Spirit of Aloha | Features | January/February 2004

The Places We Love:
RETURN TO Kawela
By Eddie Thunder

When you look for your past, what do you expect to find?

The sign was instructing me "How to Eat Shrimp," and it was as amusing as it was helpful:"1) Suck the shell and legs of the shrimp 2) Peel the shrimp 3) Grind the shrimp."

We were having an early lunch at Giovanni's White Shrimp Truck, a roadside lunch wagon on the outskirts of Kahuku Town. The wagon is no longer white, now covered by Jackson Pollock-like graffiti penned by appreciative customers from all over the island, across the country and around the world. It sits perpendicular to another truck that sells smoothies, and between them is a large tent furnished with half-a-dozen picnic tables.

The lunchwagon has just three dishes-hot and spicy shrimp, scampi and lemon-and-butter shrimp. I chuckled when I read the sign made out of cardboard and aluminum foil. However, I should have paid more attention to the posted menu, which warned of the potency of the spicy shrimp. "No refunds!" it warned. Giovanni's signs were also accurate. The dish was near molten, and I was soon in tears. I love the North Shore.

My wife, 18-month-old son and I were on a road trip, a summertime trek to northern O'ahu for the weekend. It was our first overnight outing as a family and my first weekend on the North Shore in more than a decade. Our final destination was the recently renovated Turtle Bay Resort, which I also hadn't visited in many years.

I also had another journey in mind. Sometime during the weekend, I was going to take the long walk to neighboring Kawela Bay, a secluded and nearly circular inlet where I spent many long weekends as a child. Thinking back, it wasn't a particularly exciting place. The calm waters of the bay weren't very clear. There wasn't a near-shore reef to explore or waves to ride. The fishing was good, not great. But for a kid from the Honolulu suburbs, circa 1973, it had magic.

Would Kawela be as beautiful as I remembered? Would it be filled with luxury homes? Was Kawela never really that pretty in the first place, just a rose-colored childhood dream? I was nervous and giddy with anticipation, as if on my way to be reunited with an old friend.

For this trip back in time, I had decided to take the "long" way to the North Shore, across the Pali Highway and around Windward O'ahu, the route my family and I took decades ago, instead of taking the more convenient H-2 Freeway, which cuts through the center of the island, getting to the North Shore in just a little longer than a trip to the mall, especially for residents in Central or West O'ahu.

We had left town early, hoping to make it to Turtle Bay before my son's noontime nap. We made surprisingly good time, weaving our way through jungly Waiahole and Waikane and gliding by quiet Kahana Bay, which was as sleepy and nearly uninhabited as I remembered it. We quickly passed through Ka'a'awa, Hau'ula and, before we knew it, we were in La'ie, drinking bottled water and stretching our legs in the Foodland parking lot. It was only 10:30 a.m., and we were already just outside Kahuku. We had time to burn.

I grew up in the East Honolulu neighborhood of Hawai'i Kai, where the streets were wide, the yards were tidy and the evenings were quiet, except for when the occasional mosquito abatement truck hissed down the road, a cloud of pesticide trailing behind. I loved growing up there. Our street, with a cul de sac on both ends, had some 100 youngsters about my age living along a stretch that was barely a quarter-mile long. We spent much of the daylight hours outside.

However, when I was in college, I was embarrassed that I had grown up in such an antiseptic and culture-deprived corner of the island. We had no crack-seed store or saimin stand, just a modern convenience store called "The Pantry." (Come to think of it, I was older than any of the buildings or institutions in the neighborhood.) We didn't speak much pidgin in Hawai'i Kai, and the beach seemed so far away. It was a thoroughly un-local place to grow up.

However, during the summers, I always had Kawela, where I was a Hawaiian wild child.

When we first visited the beachhouse, which was leased by a family friend, I was utterly disappointed. The elevated two-bedroom home was in desperate need of paint and it looked as though the flimsy roof would blow off with the first high winds. Inside, the bare wood floors were dusty and sandy. The cavernous living room, filled with a hodgepodge of half-a-dozen beds, reeked of smoke and mosquito punks. There was only one bathroom, which had large "daddy long legs" spiders huddled in every nook and cranny.

There was no television set at the beachhouse, and the radio barely worked. There was a telephone, but I can't remember it ever ringing.

For my parents and their friends, Kawela Bay was their Las Vegas getaway before those junkets became popular. They spent their days golfing at the nearby courses at the Kuilima Hotel (renamed Turtle Bay in a later life) and the rustic, windswept Kahuku Golf Course. At night, everyone barbecued under an old hau tree. The adults would drink beer and sing, sometimes accompanied by 'ukulele music. If we were lucky, an impromptu bon dance would break out. By morning, the cars and the beer bottles were gone, and most of the adults could be found on the first tee of one of the golf courses shortly after daybreak.

After the initial shock of country living wore off, Kawela Bay became our desert-island Disneyland. We kids had the house and the beach to ourselves, and since it was pre-videos and pre-cable television, we spent almost all our time outside. We would fish for tiny papio, which fit in the palms of our hands. We would cook hot dogs over the glowing embers of the previous night's bonfire. We'd explore the beach with neighborhood dogs, which roamed free and would be our day-long companions in exchange for a handful of leftover barbecue meat. We'd swim. Sometimes we'd just wander.

After barely surviving my spicy shrimp lunch, we piled back into the car for the short trip to Turtle Bay. Since we were so early and my son wasn't sleepy, I convinced my wife to do some sightseeing. We drove past the hotel and headed toward Waimea Bay. A small army of sun worshipers was spread out over Sunset Beach's mountainous sand dunes. The water was jewellike and as flat as a pane of glass. We sped past 'Ehukai Beach Park, Banzai Pipeline, Pupukea and Shark's Cove. Each was unchanged, wild and postcard perfect. We rounded the bend at Waimea Bay and I briefly caught a glimpse of the enormous rock in the corner of the bay. It was crowded with swimmers, who were jumping the 20 feet or so into the pristine water.

