Old stories for new book

Here are some of my adventures as a captain on a 26 foot sailing charter boat in Kona, Hawaii during the 80's and 90's



Saved by her boobs

The surf was crashing on the breakwall outside Honokohau Harbor that winter morning in the early 80’s. Often the results of storms generated far to the north of Hawaii produced huge swells that propels surfers down huge wave faces or moves boulders from the sea floor tossing them into ocean front hotel swimming pools, depending on location. My location was the harbor entrance, my goal was to safely depart without undue harm to my charter guests, the “Intuition”, my crew, or myself. This particular morning I was chartered by a family of four, husband and wife and their six year old son and four year old daughter. My friend, Randy, came along for the sail, mostly to enjoy the trip and doubling as my crew for the charter.

Stopping at the harbor’s basin just inside the entrance as I had done hundreds of times in the past, I waited and timed the sets of waves, watched them lift the green entrance buoy #1, which laid offshore four hundred yards. I picked a moment in time of relative calm and motored without incident onto the azure sea for another fine sail along the Kona Coast. As we passed the buoy, Randy raised the mainsail, we headed out in search of the first of the light thermal breezes that developed along the leeward shore of Hawaii’s Big Island. One big cycle, the sun heats up the interior slopes of ancient ( and not so ancient!) black lava flows, the hot air rises up, drawing in the cooler moist air off the ocean. This cooler moist air is drawn inshore, giving us our sailing breeze. As this moist air flows up the slopes of the island and rises higher, it cools, condenses, and forms clouds that pour rain on the upper elevations of the island most any afternoon. To complete the cycle the rain that falls in the upper slopes finds its way back through a system of lava tubes to the sea, and in particular the harbor at Honokohau, where as much as three million gallons of fresh water arrive daily. This is Kona. I would often comment to my guests that the gentle breezes that we feel on our cheeks now and fill our sails will become those clouds over the mountain this afternoon and the falling rain later. When we stop to snorkel later you will feel the chilly freshwater seeping out to sea from the porous island. This is recycling at its best.

As we continued out to sea our view of the Kona Coast widened as we came around Kaiwi Point looking south. I noticed a man who appeared to be waving his arms wildly, as if he were doing “jumping jacks”. I pointed this out to Randy and our guests. The man was nearly a mile away from our position. My first thought was that he was trying to signal a fishing boat off of the point, as there are numerous big game fishing charter boats that ply the rich waters off the coast. As we watched the man’s movements they appeared to become more and more excited. I decided to head in that direction to see what was up. Over the next ten minutes the jumping became more exaggerated and the man appeared to be pointing offshore. After 15 minutes of heading toward this man we finally got within earshot, the man was screaming “right in front of you, right in front of you!” The conditions along the jagged lava shoreline were quite intense, the swells met the steep cliffs unimpeded by any shallow water until the surf builds and crashes loudly, sending spray as much as one hundred feet in the air. The forces of nature are staggering. I yelled back to the man jumping up and down on the shoreside cliffs, “what?” He said, “ she is right in front of you”, I only saw the white foam covering the surface of the sea. We were close to shore, dangerously close to shore now. I motioned with my arms as a swimmer would swim, he screamed back to us, “yes, down!” It was confirmed, there was a swimmer down, somewhere near us, but where? There was nothing in front of us, we all realized the seriousness of the situation, a swimmer down, for more than fifteen minutes, and we couldn’t see anyone. The waves crashed against the lava cliffs sending reflective waves back out at us in the form of wild chop, undulating waves, and lots of foam on the surface. One minute seems like a slow motion hour in situations involving life and death.


