believe that after all these years my claim has not been violated! I asked Fearsy, " Can you believe it?" His answer was," Yes "! Simple question, simple answer! When we all noticed that the canyon
wall had collapsed, we realized that the gold that I had discovered, way back, just might have a chance ot surviving the hunters that killed chinese, mexican, indians, that knew about gold. They, the greedy white guys, established rules, called government! Long story short.
This time in San Francisco is a lot different than when I was shanghighed out of the city!
Not only have I left my daughter and wife in the city, I have allowed them, with the grace of wealth, and an unlimited currency exchange, to establish culture, ideas, spirit and friendships that only can be established when
there is nothing to fear. If there is something to fear, let it be San Francisco, pre 1906! How does one
spell, vigilantes?
I understand, now, a greater thing. In the course of my life, to lose and win a fortune is in the eye of
the beholder? What is wealth? It is for you to decide. I lost and won back my wife and children.
As I returned to the Columnes River, past Latrobe, which wasn't even a city but a far cry from
even a country house, positioned by a railroad track, where a train never passes to ship the unshipable!
My gold is not far from Latrobe in California. A place of scrub oaks and very little water.
I hired a new hand to replace Mr. Donner. They're five of us and two horses and three donkeys.
I am having a hard time recognizing my claim.
Admittedly, I am so wealthy, I would never have to work a day of my life, again!
I have never thought that that is what life is about! How about yourself?
I can not believe that after all these years my claim has not been violated! I asked Fearsy, " Can you believe it?" His answer was," Yes "! Simple question, simple answer! When we all noticed that the canyon
wall had collapsed, we realized that the gold that I had discovered, way back, just might have a chance ot surviving the hunters that killed chinese, mexican, indians, that knew about gold. They, the greedy white guys, established rules, called government! Long story short.
This time in San Francisco is a lot different than when I was shanghighed out of the city!
Not only have I left my daughter and wife in the city, I have allowed them, with the grace of wealth, and an unlimited currency exchange, to establish culture, ideas, spirit and friendships that only can be established when
there is nothing to fear. If there is something to fear, let it be San Francisco, pre 1906! How does one
spell, vigilantes?
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Kawa Kawa ( Awa in Hawaiian )
There is a peculiar root that grows on the Pacific Islands. In Hawaii it is called Awa root. I
first heard of it there and tried it with a couple of friends of mine on Kauai. We knew it had a history or better said; a place in Hawaiian history. We, being true explorers of pharmacology in the sixties, knew there was a load there and as explorers were compelled to explore the mysteries surrounding this spiritual, cliff dwelling root called Awa. (pronounced ava)..
AWA
`Awa is one of the plants brought in their sailing canoes by the earliest Polynesian voyagers arriving in Hawai`i. `Awa (Piper methysticum), a member of the pepper family, grows in the wild now and is also cultivated increasily throughout the Pacific Islands, where it is called Kava or Kava Kava. This plant grows well at low elevations where there is constant moisture and partial sun. More than a dozen varieties of `awa were known in old Hawai`i.
I started this thought to kick around an idea about ka'awa, kawa, kawa kawa! I was going to share with you the difference between Fijian kawa and Vanuatu'an kawa and their ceremonies. Well, I can officially say to you," That is over"! Like the root itself, it keeps growing!
I need you to visualize a picture. Sailing today with modern technology is still a risk. The picture I
would enjoy you to sea is carved tree hulls with pounded coconut pulp sails and rope made from dying plants.
Navigators who FEEL stars, swells, currents, smells, birds and stories passed from father to son, remembered in Homeric proportion! Their very existance depended upon it.! I cry!
