Bad Boy in Paradise

The lady was pointing her phone down toward the water just a little off the shore. We were near a rocky outcrop on Waikaloa Beach on the Big Island in Hawaii. The breeze was active and excited and I couldn’t hear what the lady with the camera was trying to tell me. I edged a little closer.

“See turtles?” she shouted.

“No, I haven’t” I shouted back. “But I’ll let you know if I do!” I offered through the wind.

Huffygirl suddenly sidled up beside me and excitedly pointed at the water. “See turtle!!”

I tried to tell her she can’t make me see a turtle but she put both hands on my head and pointed my face at an oblong shadow with flippers and a neck and head just under the water’s surface and then I realized how wrong I'd been – Huffygirl really could make me see a turtle… 

A real sea turtle! I was going to tell the lady with the camera but Huffygirl held me back and pointed out that the lady’s camera was pointing right at it. I wonder why the lady had asked me in the first place when she’d already seen it?! Huffygirl and I alternated between watching from the sand of the beach and the rocky outcropping and were fascinated by the big turtle’s movements. It was about 2 feet wide and a more than that in length and was gently rocking with the waves. Every once in a while he brought his head above water and looked around to see if he was getting appropriate attention. He was.

The turtle’s movements seemed to be dictated by the waves as he bobbed and floated with the water’s motions but then he would effortlessly swim/fly 5 or 10 feet away in a few seconds. The more we watched, the more we saw gracefulness in its movements and beauty in its motion. I quietly mentioned to Huffygirl that this was how I felt when I was on the dance floor and she got an odd look on her face that at first seemed like disbelief but she said was a look of total agreement when I questioned her later. Total agreement she said, over and over. Even threw in some laughs of agreement as well.

I remembered we had our underwater camera with us so I grabbed it and waded into the water about 10 feet from the shore. Huffygirl asked if I wanted my bathing cap which I’d forgotten in my haste and I told her I wore no such thing! I think the folks watching believed me on account of my bad boy swagger. The sea turtle had taken a little break so I just stood in the water looking around for a bit while Huffygirl and the lady with the phone did the same. After a few minutes, he appeared again, about 10 feet from me and I stuck the camera under water. He did a series of underwater ballet tricks that were amazing and I knew this video would be a YouTube sensation! When I pulled the camera up I found the video had not been turned on. Arrrg!

I finally got the video going and tried to keep it pointing toward the sea turtle. He started swimming toward me and then toward the lady with the phone who let out a squeal as she took a step back. This seemed to get the attention of the local authorities. The turtle was only a foot away from the camera and I was amazed to be this close to a real sea turtle when a booming voice said, “20 feet from the turtles!” I looked up and 2 men in powder blue t-shirts that said Waikaloa Beach Club were standing on the shore looking very stern and one of them repeated, “You need to stay 20 feet from the sea turtles!” I stared them both down as I moved slowly away from the lumbering turtle. My staring worked and the men in powder blue turned and went on their way. It was a close call but it was clear the ‘Man’ knew they were in over their heads and decided it best to say their piece and move on rather than risk a confrontation with a sea turtle viewing bad boy.

I asked Huffygirl if she had seen the whole thing and she said yes she had and that she was very proud of me for standing up to the waiters from the beach club by moving away from the turtle the way I did. Once we were back at our lounge chairs she told me she loved being married to a bad boy and asked if I wanted to go back and play in the water. I said yes and she handed me my bathing cap. It was a wonderful day!

Blown Away in a Laser II

9/6/2015 --

Fred, a guy I met on the dock 15 minutes before, pushed the bow away from the dock and told me I’d be just fine if I keep pointed the right direction and keep my speed down. I was leaving the boat launching dock at Bear Lake in Norther Utah and the wind was strong and the harbor had a lot of boats in it. I was afraid this was going to turn into a pinball game. Turns out it was easier than I thought and the only concern as I headed toward open water was that I would not run into the pontoon boat that was poking along in front of me!

 

It was a little breezy...

