Slipping Back Into Island Life

Feeling around blindly for my Iphone, I snatch it off the windowsill to shut off the alarm. It's currently 6am and it's still pitch black outside. I do my best to wrap myself back into my blankets as I mentally prepare to get up to watch the sunrise.

 A year later, I'm back on Kauai with upgraded sleeping quarters. Instead of the kitchen counter, I now sleep in an 8ft by 7ft shack which is just big enough for a twin bed and a few belongings. It's more of a screened in box to keep out the mosquitos with a roof above it. Due to the open air plan of my shack, the cool valley winds blow through the screens causing the curtains to dance and my exposed skin to develop goosebumps.

Shelf space

Lying back down, the wind rustles the jungle leaves around me like the applause of a standing ovation to a sold out theatre play. All around me the wild roosters continuously can be heard up and down the valley as they call out to each other as if they were neighbors bickering to one another from across the street.

Finding little motivation to get back out of bed, I justify that the sunrise isn't going to be very good and I give up and succumb to the idea of more sleep.

Lazy afternoon

Jack Johnson banana pancake kind of morning

Muddy commutes

Just another tequila sunrise

Santa Teresa Mornings

Lying on my bed in the dark, I'm listening to the whir of the ceiling fans overhead. Slowly motivating myself to get out of bed I do my best to quietly grab my surfboard and apply sunscreen. Sneaking out of the room, I narrowly miss stepping on the owner's Labrador in the hallway. He doesn't move much more than a sloth. The cool pavement comforts him from the relentless heat. I don't blame him. For me, sleeping with a sheet is even too hot. 

It's currently 5:30am and stepping outside onto the patio, I savor what will be the coolest air of the day. Also unlike the rest of the day, it's the quietest. By 8am, the only street in Santa Teresa is filled with ATVs and Enduros narrowly missing pedestrians as they weave around potholes.

Empty streets

Sliding the heavy iron gate open, I stroll down the street at dusk and step off onto the dirt path heading down to the beach. Behind me a howler monkey barks in the distance like someone gasping for air. Spotting a hermit crab on the ground, I realize the ground is full of them. It sounds like Fall leaves blowing in the wind as the hermit crabs scuttle through the leaf litter.

Local graffitti

As dusk fades away, the silhouetted palm trees on the beach begin to develop their green hues. The ocean smooth as glass reflects shades of pinks and light blues from the sunrise. Pelicans skim the ocean surface in search of fish. 

Perfect waist high waves

Jumping into the water cools me off briefly, but at eighty four degrees Fahrenheit, it isn't very refreshing. But I lie to myself and pretend that it is refreshing because it's the coldest I'm going to be for the next twenty four hours. 

Back to the Desert Without a Leash

"Hey man, you wouldn't happen to have another leash?" 

"Sorry man I don't..."

The weather prediction looked good so we headed back to the desert again. After convincing myself that it wasn't going to rain anymore, I started sleeping out on the sand dune. 

Not a bad place to sleep

Beautiful sunrises...

And beautiful sunsets. 

Looking through the monocular. The Humback whales were jumping all day.

Waking up on the sand dune overlooking the ocean, I dusted the sand off my body. Looking up and across the beach, the ocean had become sheet glass with perfect crystal clear waves.

Playing with my water camera

Calm below the ocean'a turbulence

The surf forecast didn't look good prior to the trip so I didn't bother bringing my board. Just my luck that the waves would get good. Luckily Robo had brought two boards and was kind enough to let me borrow one. The downside was that he only had one leash. I wasn't going to let the absence of a leash stop me from surfing. I was determined to get in the water. Especially after being cooped up from the wind during the past few days.

Finding a piece of six foot rope laying around, I made a makeshift leash and fastened it to the board and my leg. I nervously paddled out through the warm aqua marine water. The waves were breaking a hundred yards off shore with several strong rip currents. A faulty leash would mean a lot of swimming.

After a few waves the leash ended up failing and in doing so broke the tail of the board off. Robo also broke his other board that session. With one board between a couple people, we were determined to continue surfing. 

Leashless and armed with one surfboard it was almost a blessing. After Robo or I lost the board we would swap out kind of like subbing out for a teammate in a sport. It was nothing but hoots and hollers as we got to watch each other slide across the waves the rest of the day. 

Some more photos from camping.

Gio's garden before. 