A sign showing a "Kava license area" at Yirrkala, in the Northern Territory of AustraliaMain article: Kava culture
Kava is used for medicinal, religious, political, cultural and social purposes throughout the Pacific. These cultures have a great respect for the plant and place a high importance on it. In Fiji, for example, a formal yaqona (kava) ceremony will often accompany important social, political, religious, etc. functions, usually involving a ritual presentation of the bundled roots as a sevusevu (gift), and drinking of the yaqona itself.[24]
A traditional Fijian yaqona bundle of rootsCorrespondingly, the paraphernalia surrounding the traditional kava ceremony are expertly crafted. Traditionally designed Kava bowls are bowls made from a single piece of wood, with multiple legs. More modern examples are also highly decorated, often carved and inlayed with mother of pearl and shell.
They like Fijian tobacco also as did I. Cake was cool. Snake wasn't!
Kava is used primarily at social gatherings to increase amiability and to relax after work. It has great religious significance, being used to obtain inspiration. Among some fundamentalist Christian sects[who?] in the Western Pacific, the drink has been seen as a vice, and young members of these religions often reject its traditional use. However, among many mainline Christian denominations, i.e. the Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Anglican churches, kava drinking is encouraged where it replaces alcohol.
So! Welcome to Fiji. Clap clap. Peaceful isn't it? A half coconut shell filled with a liquid substance that tastes like dirty dishwater and has basically the same results. I didn't realize that Indians from India were taking over the politics of a melanesian country under New Zealand auspices! A coup. Oh man. I hadn't been laid in damn near a year! I'm on the highest level of the stadium in downtown Suva. Making love to the first American I had had in awhile! Another story! ( mention Legsly for both[tres] of these recomembers) I had come ashore a few days before, nowhere nesr Suva, illegally, I might add. I hope there is a statue to limitations, cause I'm telling the truth! I bought several cartons of cigarettes and two cases of Fijian Bitters, quarts before we quarenteened in Suva and cleared customs. Oh shit! We ran aground anyway, inside the leads! (another story) Rainfall/sandbar/aground! ARRgGH!!
This story is about Kawa. New Hebrides (Vanuatu ) Port Vila is where I would like this story to bend.
Later I'll share with you " the banks" or the island of Pentecost" where, to get there you sail over an underwater volcano, where everyman is sure that even a balanced boat will be unfloated because it is heavy and the saltwater that carried the vessel there has sailed into HEAVY water! These people on the Island of Pentecost jump---off of towers, like bungi jumpers of today. It's a " right of passage". Sometimes it goes wrong and lasts a lifetime. But then, the kawa of the Vanuatuans is what I was meant to express.
Allow me to tell you what I have longed to share with anyone who has ears to hear. The boat I had sailed on through weather foul and fine arrives in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Beers at the yacht club were one thing but my skipper and I wanted to experience Vanuatuan kava. We are invited to a place, covered, and a parking lot. 50 locals and 6 tourists are there. No clap clap with the beautiful bowl. This is the real deal. Sooo. Being as I have been searching for awa since I was a youngster in Hawaii, this cost kala. We all paid money because it is hard work to harvest, grind, wash, tent, and set up a loading zone for this kind of experience. Here is what happened to me: My mind and body became numb. I begged a ride from a local, speaking with a tongue so swollen that combined with hand messages barely got me back to the yacht club, which is where I had tied the dinghy up. I was extremely lucky, in that, since I had no control over my body functions, I slipped and fell, rolled down the dock, and over into the dinghy! As I was looking at the stars in Port Vila, belly up! (can you imagine if I had landed face down?) I laughed a laugh that no one could hear because I was paralized from a drug that I had no idea was as powerful as what I found to be true! I believe to this day, had I have missed the dinghy when I rolled off that dock and hit the warm water of the South Sea., I would not be sharing this yarn with you. No one was around to hear me not cry out for help. I simply couldn't cry out. My vocal chords, for the first time in my life, would not vibrate!
[edit] Strains and origins
A painting showing women preparing Kava.One of the most potent strains is called "Isa" in Papua New Guinea, and also called "Tuday" in Hawaii. In Vanuatu it is considered a type of "Tudei" kava, pronounced as "two-day" because it is said to have effects lasting two days due to its chemical profile being high in the kavalactone dihydromethysticin. The plant itself is a strong, very hardy, fast-growing variety with multiple light to dark green stems covered with raised dark spots.