I glanced off the port side about twenty feet from the boat and saw something I didn’t expect, couldn’t quite fathom or believe, BOOBS, two boobs floating in the soupy brine. That was it, her head was submerged and all that was floating were her two boobs! I yelled to the others, Randy went forward to grab his mask and snorkel to use in the rescue, however the father of the charter family jumped immediately overboard and swam to the woman. He lifted her head from the water and towed her back to our small sailboat. She was unconscious, eyes wide open, water coming out of her mouth. Randy and I pulled and struggled to get her on deck, but we couldn’t seem to get her all the way on deck, half way up and no further. Many things were happening at once, the five year old boy was screaming “BOOBS, gross!”, the mother was yelling, "she’s dead, she’s dead!”. It became clear why we couldn’t get her into the boat when her belt loop from her cut offs ripped on the boat's cleat, Randy and I came tumbling into the cockpit with an unconscious woman, all the while the strange screaming continued.

I suddenly realized that we were extremely close to the cliffs and crashing surf and still with the husband trying to climb on the lifelines, the unthinkable happened, the lifeline snapped and the husband was drifting aft critically close to the outboard and propellor, the outboard that I need to put into gear and get away from the cliffs immediately! Again, seconds transformed into hours as we took three or four more seconds to pull the man onboard and motor away from certain tragedy that awaited the “Intuition” only feet away. We were free, safe and in no immediate danger.

The victim lay in the cockpit, fluids pouring from her mouth and nose, Randy was ready to start CPR when I noticed that she was still breathing, water and foam coming out as she struggled to breathe fresh air in. We covered her torso with a towel, turned her on her side and pressed her stomach to attempt to get more water out of her. The mother was still yelling, “she’s dead, she’s dead”. This was not what I wanted a victim to be hearing so I had her husband take his wife and the kids down below. I began speaking into the woman’s ear telling her she was going to be OK and that we were going to get her medical help. As the minutes went by, color returned to her face, and although she was still unconscious her breathing steadily improved.

We called over the VHF radio to have paramedics meet us at the Kailua pier, a twenty minute trip from our position. We were able to assess her other injuries during this time, multiple lacerations, contusions, and bruising. She had obviously been pummeled on the sheer lava walls of the point by the huge winter surf.

We finally arrived at the pier, tied up alongside, as the medical personnel came aboard with a gurney. They loaded her on and lifted her off the boat for her eventual fifteen minute transport to the Kona Hospital. Her boyfriend who had been at the scene of the accident met up with us and explained what had gone so terribly wrong. They had been standing on the cliffs in awe of the huge surf crashing on the rocks below when a wave much larger than the ones they had seen, exploded, sending spray high into the air, also a large volume of water had been forced up and around a rock behind them. As the water flowed back to the ocean it swept them off their feet. She was pulled over the cliff and dropped onto the next shelf of rock, still several feet above the level of the sea. This level was only temporary as the next wave struck sending her already unconscious body slamming up against the cliff she had just been pulled down. Her boyfriend described her as looking like a rag doll as her lifeless form was tossed about. He said several waves repeated this as he stood helplessly by, unable to do anything for her. She was finally swept out to sea and remained underwater until we arrived. We calculated that she was underwater for about twenty minutes before we got on the scene.


The boyfriend thanked us for saving his girlfriend and headed up to the hospital with her. I called the hospital after the charter and spoke with her later that evening. Needless to say she was quite sore, bruised and suffering the headache that accompanies a concussion, but alive, and happy about that.
She spent the night there under observation and was miraculously released the next morning. They asked for my help in finding an affordable hotel room to spend another day recovering. They spent a day at a local seaside resort and then I offered to put them up at my house for a couple more days before they returned to their home in Florida.

After leaving the pier with our charter it was difficult to not rehash our experience together. We did snorkel and sail and had a great picnic lunch after all. The excitement level was not nearly what our morning brought us, but then again who needs that much?

As a rather humorous reminder of the rescue, friends Gonzo and Penny gave me a pennant, like the ones charter fishing boats fly, after catching gamefish, however this one depicted a topless woman floating in a foamy sea. I would fly it above “Intuition” on occasion and get a good chuckle.