Pirates To Polihale' . . .

Gilligan’s Log August 18th 2011 6:00am . . .

We all awoke at what has become our customary waking time of 6:00am by way of the Kauai alarm clocks . . . the Chickens. I blogged for three hours to catch up all of the Castaway followers back at home. While I was busy with the blog the rest of the Castaway's were busy preparing our supplies for the Beach adventure that lay ahead, the picnic was packed the agenda was set and by 9:30am we were off to our first destination.

Our first stop was the Kauai Coffee Company where sample a shit load of different coffees and were able to “Get Our Caffeine Buzz On”. We even went on an 1/8th of a mile self guided tour around the grounds where we learned about all things coffee. We actually did the tour twice and didn't even know it. I think it was the caffeine because of the caffeine in the coffee as coffee has a lot of caffeine . . . and did I mention we all had a caffeine buzz going so we went on a self guided tour . . . twice?

After we climbed down off of the roof of the gift shop we were off to the second stop of our adventure . . . the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge. We wandered onto the bridge and soon found out why they call it “the “Swinging Bridge”. I was pleased to find out much to the dismay of my fellow Castaway's that I like to have a swinging good time while on the bridge. I also found out that when I walk it makes the bridge sway, or as the people of Hanapepe refer to it “Swing”. I may have annoyed Joanie a bit but it was all in fun and just to think we had to go back across the bridge too . . . Oh Boy more fun for me. We soon completed this leg of our agenda with very little motion sickness and a very minor scrape on Pam's forearm. Hopefully this wasn't an Omen of Pam's day.

Well we soon found ourselves traveling a short distance to our first beach stop of the day. We stopped at Salt Pond Park. This was a kid friendly beach as there was no crashing waves due to a natural lava wall that acted as a breakwater. We set up all of our respective items in a hand selected spot on the beach and proceeded to enter the kiddie lagoon portion of the park. It was only about three feet deep and was a safe place to start until we all had our water wings on and were stable. I waded in the lagoon behind the breakwater while Pam, Joanie and Dennis walked on the two foot high lava rock formation looking at all of the various critter in the little tide pools that formed with each wave that crashed over the top. After Dennis had had enough nature he jumped off of the two foot tall lava ledge into the three foot lagoon like a cliff diver who lands on his feet, I rated him a 6.0 on execution and since he stuck the landing I gave him a 9.0 overall. I continued to splash like a little kid getting used to the water when it happened . . . Joanie screamed “Oh my God Pam Are You Okay”? I looked their way just in time to see Pam floundering around in an attempt to spring to her feet in one of those manner when you want to make it look like nothing happened in case someone was watching . . . you know what I'm talking about . . . we have all done it. This time something did happen . . . Pam did a crash and burn move when she tried to stick her landing off of the lava ledge. She scraped her back (Lucky not to hit her head), an scraped the back of her arm and had about six long gashes where her arm was slashed by the lava rock. Nurse Joanie sprang into action, all the while Pam was saying I'm fine . . . No really I'm fine. Joanie wasn't buying it and was splashing salt water on the scrapes to rinse of the blood that was now streaming from the back of Pam's arm. This is better known as chumming and is when you put blood into the Ocean to attract the sharks into a feeding frenzy . . . Holy Shit . . . Help! We removed the bloody wounded Pam from the water so there would be no further danger of attracting sharks to the small children lagoon. Joanie tended to Pam's wounds, all the while Pam was saying I'm fine really. This will remain to be seen tomorrow when she wakes up and finds out that she can hardly move . . . Let's hope not.

We then proceeded to eat our picnic lunch and believe it our not there was some truth to the Dennis Crow sandwich making and packing guidelines . . . the procedure was not followed on my sandwich and it was starting to get soggy, but I ate it anyway. With the local birds fed and our belly's full we were off to our next stop . . . the hospital . . . just kidding. Even though Pam now looked like someone beat her with a baseball bat covered in barbed wire she refused medical attention so we fueled up the S.S. Escape to prepare for our Polihale Beach adventure. We then had to make a stop at Jo Jo's Shaved Ice again, because as any Kauai person knows . . . you gotta stop at Jo Jo's when you go through Wiamea. After our treat we were off to Polihale Beach. We arrived, gathered our belongings, and headed out to claim our place one the beach. On our trek across the beach we realized why people drive their cars across the beach to their spots . . . the sand was Hot Hot Hot . . . you know like the surface of the sun hot! So Oww we made Oww our way Oww to the Oww cooler sand Oww at the Oww waters edge, set up our things and were off to play in the surf. We stayed for quite a while, taking pictures and playing the waves and as you can imagine, Pam only ventured into the waves up to her knees. I think even though our little trooper Pam said she was fine, I think she was hurting . . . only time will tell. We decided, by looking at the doneness of my skins nice new red sheen that we should probably go. So we were off to the showers to try and rinse off the day's sand from places that shouldn't have sand in them, as well as our feet.

