If you haven’t read
the first part of “When Honeymoons Test Your Vows,” you may find it
entertaining to go back and read what has happened to us so far on our Hawaiian
tropical honeymoon in paradise. If you just like a good story about 2
honeymooners about to be trapped in a shelter during their first days as
husband and wife, read on.
After the previous day’s adventures with our little
convertible rental car, we were exhausted. We went to bed early in order to be
up for a day of exploring this beautiful island full of flowers and birds and
even chickens. (No wonder I want chickens so badly.)
We were sound asleep when the phone rang in the wee hours of
the morning . . . at 4 am, even the roosters were still sleeping. It was my
parents, most apologetic about calling during our honeymoon, but they were up
watching the morning news (it’s a 3 hour time difference between Hawaii and
California) and they noticed that the hurricane, named Iniki,was busily churning
through the Pacific the past few days and had made a 90 degree turn in the night. Like a magnet the ginormous storm was headed straight to Kauai. Oh crap. The projected landing was
Poipu, right where we were staying, at the beautifully remodeled Waiohai Beach
resort.
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| Our beautiful Kaui hotel. (before Iniki) |
I had a sense this was going to further test those vows.
David wasn’t as startled by this news as I was, since in my
staying in bed and being sick, I had ventured up to the library and checked out
the photo album, illustrating the disastrous hurricane of 1982, just 10 years
before this one. And, my parents told us in dismay, this one was categorized as
a 5, 5 being the worst, it was later downgraded to a 4 but still 4 or 5 you’re
going to blow away in those tropical breezes, man.
I looked outside just as the front desk called and told us
to close our hurricane shutters and report to the ballroom. The hotel was built
in an open air fashion in a long C shape. The breezes that normally graced the
beautiful hallways hung with tapestries and displaying fine art and beautiful
palm trees were stripped bare so the breezes just whistled through empty corridors.
The hotel staff were busily shoving all of the patio furniture (chairs and tables with glass tops) into the pool. What????
We both looked at each other, pulled those hurricane
shutters closed and decided to pack and head to the airport early. In a
hurricane of our own, we tossed clothes and belongings into suitcases and
headed to the front desk. We were due to fly to Maui early that afternoon and
hoped we could get on an earlier flight. The clerk, in a very serious manner,
wanted to let us know that once we left the Waiohai hotel we couldn’t come
back. It was the hotel’s strong suggestion that we stay in the ballroom and
enjoy some complimentary coffee. I whispered to David that the ballroom was
below sea level and that in 1982 it was filled with sand, debris, and the roof
was gone. Nope. Airport.
We tried to fill the car up with gas and the lines were
huge. The radio was warning residents and tourists to head to the nearest community
center for shelter. We headed to the airport instead with half a tank of gas
and got that car turned in. The agent helping us took a phone call and the
caller wanted to know whose responsibility it would be if the car was damaged
in the hurricane. The answer was of course, “yours.” Yikes. I had David sign on
the dotted line and that puppy was back with ABC car rental (I honestly can’t
remember who we rented it from). Then the shuttle took us to the airport where
we were horrified.
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| The line snaked for at least a mile down the front of the airport in Lihue. |
The lines snaked back down the length of the whole terminal.
Finally, as the time of the approaching hurricane drew closer and the airport
was about to close, they made an announcement that only those passengers with
tickets for that day would be allowed in the terminal. That was us! Hooray.
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| Don't we look thrilled? |
We checked in at the desk and were assigned a number (178
and 179) and this we later found out was the passenger number list. Yikes. 176 other people were in front
of us. We watched as they removed the check-in computer and the trash cans and
chairs from the check-in area. I innocently asked why they would do that and
the agent replied that anything not nailed down would have to be secured.
<gulp>
We were told to go to
our gate which was a 3 sided glass room with a view of the runway. We were
lucky to make it this far and we figured there was a good chance they wouldn’t
have put us in this suicidal glass room if there wasn’t a chance of us making
it off of the island. Workers were applying duct tape to the windows in huge X
patterns and all the chairs, trash cans, and anything not bolted down was
removed from the room.
We sat on the floor and people watched. It’s here I should
say that my husband, David, travels a lot and he always carries a pair of
underwear, his toothbrush and a transistor radio with him. I teased him at home
when he put this in his carryon bag. Ha ha. I wasn’t laughing as I imagined him
with clean teeth and clean undies while I was . . . well, wearing the same ones
and I had bad breath.
By far the best device ever was the little radio . . . we
could hear the warnings and get a glimpse of what was going on outside the
torture shell of our glassed in hell. I whispered to David how strong the winds
were in 1982. He told me it would be okay and to shhhhhh. Not that he needed to
quiet me to avoid disturbing others. People were crying. One couple, his wife
pregnant, went from person to person trying to get a lower number on their
travelers’ numbers. He was even flashing $100 bills around which no one we saw would
take.
