It was an active day that began at the Voyager 47 lounge of course. Following some digestion, I headed out for another run around Diamond Head. With one already under the belt from a couple of days ago, I paced myself better and felt a bit quicker. Immediately after showering and changing, Nicole and I did a 30 minute march over to Kapiolani Park to watch Bran and the keikis take a surf lesson.
Nicole and I stood on the edge of a nearby pier and it provided a good vantage point to try and capture each of them surfing. The two hour session was mostly a success, though there were reportedly some aches, bruises, and someone blew out a hip. Bran are a bit older and this is to be expected. There was also some pushback from the surf instructor who thought that we were encroaching on their business model by taking photos from the pier and presumably trying to sell them to Bran later, but we assured him we were just relations…even if embarrassing at times. As Nicole pointed out, he surmised that we were locals, so it’s really just a compliment in the end.
It was now about 1pm and I had not had lunch. As the Voyager 47 lounge doesn’t do such things, I was on my own. I grabbed a spam musubi and an iced tea at a Lawson’s before popping on over to a surfboard rental stand at another Outrigger resort. Nicole and I had reserved a surf slot of our own in the afternoon, but sans lessons. Nicole and I were the only people on the list for rentals. I’m not sure what it all means.
We paddled out about 300m or so to the main breaks. Nicole was slightly more successful, but it seemed like no matter how hard I paddled, the waves would just pass me by. In my defense, the 200 or so other surfers in the vicinity appeared to be having the same issue as we all just kind of looked at each other after the waves tore off ahead of us with all of us looking a little silly for our efforts. Eventually one took me, but it put me in a direct line toward poor Nicole. I aborted so as to not run her over. That’s love. At one point Nicole thought she saw the shadow of a creature swim below her and it made her a bit timid with her appendages. Spooky season! Time to head back in…eventually. It was considerable effort and our arms were gassed.
After having spent the last six hours under the sun, it was already time for the Voyager 47 lounge. Salt made an early exit to watch Auana, a cirque de soleil show. Upon their return, we had some other food and drinks at the hotel before a few of us headed to Duke’s for a hula pie. Drained from sun and surf and the Voyager 47 lounge, one of the members appeared defeated by the Hula pie, but her efforts were admirable nonetheless.
We all depart to separate airports tomorrow to return to our regularly scheduled lives, but not until later in the afternoon. Thusly, there will be one more trip to the Voyager 47 lounge for one last chance to be run over by a man holding three plates of potstickers.
