Blazing Paddles

May 16th comes around but once a year, and so does my birthday. 32 years young! Thanks to all who sent Birthday messages, they were most warmly recieved here on an isolated volcanic rock in the middle of the Pacific.

To celebrate Phil and I rented Sea Kayak's for the day and went paddling. Sounds tranquil doesn't it? A bit like a boat trip on the Serpentine perhaps? Well you'd be wrong. Our 8 mile trip of the west coast of the island took about 5 1/2 hours. Phil who's daily routine consists of going down the gym and then running up mountains with Kobe the dog, set the pace. I, who's daily routine is wondering which pastry to have with my cappucino, lagged some what behind.

The west coast is full of amazing little bays and coves and we headed south to KauHako Bay were we had swam with Dolphins the day after I arrived. No such luck with Dolphins today but we put our snorkelling gear on regardless, and managed to sea some lovely sea turtles instead. Also we met over lunch a Free Diver called Ted. He regularly dives down 120feet unaided and sits down at the bottom of the bay and plays with Dolphins. Ted can hold his breath for around 4 1/2 minutes under water. Pretty amazing stuff.

We paddled back up the coast and went to check out the Captain Cook Monument in Kealakekua Bay. Captain Cook was arguably the best marine explorer the world has ever known. He landed on these shores on the 10th January 1778. He was met by smiling Hawaiins who thought he was a god. Captain Cook who had been at sea for months escaping the caniballs of Fiji and Tahiti did nothing to quell that view. He stocked up on copius supplies before heading to the west coast of America. There is a white obelisk in his honour at the bay now.

The monument also notes his death a year later when on return from not finding the northwest passage he hit a violent storm off the coast of Hawaii and limped into harbour. The locals realising that Cook wasn't a god on a magical floating island, but instead a jumped up imperialist bagging land for good ol' Blighty, decided to turn ugly. A minor dispute over a stolen rowing boat ended up with Cook being clubbed over the head until his was dead. Really it pays not to piss off the locals, they're huge fellas, and they like a fight.

As we paddling back across the bay, past the burial tombs in the cliff face where important Hawaiian warriors are laid to rest Phil's phone rang. As it was safely in the wet bag on the back of his kayak, he turned around to grab it, and promptly capsized! A frenzy of grabbing insued as we sought to get all the gear back out of the ocean. We thought we had everything safely stored but when we landed and went back to the jeep, Phil's oakley shades were nowhere to be seen.

So if you happen to go swimming by the Captain Cook monument and you manage to find them on some passing Barracuda, Phil would be grateful for their return. Mahola.