Free Livin' Lahaina Loca by JoAnn Bassett Page B

driver. They said
‘Take it or leave it’ as it was prom night at Lahainaluna High School and every
car for hire on Maui was already spoken for.
    Now
I personally inspect all limos and interview the drivers the week before the
wedding. It takes about an hour, so I figured I’d schedule it for
Tuesday—Wednesday at the latest.
    I
called Ono at five to twelve. “I’m in. Tell me what I need to do.”
    ***
    It’s
odd that I’ve lived my entire life surrounded by water but I rarely go near the
water. For me, the ocean is like the sky—it’s just there. When I was an air
marshal and we’d take off from Honolulu and spend hours upon hours streaking
over the flat, blue-black Pacific I thought of it merely as space and time. It
wasn’t wet, or cold, or alive with creatures, it was simply something to
cross—a wide gap between Point A and Point B.
    Standing
on the deck of the Maui Happy Returns as it slid out of Lahaina Harbor
at five a.m. on Saturday morning was an experience I won’t soon forget. The
motion of the boat felt odd, as if I was half-asleep and my perception was
slipping in and out of reality. The trade winds were blowing pretty strong, and
as we cleared the harbor area, Ono motioned to Chico, the first mate, to raise the
sail.
    Chico
hopped up on the roof of the cabin and cranked the winch on the main mast,
releasing a huge expanse of white sail. It fluttered and caught the wind like a
colossal cupped hand, and before long we were flashing across the waves,
slipping down into choppy troughs and popping back up at a dizzying speed.
    I
stood near the back of the boat, one hand shielding my eyes from the rising sun
and the other hand gripping the rail. Watching the glowing white sail bulge and
then relax against the wind was hypnotic.
    “Pretty
nice, huh?” Ono yelled to me from his place at the stern.
    “Fantastic,”
I said. I went up the four stairs to stand by him at the wheel.
    “You
get out on the water much?”
    “Never.”
    “Yeah,
it seems like that to me too, sometimes. I can never get enough of it.”
    “No,
I mean, I can’t remember the last time I was out on a boat, or even in the
water. Maybe back in high school.”
    He
touched my shoulder and I turned. His face looked stricken, like I’d told him
my dog had been hit by a bus.
    “Honest?
You live here on Maui and you never go out? I took you for a long boarder or
maybe a windsurfer.”
    I
laughed. “Nope. I’m pretty much a land-based life form.”
    “Well,
you’re doing great. This isn’t the easiest crossing. We’ve got pretty solid
seas today but it can really slam you around if you don’t watch the weather.
We’ll be in the lee of Moloka’i here in a bit. Until then, you’d probably be
better off down in the cabin.”
    I
went back down the steps, gripping the handrail as the catamaran charged up a
ten-foot swell. By then, Chico had jumped down from tending the sail and was
busy getting soft drinks out of the refrigerator. He handed me a cold can.
    “ Mahalo .”
I’d been so busy getting my sea legs I hadn’t really observed Chico. His arms
were heavily tattooed from shoulder to wrist. A thick green sea serpent wrapped
around his left ankle and up his calf ending in a fierce-looking dragon’s head
above his knee. Chico was barefoot, with khaki shorts and a white cotton
strap-shirt completing the ensemble. No doubt there was more ink on his chest
and back, but I couldn’t see through the shirt.
    “What’s
with the tattoos?” I said. “It seems everybody I know is sporting some kind of
body art.”
    He
smiled and nodded. “It’s a sailor thing. All us sailors do it.”
    “Yeah,
but it’s not just sailors. Everywhere I look it’s something—an ankle charm, a
tramp stamp, whatever. Every high school girl on the island has some kind of
goofy tat—a sea horse or a flower. I heard your cabin girl’s sick from getting
a dirty tattoo. So what’s with all the ink?”
    “It’s
cool. Makes you special. Like