We were now on the road back to the old homestead when I had an idea. So we stopped at a local convenience store picked up a couple 40's and some Mike's Hard Lemonade and headed to a local park to watch the sunset. We arrived at the park and as luck would have it it was the same park where Pam tried her back flip with a two and a half twisting dive, with no success. We grabbed our booze and were off to claim a picnic table when all of a sudden Pirate Pam tried to exit the car and damn near fell on her ass. That's right her leg stopped working . . . you heard me her leg stopped working. She soldiered on to the picnic table with a limp step, limp step, limp step sort of walk reminiscent of the peg leg pirates of old . . . she would now be known as Pirate Pam ARRGG! Much to our delight there was a local reggae band practicing their music in one of the picnic pavilions. They were actually pretty good, and what a way to wind down the day with alcohol, good friends, music and a beautiful Kauai Sunset. We sat in the park for about an hour and decided that we had enough fun for one day and we still had to get our little beaten and battered Pirate Pam back to the timeshare.

We arrived at the Point and unpacked the S.S. Escape and headed to our room. We made sure that Pirate Pam had a light load and that she took the elevator as her limp step, limp step, walk had not gotten any better. Once inside Dennis and I were instructed to go ahead and take our showers while the girls put away the provision left from today's adventure. After emerging from the shower I walked into the dining area to see Pirate Pam with a broom and Joanie with a dust pan when both of them shouted STOP! I was then informed to put shoes on as there had been a tragedy to end all tragedies. That's right three Mike's Hard Lemonades had been murdered when there carrier fell apart like a cheap suitcase rendering them helpless against that fickle bitch . . . Gravity. Please take a moment of silence and say a quick little prayer for our fallen alcoholic beverages. Joanie explained that the cheap ass styrofoam ice chest had leaked and made the bottom of the bag containing the unsuspecting little mike's soggy and unable to bear the weight of our little buddy's. After the breakage now known as the Great Explosion of 2011 Joanie descride it as complete mayhem where her and Peg Leg Pam were both performing like Bambi on Ice and were damn luck that they didn't pull a muscle or throw out their backs. Well the girls called housekeeping to provide back up, and vacuum and mop the entire front half of the unit. No sooner did the call get placed then the housekeeper arrived. It was as if he knew there was a disturbance in the force of room #10302 and had to attend to it right away . . . what service. Yoda proceeded to clean everything up lickity split and vanished as quickly as he had arrived. With the mess cleaned up and the prayers said for our fallen little alcohol soldiers, it was time for the girls to finally get their showers. I said a quick prayer that the man up stairs watch over Pirate Pam in hopes that she would damage herself any further then she had today.

While the girls showered I sat on the balcony blogging the days events ans shivering like it was 30 degrees outside . . . gotta love a sunburn. With the girls done, me hard at work blogging, Dennis headed to the BBQ area to cook us up some hot dogs for dinner and only a shade past 8:30pm too . . . what a long day! We ate dinner and cleaned everything up with no further incidents or injuries to anything or anyone in our Castaway group. We were then entertained by a slide show review of Dennis' 396 pictures that he has taken so far on the Kauai Adventure. We ate ice cream during the slide show me covered in my blanket, Pirate Pam looking like a Pirate coming back from war, and Joanie staring into the distance, while making spit bubbles and generally looking as if she was in a state of total disbelief of today’s events. With the slide show now complete it was now time for the Castaway's to go to bed. We will see if Pirate Pam and the rest of the Castaway's will be able to even get out of bed. Join the Castaway's for tomorrows adventure . . . The Limpin' Luau . . .