I was on my first solo sailing adventure with my little Laser 2 sailboat. I’d had the boat, named “Denali” for a few years, but Huffygirl and I had never sailed it until the month before when we took it with us on a camping trip on the opposite side of Bear Lake. There had been light winds and beautiful weather and it was peaceful and fun learning to sail our Denali. This day was different. I had taken the day off work to spend the day sailing and my friend Mike was going to join me around lunchtime. Instead of pleasant and peaceful breezes, I was told by the first 2 sailors I met at the harbor that the winds were currently 15 knots and expected to increase throughout the afternoon to 25, with gusts to 40 knots. Luckily for me, I had no idea of what that would mean to little Denali.

As my little sailboat exited the safe confines of the Bear Lake Harbor, the 15 knot wind hit the sails and it was like I hit the gas pedal. Hard. I was going perpendicular to the wind and immediately heeled over so I could sit on the windward side and lean out, just like I’d seen in pictures throughout my life. The boat shot forward and was gurgling as the self bailer sucked air and a rooster tail formed behind me. So exhilarating! I couldn’t stop smiling even while the wind tried to pull the mainsheet (the rope that controlled the sail) from my hands. I held on tight and did my best in the strong winds to keep some semblance of control as I sped toward the far shore. I had no destination and my only goal was to be able to return safely at the end of the day. So I sailed. And I tried to stay upwind of the harbor so I had to tack back forth. In the strong wind and with my sailboat’s light weight (about 170 lbs), I found that to be a difficult task, but certainly a fun one!

I sailed and I tacked and I smiled and I laughed. The waves were getting bigger and the water would spray across my bow, soaking me, and I would laugh more! As I was tacking at some point, the wind stalled my little boat and then kicked hard unexpectedly, sending the mast sideways toward the water. I was on the wrong side to be able to get my weight to the up side of the cockpit so the sail and I entered the water at about the same time. I quickly swam under the boat to get to the daggerboard but found that the mast sunk down quickly and I was now holding onto the bottom of my boat in the mi

Not me, but how I felt!

ddle of Bear Lake. Turtled! I watch my little collapsible paddle and my favorite hat riding the waves a few feet away but was not willing to let go of the boat to retrieve them. I’ll admit that I looked around on this very windy day, looking for someone to help me, but there was no one in sight. Smart boaters were waiting out the wind and the others were completely out of sight. Then I remembered that I had watched a video on how to right a sailboat, so I went into action. I climbed on top of my turtled boat and grabbed the daggerboard and leaned to the side as far as I could. Very slowly at first, I felt the boat moving. Gradually, the mast and sail popped to the surface. As that happened, I climbed on the daggerboard and my weight quickly righted the boat! I climbed back in and collected my thoughts (which included feeling sadness at the loss of my favorite hat) and found Denali was ready to get back to sailing! In another minute I was laughing again, now fully confident that I could handle anything!

When I needed to head back to the harbor to pick up Mike, I found myself downwind of the marina. Try as I might, I could not get her any closer so finally I just headed to shore and got out and pulled her about a ¼ mile to the beach where I found Mike. He was a little nervous because of the wind, which had grown stronger, but trusted me when I told him we could handle it. Silly Mike.

The little boat sailed better with the 2 of us in the boat so even though the winds increased, the extra stability helped us fly across the water laughing and whooping and hollering. The waves got bigger as well and as we flew over 3 ft. waves we sometimes dove into waves that would crash onto the bow and onto us. One time, we got caught in a bad spot and the boat started to go over. Mike was on the low side and chose the sacrifice of letting himself fall into the water, which caused the boat to get right again. I helped him get back in as we both laughed. There’s nothing like getting kicked off your trusty steed in the middle of a big blustery lake.

We finally decided to head back to the harbor in late afternoon. The wind was strong, the waves were big and we were tired. We had worked our way upwind of the harbor so were able to easily sail right in. We were looking good! We proudly glided in among the other boats parked in their slips and headed for the empty dock. All we had to do was tie up to the dock.