Gio's finished garden after. Complete with aloe, pineapple, and tarot. He moved the stone from a dry river bed to build the wall. 

Camp

Day camp

Friends, food, and sunsets

Slippers

Tracks

Reflections and wave turmoil

Gloomy Days

The few days of amazing weather was short lived. The swell drastically increased with onshore winds make both diving and surfing nonexistent. Along with this, consistent rain storms keep us inside. While going outside in the rain isn't bad since it's warm, it does get tiresome constantly drying off. 

Solo sunrise walk

Usually this wave is no bigger than waist high. This is probably a twelve foot wave.

Lone coconut drifting in the waves

Pretty sure that's what I looked like wiping out the other day.

Instead, between listening to the rhythm of the rain drops on the tin roof and plunking on the guitar, we have been spending more time in the garden and working. 

Glad we have some guitars to jam with

Hanging out

The garden that Gio maintains is phenomenal. It's a full time job on top of his other jobs but he somehow manages to keep it going.

For him it's a lifelong experiment. He's a mad scientist trying to get the best results. Growing kale, cilantro, and other veggies isn't good enough. It can always be better. Gio tries different tilling methods, lighting, everything imaginable.

Where it all begins

I think the pattern that papaya leaves make is pretty cool. Like big snowflakes. 

His results are impressive, basil plants that are small hedges. Tomato plants that are five years old and still producing. 

Gio finds that fighting the constant dampness followed by mold is a huge problem. When it starts raining he flies around the garden trimming and hacking plants back so they won't die or rot. He still sees life in them and we need it to eat. For the most part we don't buy any fruits or veggies except for carrots, onions, and garlic. Everything else is from the garden. 

One of the terraces

Hawaiian chili peppers

Tarot

Sweet potatoes

While banana trees line the perimeter and  papaya trees dot the interior, terraces line the yard with fruits and veggies of all kinds. There are often multiple varieties of each plant. Different oreganos, spinach, and peppers. 

He also reminds me of Jonny Apleseed. More like Gio Avoseed though. He makes little piles of the seeds from his best avacados and will fill a pocket full and toss them along the jungly road side knowing ten years down the road there could be an avacado tree for people to enjoy.

Papaya, banana, and lilicoy (passion fruit) for breakfast

The Competitive Nature of Island Life

"For here am I sitting in a tin can far above the world." -Bowie

Rewinding to a week ago to just arriving on the island. The first few days of sleeping was hard, not because of the heat or the Mosquitos but because of the wild chickens. It would be 4am and one rooster would crow. Pretty soon all of the roosters in the valley would crow; an orchestra of roosters in the valley all competing to crow loudest. All competing two hours before sunrise. 

My temporary but current sunrise view. The jungle is thick and dense here.

Super green smoothies in the morning. Chocolate mint, two types of spinach, kale, beets, ginger, lilicoy, papaya, banana, and orange. All from the garden. 

Amazing smelling Plumerias

Love playing with my macro lens 

Flying on my bike for a sunrise beach stretch

A bit late but happy Halloween! Scary face spider I think it's called...

Fast forward a week and it's funny to look at the competitive nature of people. It's constant competition. Who can surf the best in the water, who can get the best shells, and who has the biggest, baddest, most lifted truck. The list goes on and on...

This brings me to my comedic interaction last night. Currently I'm living on a paved road with a dirt parking lane on either side. It's a muddy mess since it rains almost every day. If you leave the window open to your car all night... Well good luck getting the interior dry...

Anyways, parking on this street seems to be like getting parking on Black Friday (I've never been shopping on Black Friday, but it's what I imagine it to be like). It's a constant competition between who gets the best parking spot closest to their house. 

It was late last night and I had been asleep for a while. I'm immediately jolted awake by someone peeling out on the street and honking. I momentarily fall back asleep and soon hear a banging on the glass door downstairs. Groggily and slightly nervous to get up, I'm hoping that this person is banging on the door next to mine. Turns out this person isn't. He continues banging on my door as if the door were constantly being slammed shut. Eventually he flings the door open and I hear it bang and rattle against the wall. He flicks the light to the stairwell on and not wanting him to come up further, I say "Hey! What are you doing!?" 

He yells back in his Hawaiian accent "YOU GOT A RED TRUCK?!?! YOU NEED TO MOVE IT!!!"

I say "Naw, I don't have a truck."

With that he walks out, slams the door and roasts his tires down the street. He could have at least turned off the light when he left.