Finally we walked out to the tarmac and boarded the little
jet they use to get from one island to the next. We waited to take off. The
wind was gone and the air was still and humid. I thought this isn’t too bad.
Maybe the hurricane had changed its mind again. Not according to David’s little
radio which cheerily reported that the island was quiet as folks prepared their
property for the onslaught of winds that were rushing our way. Some expected to
be in excess of 160 mph. <gulp>
The plane took off and though a tad choppy, it wasn’t too
bad. We were escaping and we were ecstatic. The airline attendant explained the
airline wanted to fly all of their jets off the island and we were the second
to last plane to take off. The airport had been closed for hours and there was a
surreal feeling of flying in a hurricane. Of course we had whiner guy and his
whiner pregnant wife who screamed every time we hit any turbulence. Annoying
but at least we were fleeing the storm.
To our dismay we immediately landed in Oahu due to the storm
rapidly closing in. We sat on the runway and felt the little plane swaying in
the wind. That’s when the thought hit me and I whispered to David, “Oh God,
we’re flying into a hurricane.” The pilot came out and explained that she was
awaiting flight clearance because the nature of the storm approaching so
quickly. She told us not to worry, they really wanted their fleet of planes in
Maui, which is where I wanted my honeymoon to continue, not up in a tree or
blown around like a leaf.
Much to the pilot’s delight, and our terror, we were cleared
for takeoff. I looked down the runway
and watched as the wind whipped the palm trees so far down, they touched the
ground. The ocean waves were cresting over the runway and the plane was swaying
as the little plane picked up speed. “Oh holy Jesus, get me to safety,” I prayed and David
and I held hands, he always the calmer one of the two of us.
To have a little humor as the plane dipped and dived along,
the flight attendants announced there would be no flight beverage service. Just
after this cute little announcement, the cooler with the drinks in it rolled
down the aisle and hit the back of the plane. Luggage compartments popped open,
people were throwing up. The pregnant one was crying hysterically about her
baby and her husband was blaming the airline. Sheesh, how didn’t they end up on
the next flight? Which one of the other passengers had taken his money?
Traitor.
Several times as we passed over the island of Molokai, the
plane dipped strongly to the left or right, offering picturesque views of the
island. David tried reaching for our camera but the bag had slid away from us
and of course, remember the fasten your seat belt sign. As if we’d take those
things off, mine was so tight it gave me marks on my legs.
Finally we landed in Maui and every passenger clapped for
the pilot’s expertise in handling the small jet under those conditions. We all
shook her hand as we exited the tarmac and looked for our rental car place. It
made us wonder where our little rental car was in Kauai? Well according to the
Honolulu Advertiser, “In the parking lot of the Waiohai, rental cars, abandoned
during the storm, were strewn about like a child’s scattered toys . . . one car
had been tossed into a grove of trees and still hung there . . . “All that work
to save our little car from the rebar incident only to be tossed around like a
toy.
Our new spiffy little car was a red convertible and I loved
driving it around the beautiful island of Maui with the top down. We felt such
immense relief that we hugged each other and grabbed our bags and fled the
airport for the luxurious Kea Lani Resort in Wailea. During check in, we told
the clerk what we had just been through and we were upgraded to a suite with a
claw foot bathtub, a bedroom and living room and an outside deck. To top it all
off, there was a bottle of champagne, chilling on ice.
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| View from our patio at the Maui hotel. |
The hallways had gentle breezes and unlike the stripped
halls of the Waiohai Hotel, this hotel had little setting areas throughout the
breezeways. David and I sat in one of them playing cards and just watched the
enormous clouds and rain that plummeted the island.
After calling home to assure everyone we were okay, we
wandered down to one of the restaurants at the hotel and learned that the
island was spared much of the damage but that during the hurricane, storms were
to continue fiercely through the day/night. They strongly encouraged everyone
to stay on hotel property for safety reasons and in case of evacuation.
We took a walk around the grounds between rain storms and
saw the beach was entirely eroded down to the lava rocks. Surfers could be seen
catching huge waves and the air felt humid and hot and yet there was such calm.
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| What the hotel looked like after the storm. |
As we sat on the deck, sipping our champagne, we thanked God
that we made it to such a beautiful place and we decided this would be the best
4 days of our honeymoon. And they were. We figured we’d test the vows out all
at once and 21 years later we’re still happily married although we haven’t
quite made it back to Hawaii.
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| I loved driving around as we explored Maui. Zoom, zoom! |