In Vanuatu there are strict laws over the exportation of Kava. Only strains they deem as "noble" varieties that are not too weak or too potent are allowed to be exported. Only the most desirable strains for every day drinking are selected to be noble varieties in order to maintain quality control. In addition their laws mandate that exported kava must be at least five years old and farmed organically. Their most popular noble strains are "Borogu" from Pentecost Island. "Melomelo" from Ambae island, (called 'sese' in North Pentecost) and "Palarasul" kava from Espiritu Santo Island. In Vanuatu, Tudei (two-days) kava is reserved for special ceremonial occasions and exporting it is not allowed. "Palisi" is a popular Tudei variety.
In Hawaii there are many other strains of kava. Some of the most popular strains are the "Mahakea," "Mo'i," and "Nene" varieties. The Ali'i (kings) of old Hawaii coveted the special kava they called "Mo'i" that had a strong cerebral effect due to a predominant amount of the kavalactone kavain. This sacred variety was so important to them that no one but royalty could ever experience it, "lest they suffer an untimely death."
Other strains are found in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa.
And don't forget " The Land of the Long White Cloud"! Aloha........RB
first heard of it there and tried it with a couple of friends of mine on Kauai. We knew it had a history or better said; a place in Hawaiian history. We, being true explorers of pharmacology in the sixties, knew there was a load there and as explorers were compelled to explore the mysteries surrounding this spiritual, cliff dwelling root called Awa. (pronounced ava)..
AWA
`Awa is one of the plants brought in their sailing canoes by the earliest Polynesian voyagers arriving in Hawai`i. `Awa (Piper methysticum), a member of the pepper family, grows in the wild now and is also cultivated increasily throughout the Pacific Islands, where it is called Kava or Kava Kava. This plant grows well at low elevations where there is constant moisture and partial sun. More than a dozen varieties of `awa were known in old Hawai`i.
I started this thought to kick around an idea about ka'awa, kawa, kawa kawa! I was going to share with you the difference between Fijian kawa and Vanuatu'an kawa and their ceremonies. Well, I can officially say to you," That is over"! Like the root itself, it keeps growing!
I need you to visualize a picture. Sailing today with modern technology is still a risk. The picture I
would enjoy you to sea is carved tree hulls with pounded coconut pulp sails and rope made from dying plants.
Navigators who FEEL stars, swells, currents, smells, birds and stories passed from father to son, remembered in Homeric proportion! Their very existance depended upon it.! I cry!
A sign showing a "Kava license area" at Yirrkala, in the Northern Territory of AustraliaMain article: Kava culture
Kava is used for medicinal, religious, political, cultural and social purposes throughout the Pacific. These cultures have a great respect for the plant and place a high importance on it. In Fiji, for example, a formal yaqona (kava) ceremony will often accompany important social, political, religious, etc. functions, usually involving a ritual presentation of the bundled roots as a sevusevu (gift), and drinking of the yaqona itself.[24]
A traditional Fijian yaqona bundle of rootsCorrespondingly, the paraphernalia surrounding the traditional kava ceremony are expertly crafted. Traditionally designed Kava bowls are bowls made from a single piece of wood, with multiple legs. More modern examples are also highly decorated, often carved and inlayed with mother of pearl and shell.
They like Fijian tobacco also as did I. Cake was cool. Snake wasn't!
Kava is used primarily at social gatherings to increase amiability and to relax after work. It has great religious significance, being used to obtain inspiration. Among some fundamentalist Christian sects[who?] in the Western Pacific, the drink has been seen as a vice, and young members of these religions often reject its traditional use. However, among many mainline Christian denominations, i.e. the Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Anglican churches, kava drinking is encouraged where it replaces alcohol.