I steered us so we would end up at the end of one of the docks, into the wind and ready to tie up. Only the boat stopped too soon. The wind pushed us backwards and we had no control. After floundering a bit, we caught the wind again and took a second try at it. This time we were going to get it right! I steered us to the same spot and I waited to make the turn… but we were still stopped short and found ourselves pushed backwards by the wind and bumbling around trying to get control. We then drifted 80 feet to the other dock, but were never able to get close enough to tie up due to swirling winds. After about 5 minutes of looking awkward and confused (both of which we were), we drifted close enough to the ramp for me to finally jump out and walk us back to the first dock. We were really glad that there was no one to watch us fumble our way around the docks. Then we heard the laughing…

What a day! We were cold and sore and tired and just plain worn out. We had battled a wind that common sense tried to tell us to leave alone and we lived to sail another day. Both Mike and I agreed that if we wanted to sail in the future and found out the wind was going to be this strong…….. we would drop everything to be there!!!

Seeing Red

I have seen the enemy… and it was red. And not nearly as bad as I expected!

The occasion was a college tour with my son of the University of Utah. The home of the Utes!! Arch enemy of the BYU Cougars. The only thing I really knew about them is that their black and red football uniforms scared me a little bit when they were on the football field. But I put on my big boy pants and drove my son into the mouth of the beast for a two hour tour of the university. As a side note, the enemy validates parking for visitors. That was cool!

Jeffrey and I were able to see lots of buildings with names and gathering areas with names and trees with names! Yes, with the U of U being a designated State arboretum, every tree was labeled, making it easy for students to find their way around and conversations like this very typical…

 “You’re looking for the Life Sciences building? Easy! Take a left at Aesculus Glabra and it’s about 125 pinecones past the Sequoiadendron giganteum”

“Thanks, Dude, you’re a lifesaver!”

Our group was walking by the police dept. and our tour guide was explaining how safe it was on campus when 2 explosions rocked the chilly air around us. We all ducked and looked around to see who the target was. I don’t know why everyone looked at me but my first thought was that I set off some BYU Cougar detection artillery. There was confusion in our tour guides faces until one of them said it was probably just part of the Veteran’s Day activities. Ahhh, that was a good cover story. I didn’t buy it but it seemed to appease most in our group. A little while later in the building that houses Kingsbury Hall, our guide was trying to explain something to us when a series of 21 cannon shots exploded into the gray sky. The explosions were separated by about 5 seconds each and it was really fun to hear our guide trying to talk as fast as he could between blasts. Though they told us the artillery cannons were shooting blanks, I couldn’t help but notice that they were pointed in the exact direction of a rival university to the south.

The library was to coolest building on campus. One of the guides, a sophomore, said he didn’t know much about the building because he didn’t like reading (this appeared to give several prospective students some hope) so handed the tour to the freshman guide who made it clear that she loved this place. The library housed not only the library of books one would expect, but so many study areas, public and private, that my mind was boggled! “Dad!! Time to move on!”, my son pulled me out of the study area boggle and we then saw the computer lab area. It was huge! The sophomore non-reading tour guide told us that students could write on the glass walls of the public and private computer lab study areas with dry-erase markers. We didn’t actually see anyone doing that, but the non-reading tour guide assured us that if we did it, we almost assuredly would not get caught.

After we saw all there was to see, the students were all given a U of U pen to fill out a survey card. The pen looked really cool so I tried to pretend I needed one too and I almost got one but when I reached for it, my jacket parted enough to show the BYU shirt I was wearing. They asked my son to come alone next time.

Before completely leaving, we decided to get lunch at a little basement joint just off campus called The Pie. It sounded great and I was excited… I looked at the menu and it seemed all they had was pizza. I asked if they had Pecan, or pumpkin, or even strawberry-rhubarb but they just sneered and asked my son what HE wanted. Very poor customer service, if you ask me. Why didn’t they call the place something more meaningful, like The Pizza Basement?!

Hiking like a girl

Sometimes, the way to experience an adventure to its fullest is through the eyes of a child. And though I have been told I sometimes act like a child, this is a recounting of time spent with actual verifiable children. 12 year old children to be specific. My daughter, Lilli, along with her sister and 2 of their friends wanted to go hiking, so Huffygirl and I took them to Mueller Park in Bountiful to do just that. To be clear, there was some hiking that went on. But there were so many other side trips and activities that it’s kinda hard to pinpoint the actual trail traveling.