We turned into the Waimea Valley Audubon Center, formerly known as Waimea Falls Park, which was once an ecoadventure attraction, featuring tram rides, hula shows, cliff-diving ceremonies and ATV rides. Last summer, the National Audubon Society took over management of the 1,875-acre valley, returning it to nature, so to speak, restoring the prominence of its 36 botanical gardens. The place was nearly empty when we pulled into the parking lot. Evidence of the park's Disneyesque former life was everywhere: vacant ticket-taking booths; lonely bus shelters; blank billboards and an idle dining hall and restaurant. The relics looked sad, but I don't think they'll be missed. The hustle and bustle of the attractions and entertainment have been replaced with the solitude that only 5,000 different types of plants can provide. We bought our tickets and took the leisurely stroll to Waihe'e Falls.

I'll be honest. After pushing and carrying my son along the trail, I wished that they had kept the trams. But we managed to trudge ahead, sniffing the native hibiscus blossoms, studying the brightly colored bromeliads and following a few foraging peahens with their chicks.

When we finally got to Waihe'e Falls, it was dry, thanks to a summer of drought. Water trickled from the mountain face into a small greenish pool, where a single waterfowl was swimming in circles. An older Hawaiian woman sat underneath a large umbrella with a lifeguard. They were discussing Haley's Comet as they sipped their sodas. I was a little disappointed. But, then again, there wasn't a cliff diver in sight.

We were exhausted when we returned to the car, and we immediately left for the air-conditioned splendor of the Turtle Bay Resort. When we checked into our oceanside cottage, we were all ready for a nap. My son was minutes away from sleep, but, being the active toddler that he is, he still had enough energy to thoroughly explore our luxurious accommodations. The room had a king-size, four-poster bed and dark, warm hardwood throughout. The bathroom had marble everywhere and a tub in which my son could swim. The cottage was certainly no Kawela Bay beachhouse.

Soon, he was asleep, nestled in the middle of the huge bed, and I slipped out the back door and began the last leg of my journey.

Our family would go to Kawela Bay a couple of times a year. After a while, we would bring along school friends, neighbors, cousins and other family members and introduce them to the wonders of beach living. It never seemed to get old, until I got older.

For a teenager, Kawela Bay was a lonely and boring place. No television, no radio, no mall to hang out at. When the long-term lease on the beachhouse finally ran out, I was unmoved by the news. My parents and their friends briefly thought of forming a hui to buy the property, but the price was just too high.

I remember my last night at Kawela Bay. It was Saturday. The Super Bowl was on television the next day. I desperately wanted to watch it, so I hitched a ride with cousins who were heading back to town that night. I never looked back as we drove away.

It's approximately a 2-mile walk from the edge of Turtle Bay Resort to Kawela Bay. I started walking along Turtle Bay's rugged beach. Rocky and rough, the beach is not an ideal place to go swimming or to sunbathe. However, untamed and uninhabited, it is no less beautiful than many other North Shore beaches.

Soon, I discovered the resort's horseback riding trail above the beach, which wove its way through a long grove of ironwood trees. As it turned out, the trail took me straight to the bay and a coconut's throw from the old beachhouse. I walked past the resort's stables and continued into the shoreline forest. It was windy that day and the steady breeze through the trees sounded like the quiet roar of freeway traffic.

At the edge of Turtle Bay, I took one last look at the hotel and its untamed cove. I took a deep breath and then headed deeper into the thick, near-shore forest. When I emerged on the other end, I saw a Kawela Bay that was more beautiful and wild than I remembered. Unlike its unruly neighbor, the bay was tranquil, a bright jade green.

There were fewer homes than I remembered. Maybe only a third of the oceanfront was inhabited. The rest was overgrown jungle. Hau and coconut trees had grown nearly to the water's edge in some spots. I couldn't see the beachhouse, which stood on the opposite end of the bay.

There was only a handful of people on the beach. A young family played in the sand, a group of young girls sunbathed without bathing-suit tops, some local guys were fishing off the beach as a small group of tourists watched. The bay was gorgeous, but, more important, it was as quiet and secluded as ever. Memories came flooding back. However, as I got closer to where our house stood, things became unfamiliar. The beach suddenly was steep and the vegetation was thick. I became disoriented for a moment.

Then I turned a corner and I saw it behind a tangle of coconut trees. Our beachhouse was gone, replaced by ... nothing. There was an unused and aging tennis court on the street side of the property. The rest of the lot was empty. The hau tree where we had barbecued, eaten and sung was gone. The whole area was bright and sunny and foreign.

I'm not sure what I was expecting to see. Maybe a luxury home or another modest house. I suspected the house would be gone, but I expected it to be replaced by something. The place was wiped clean. I sat under an old, crooked coconut tree, which was probably younger than I, and took a few moments to gather my thoughts.

My son, still sleeping in his king-size bed, wouldn't have a Kawela Bay. We live in the city, on a crowded, busy street, so he doesn't even have a neighborhood to play in. Instead, like most Honoluluans, there would be early mornings and late evenings to beat the traffic and little time for anything but cable television. His childhood world would be so much smaller than mine.

Just as I was feeling sorry for him and myself, a turtle surfaced offshore and took a couple of quick breaths, eyeing me cautiously. I brightened. In all the years that I had visited Kawela, I had never seen a turtle. Things would be fine, as long as we had the North Shore.

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