So! Welcome to Fiji. Clap clap. Peaceful isn't it? A half coconut shell filled with a liquid substance that tastes like dirty dishwater and has basically the same results. I didn't realize that Indians from India were taking over the politics of a melanesian country under New Zealand auspices! A coup. Oh man. I hadn't been laid in damn near a year! I'm on the highest level of the stadium in downtown Suva. Making love to the first American I had had in awhile! Another story! ( mention Legsly for both[tres] of these recomembers) I had come ashore a few days before, nowhere nesr Suva, illegally, I might add. I hope there is a statue to limitations, cause I'm telling the truth! I bought several cartons of cigarettes and two cases of Fijian Bitters, quarts before we quarenteened in Suva and cleared customs. Oh shit! We ran aground anyway, inside the leads! (another story) Rainfall/sandbar/aground! ARRgGH!!
This story is about Kawa. New Hebrides (Vanuatu ) Port Vila is where I would like this story to bend.
Later I'll share with you " the banks" or the island of Pentecost" where, to get there you sail over an underwater volcano, where everyman is sure that even a balanced boat will be unfloated because it is heavy and the saltwater that carried the vessel there has sailed into HEAVY water! These people on the Island of Pentecost jump---off of towers, like bungi jumpers of today. It's a " right of passage". Sometimes it goes wrong and lasts a lifetime. But then, the kawa of the Vanuatuans is what I was meant to express.
Allow me to tell you what I have longed to share with anyone who has ears to hear. The boat I had sailed on through weather foul and fine arrives in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Beers at the yacht club were one thing but my skipper and I wanted to experience Vanuatuan kava. We are invited to a place, covered, and a parking lot. 50 locals and 6 tourists are there. No clap clap with the beautiful bowl. This is the real deal. Sooo. Being as I have been searching for awa since I was a youngster in Hawaii, this cost kala. We all paid money because it is hard work to harvest, grind, wash, tent, and set up a loading zone for this kind of experience. Here is what happened to me: My mind and body became numb. I begged a ride from a local, speaking with a tongue so swollen that combined with hand messages barely got me back to the yacht club, which is where I had tied the dinghy up. I was extremely lucky, in that, since I had no control over my body functions, I slipped and fell, rolled down the dock, and over into the dinghy! As I was looking at the stars in Port Vila, belly up! (can you imagine if I had landed face down?) I laughed a laugh that no one could hear because I was paralized from a drug that I had no idea was as powerful as what I found to be true! I believe to this day, had I have missed the dinghy when I rolled off that dock and hit the warm water of the South Sea., I would not be sharing this yarn with you. No one was around to hear me not cry out for help. I simply couldn't cry out. My vocal chords, for the first time in my life, would not vibrate!
[edit] Strains and origins
A painting showing women preparing Kava.One of the most potent strains is called "Isa" in Papua New Guinea, and also called "Tuday" in Hawaii. In Vanuatu it is considered a type of "Tudei" kava, pronounced as "two-day" because it is said to have effects lasting two days due to its chemical profile being high in the kavalactone dihydromethysticin. The plant itself is a strong, very hardy, fast-growing variety with multiple light to dark green stems covered with raised dark spots.
In Vanuatu there are strict laws over the exportation of Kava. Only strains they deem as "noble" varieties that are not too weak or too potent are allowed to be exported. Only the most desirable strains for every day drinking are selected to be noble varieties in order to maintain quality control. In addition their laws mandate that exported kava must be at least five years old and farmed organically. Their most popular noble strains are "Borogu" from Pentecost Island. "Melomelo" from Ambae island, (called 'sese' in North Pentecost) and "Palarasul" kava from Espiritu Santo Island. In Vanuatu, Tudei (two-days) kava is reserved for special ceremonial occasions and exporting it is not allowed. "Palisi" is a popular Tudei variety.
In Hawaii there are many other strains of kava. Some of the most popular strains are the "Mahakea," "Mo'i," and "Nene" varieties. The Ali'i (kings) of old Hawaii coveted the special kava they called "Mo'i" that had a strong cerebral effect due to a predominant amount of the kavalactone kavain. This sacred variety was so important to them that no one but royalty could ever experience it, "lest they suffer an untimely death."
Other strains are found in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa.
And don't forget " The Land of the Long White Cloud"! Aloha........RB
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)