Kaua'i Reflections, Day 3: Whale's Teeth

5:30 PM

"It's like portals, man, coming down from Princeville; it's like every bridge you cross is a portal to another world..."

"What about these bone carvings?" I asked.

"Those? Those are just made of cow bones, man."

Oh.

Rewind to 7:30 AM

They pack us on the boat. No shoes, they said. Some are dressed to impress, some are dressed less. Half an hour ago, we were all standing around the lobby of Captain Andy's Sailing Adventures. Nobody said hello to one another, even though we'd be inhabiting the same boat for about six hours.

Dad and I stared at the sextants and talked chronographs until loadup.

The sign said dolphin spottings were possible. Reading the weather numbers, sailing looked possible, too.

9:00 AM

It's still early. Breakfast was two pieces of blueberry bread. The rest of the gang is snorkeling. Sea turtles pop up occasionally, and the swimmers bounce between sightings, eagerly flapping flippers in front of the boat, then behind the back as someone makes a new sighting. Dad and I hang back with Captain Bernard, a native with a chiseled face, dark skin, and a floral print shirt. He's proud of this boat - the Akialoa - but speaks even more emphatically about the future.

"They're gonna get this new 65-footer. Real slick. Being built right now in the U.S. Virgin Islands - we're going to take people on all-day tours, and guess who gets to drive it." He gestures excitedly toward himself.

I ask him if he's going to get to charter it on its maiden voyage from the USVI to Hawaii. His face falls visibly.

"I don't think I can get anyone to cover my shift," he admits.

10:00 AM

The dust cloud from a white Bronco streams over the top of the dunes at Barking Sands. Naval security. Barking Sands is a missile test range. The Bronco simply drives back and forth all day. We keep time with our sister ship, the Spirit of Kauai. The boats race at twenty-two knots, making around the southwest edge of the island for the Na Pali coast.

Flying fish erupt ahead of our bow wake, blasting forward ahead of the spray on dragonfly-like wings, skimming only inches above the surface. The crowd, jubilant, watches a superior specimen fly for several hundred feet before giving up. Cheers erupt.

No sign of the frigate from Day One.

10:30 AM

We are surrounded. Off the Na Pali coast, spinner dolphins begin to chase and dodge our boat. A group of twelve or more orbit us. I watch and film a dolphin with a clipped fin, keeping an eye on him. He switches from one pontoon, to the other. As we pour on the speed, the dolphins keep up, jumping and twisting.

Everyone is crowded around the bow. I look back for Captain Bernard. He is at the wheel. He is smiling.

We pass rock formations, waterfalls, secluded beaches. Na Pali, the southwest coast of Kaua'i, is being eroded faster than any other coastline in the world. The shear rock cliffs face swells of fifty feet in severe winter storms, that scrape and slough the igneous rock to powder.

The water is an unimaginable shade of blue. Reefs are everywhere. The waves are picking up, as is the wind.

11:30 AM

We finally sail. The boat, a fifty-five foot Gold Coast custom catamaran, isn't made for sailing.

"We realized the rudder was too long," Captain Bernard explains, hand-over-handing the wheel as we steered up to a reach, "It was so long that the prop wash - just the force of the water coming off the props - was bending the rudder."

"What'd you do?" I ask.

"We chopped it in half," the Captain explains proudly. "'Course, it doesn't sail as good as it used to, but -"

By the numbers, all of the gear is there. Mainsail, jib, yards of line, tackle and stoppers. But the jib is cut at an oblique angle, more for sightseeing than sailing, and we're only making seven knots downwind. We won't get home on this and the Captain knows it.

For now, though, I enjoy. Someone gets sick - the soda crackers come out. I thank my lucky stars and open another Heineken.