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Honolulu Lite
Charles Memminger
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Vog unveils windward secret spots
Welcome to the Tuesday Lite Notebook where no stone goes unturned, no nit goes unpicked and no participle (or leg) goes undangled.
» One of the good things about the recent voggy weather is that the Kona winds created perfect conditions for many secret surfing spots on the Windward side. For many years I have been sneaking off to one of these places between Kahaluu and Kaaawa with my kayak or waveski when conditions are right. It's kind of like a secret club, because you run into the same surfers, but several months between sessions.
One recent morning I was out on my waveski all alone, which is a mixed blessing. You don't often get a surf spot to yourself in Hawaii, so that's cool. But, being the only lump of protein in the water tends to make you the prime entre on the seafood buffet. I was waiting for the next set of waves, dangling one leg in the water because the waveski is tippy when it's not moving, and thinking about sharks as is mandatory if you are in the ocean by yourself. I thought, you know, dangling a leg in the water like this is a lot like chumming or trolling. It's like saying, "Here, sharkie!" But then I thought, I've been coming to this spot for more than 15 years and never seen a shark. After about an hour, another guy came out on a long board and he dangled BOTH legs in the water, so I figured my chances of losing a leg went down by 66.6 percent.
I thought that was pretty funny until the next day when I saw the news of that swimmer in San Diego getting attacked by a shark at a place where nobody had ever seen sharks before. So I made a new rule that, no matter how tippy the wave-riding craft is, no dangling of any appendages in the water when surfing alone.
» "Lite" reader Jeff Link sent me a really funny news story from Kauai that didn't get much attention. It seems a guy wanted to cheer up his father, who was in Wilcox Memorial Hospital. So he brought in his father's favorite "pet." Now, sneaking a dog or cat into a hospital is one thing, but his father's favorite pet turned out to be a horse. So he led the horse into the hospital, took it up an elevator and was finally stopped by a nurse in the hallway. Here's the funny part: The father said that the horse wasn't his. The kid -- allegedly slightly inebriated -- brought the wrong horse to the hospital. Hospital management concedes its security measures could use improving. You think? Either that or they're going to have to get bigger elevators.
» Speaking of readers, the Star-Bulletin has added a feature to the online edition that allows readers to post comments on stories and columns. I was worried at first, fearing most of the comments regarding "Honolulu Lite" would be of the "You suck!" variety. But the posts have been really funny for the most part and I've been getting a lot of ideas from them for future columns. So keep posting, especially anything related to large farm animals riding elevators.
Buy Charles Memminger's hilarious new book, "Hey, Waiter, There's An Umbrella In My Drink!" at island book stores or
online at any book retailer. E-mail him at
cmemminger@starbulletin.com