Pacific Odyssey - Leg 7

It has been an incredible day; people are taking advantage of our time here and all the beautiful places to visit and things to do.  First thing this morning, at 0500, nearly everyone woke up to go surfing with our island surfer friend Ambrose. Skipper and I met Ambrose 4 years ago when we were looking for second hand surfboards.  He´s nearly 60 and has lived on the island for a long time.  He has surfed with and built boards for many of the great surfers and still loves to get people hooked on surfing; he´s passionate about it.  It´s fun and interesting to chat with him and get to know him a bit. Last offshore was the first time he took a bunch of large boards and a group of trainees and taught them how to surf.  On leg 1, he taught another group, and today, the third group.  He begins by giving everyone a board, teaching some basic techniques, and then sends them all off into the water, moving amongst them, encouraging, joking, correcting etc. in his unique personal style; it´s quite funny, the trainees enjoy him. The session lasted till about 1100 hrs with Ambrose in the water the entire time, making sure everyone got as close to riding a wave and getting up as they could.  His energy is catching and trainees, once they began to get the hang of surfing, caught the ´bug´ and were thrilled with themselves and the sensation of riding a wave. Today´s group was the largest he´s ever taught and it took a bit of organizing to get everyone going; Skipper heard Ambrose shout out, “Oh, yeah, cool, it´s like puppies in a box man!” commenting on all the beginners scrambling about on boards in the same section of ocean. He´s quite someone and we´ve enjoyed every encounter we´ve had with him. He gave us a few boards on leg 1 to take with us around the South Pacific, and we were able to use them in several of the islands.  Skipper and Jordan took the video camera and the underwater housing and got some good footage of everyone learning how to surf, and Ambrose moving amongst them. After surfing most trainees left in groups in vehicles to explore. Steve, Elske, Becca, Tristan, Jordan, and Adrienne hiked 2 hours on the Nepali coast to an incredible waterfall. They said it was stunning; the entire Nepali coast is supposed to be superlative and spectacular.  It´s something I always want to do when I´m here.  Sarah B. had a car full and they went to Waimea Canyon and had a picnic supper at one of the spectacular lookouts.  Raven and Adam plus some others went to Ke´e Bay in the north and snorkeled. They built a campfire and roasted hot dogs and made ´smores.´  Skipper and I took our 4 younger kids and visited Tipu Falls, a beautiful waterfall near to the boat down a beautiful country road away from the town, through fields and along the base of the mountains.  We jumped from a cliff into delicious fresh water, wonderful. We visited Waimea Canyon and looked out over a deep gouge through the island with a multitude of steep peaks angling in all directions with valleys and river bottoms running between them. The two distinct colors are the green of the vegetation and the orange-brown of the dirt; it is very spectacular.  From there we went the furthest one can go west on the island, down a sandy, washboard road to a place called Barking Sands.  Here there is a most amazing beach with dunes, flanked by cliffs, the other end of the Nepali Coast.  The sandy beach is very wide and goes on for miles, perfect for walking. The water is a wonderful temperature, there is nice surf, and best of all . . . there is hardly anyone there. We saw a few tents up, but that was it . . . it pays to go a bit off the beaten track.  We stayed and played until the sun had set, then swam and rinsed in the ocean; it was incredible.  It is very late and everyone seems tired, returning late to the ship and dropping to sleep quickly on the deck somewhere.  We are looking forward to tomorrow; there are so many great things to do.  Good-night,
Bonice.