When Honeymoons Test Your Vows -- Part II

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I loved driving around as we explored Maui. Zoom, zoom!