Part 2 - Camping

After we fished and dove our brains out all day we decided around 1230am to go and find a place to sleep for the night. We found a little cove by the race start where several other boats had dropped anchor a few hundred yards off the shore and people were camping on the beach.

We took several close pass bys to scope out how we were going to get our stuff to the beach. From what we could tell in the dark of night is that the surf was relatively small. There were some scatter rocks close to the beach and it look as if the shoreline was pretty steep. This would make it hard for us to nose up on the beach and unload so we decided to get as close as we could and swim our stuff in one-at-a-time.

First to go was me. I grabbed my essential camp gear, which wasn't much, and jumped in the water. At first it only appeared to be about 25yds to the beach. Once in I was treading water with my gear weighing about 15lbs above my head. For some reason I had decided not to wear my fins, I think because I figured we were so close to shore. This was a bad idea. I ended up being closer to 50+ yds out, which when you have 15lbs above your head and no fins can seem like a long haul.

I spent the next 5mins doing everything I could to keep my gear dry and make my way to the beach. Once I got close a small set of waves started to roll through. I was able some how to navigate the set with my gear above my head and make it to the beach. Once there I found it hard to both catch my breath from this short but intense all out effort and to get my land legs after being on the boat all day.

After I made it Ty dropped Dave off for the 2nd round of gear. After seeing my struggle Dave decided to wear his fins, plus Ty got him within 15yds from shore. He made it look easy...

I swam back out to the boat to help Ty anchor up and pull in his gear. We had to anchor the boat well outside of the surfline so this next trip would be closer to 200yrds. We anchored, grabbed Ty's gear and set off towards the shore. This time I wore my fins, though I can't say that it made the workout any less intense. It felt good after spending the entire day on the boat to get a little physical exertion.

Once on the beach we grabbed our shower stuff and headed off into the dark to find a place to rinse off. Ty said that he knew of a place where there was a shower but he wasn't sure if it was still working.

From the beach we climbed up a small bluff to an area which looked like and abandoned golf course. As we walked Ty explained to us that we were in an area of Molokai Ranch that had closed it doors 2 years back.

Apparently Molokai Ranch was a working ranch for a long time. The owners had established several small villas and resort type hotels. They had planned to develop La'au Pt. with a subdivision of multimillion dollar homes. As they were building the infrastructure the locals were constantly and violently protesting their efforts and in many cases destroying anything that was built.

After several months of this the owners of the ranch decided to punish the island by closing it's doors on all operations island wide. This included several hotel sites, movie theatres, small shopping centers, etc. In total 1500+ jobs were lost. This was the source of jobs for most of the people who lived on this island.

We continued across the golf course passing several abandoned villas. It was very erie to see these beautiful accommodations simply left to fall apart. We finally reached an area that looked like it was the main hotel area. There we found an empty and abandoned pool which resided next to what looked like a small gift shop\ convenience store area...again all empty.

We found the shower that Ty spoke of and low and behold it worked. After showering off we headed back to our camp site. Along the way back we all talked about how we felt like we had stepped back in time to what Hawaii must have been like 100 years ago.

Once we got back to our camping gear we decided to set up camp up on the bluff on what appeared to be a tee off spot for the golf course. Ty and Dave went on setting up their tents and I went on setting up my sleeping bag. Yup that's right, I did not have a tent. My set up was easy. Unroll my sleeping bag and set it on the hard, wet ground.

We ate a small dinner and went to sleep. As soon as we did this it started to rain....Awesome! No tent! Good thing is that this only happened for a few minutes and then passed. Though I was concerned that this would happen all night, it didn't.

-Ty cooking us a nice warm meal

I woke up the next morning at 0530 with the sunrise. I couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to go an explore. I found beautiful tide pools, good surf one cove over, and was able to get my first true glimpse at a place that is so beautiful and untouched that I couldn't help but just sit and enjoy all the sites before me.

-Ty and Dave's tent
-my sleeping bag:)

-some cool tide pools

-the beach we landed on the night before, over in the distance

-sunrise view from my sleeping bag

-the beach we landed on the night before. Up on the bluff to the right is where we spent the night

Around 0630 Ty and Dave awoke. We ate, picked up camp, and headed back out to the boat to get ready for a long day of racing.

All-in-all we only spent 6 hours on the island, 4 of which I was sleeping, but it was the best and most memorable couple hours ever. Something about that island is very magical and I can't wait to go back.

After we got back on the boat we set off to go meet the girls that we were there for. We would be meeting them a few miles away from which we would start the 42 mile race across the Kaiwi Channel.

....stay tuned for Part 3 - The Race