The stream was the magnet immediately upon our arrival. Crossing it on a log at first, then finding good crossing rocks down the stream. At one point, someone needed to use a bathroom which was across the stream from where we were at the moment. There was a beautiful wood and steel bridge right in front of us that majestically traversed the 15 foot wide stream as part of a wide and well-marked path to the park bathroom. The girls were not able to see the bridge that was 20 feet from them and must not have heard me over the sound of the rushing water. One of the friends (referred to forthwith as Wild Girl, or WG) was semi-carefully looking for good rocks to cross on. I was a little nervous because there really weren’t enough rocks at this point and I wondered if we would have to go home if someone got a toe wet or something. Suddenly WG’s foot slipped and went into about 6 inches of water. There was immediate laughter and then the other foot went in and she simply sloshed across the stream as happy as could be. WG was followed into the creek by the other friend, who would take upon her the nickname of Trippy Girl (TG) on this trip and they headed off to the bathroom together. Lilli and her sister (LS) worked hard to pick a better path to get across. Though they came close, in the end, 8 pairs of shoes were soaked and we hadn’t even started the hike yet!

Real hikers - no posers here!!

Huffygirl works with preschoolers and she told me the kids in her classes had nothing on these 4 pre-pubescents when it came to being busy. Here is a list of just some of the activities we found ourselves observing or sharing in during this 2 hour “hike”:

- Climbed atop a giant boulder and posed for pictures.

- Scrambled up a hillside and found a skull of a carnivore. Had to keep it. In the trunk it went.

- Also found a dried out husk of corn. Had to keep it too, but it got dropped and it broke apart (so sad).

- The gate to the trail had an opening for hikers. This was ignored and climbing and squeezing through and over the gate ensued.

- Found a 12 inch pipe shooting a large stream of water into the creek. Lilli asked if she could stand on it. I said yes and TG also balanced with her. Didn’t look very exciting to me but they seemed pretty pleased.

- Found pretty rocks in freshly-graded sections of the road. Pockets were filled.

- Pretty gold flakes were found in the road. Spent several minutes collecting.

- Found several piles of elk scat. Garnered lots of attention.

- Lilli started crossing the stream on a narrow, not so sturdy log. Turned around when she found nothing to hold onto. The log was about 6 feet over the stream. I felt good about that decision.

- Found hiking sticks halfway through the hike. One was at least 5” in diameter. Funny girls.

- Climbed around on a little diversion dam. Threw rocks into the water. Tried to get me wet.

- WG scrambled into a clearing on a hill while the others pointed out a sign that said to keep off the hill. Something about a reclamation project - they asked me what it meant. I told them it was where they recycled used clay. They thought that was cool.

- After turning around, they stopped at the elk scat piles and squished them all with their hiking sticks. I told them that the sticks were not going in the car.

- We skipped rocks in the little diversion dam, which was no more than 30 feet across. I tried to teach 2 of the girls how to skip rocks. Eventually I just had them skip rocks across the road. It was easier and they were happy.

- An anthill in the road found large cylindrical wood things attacking their colony. They ran around in confusion.

Disrupting McDonald's customers at the post-hike meal...

At one point there was a split in the trail where one path took the girls up a short rocky wall. We met them 50 feet along the trail where they had to slide down a steep section to get back to the main trail again. I positioned myself so as they slid down, I helped them onto the level part of the trail. LS took this as a challenge to take out Huffyman once and for all. She was the last one down and slid directly into me, which then caused my feet to fall over the trail lip and toward the angry raging river below. I tried to push LS up as I went down but to no avail. As my life flashed before my eyes (wow, I really did some dumb things!) and little girl screams filled the air, my feet caught onto a root that crossed the face of the slope and we stopped sliding. I stopped screaming. Saved by a root! On the return trip, when we reached this spot in the trail, the girls giggled and I heard whisperings of “Scream, Huffyman, scream…” Huffygirl held my hand – not to keep me from falling but just because she wanted to at that very moment. All was good.

The hike ended at the parking lot where our little car patiently waited. The trunk was filled with a skull, pretty rocks and 2 walking sticks that I was assured had not been in contact with elk poop. The ride to drop off the girls was very giggly, as most of the afternoon had been. If there is anything that can remind you of the amazing variety of interesting activities and side-trips that exist on a very normal looking trail, it’s a small group of 12 year old girls!