Sunday, November 12, 2006

Makahiki

Yesterday I volunteered at the North Shore Makahiki festival. It wasn't exactly what I thought it would be - a lot of it was very commercial, people seeing how much they could get away with charging for a surfing t-shirt. But I met some interesting people. Butch (pictured below right) is on the board for several nonprofits along the North Shore. He also is an incredible artist - the things on the table (it's not a very good shot, I know) are all things that he carved himself with, with the exception of a few ancient Hawaiian artifacts in the koa bowls at the end. He also hand carves the trophies for the OP Pro competition (which started today), and they are gorgeous.

I ended up helping out with a group called Hui Malama O Pupukea-Waimea, which is a group that watches a bit of protected shoreline between, you guessed it, Pupukea and Waimea, to make sure that people are using legal nets to fish, not hurting the turtles, etc. They do several snorkel outing per month to count fish. I met a nice couple in the group who were from, small world - North Carolina (Cary!) and Pennsylvania. They now live right on the North Shore with a view of the ocean.

The food was pretty good, local grinds. I had some lau lau (chicken wrapped in a ti leaf and steamed), various flavors of macademia nuts (there's a plantation on the North Shore where you can get mac nuts and kona coffee samples for free), and, of course, Hawaiian shave ice. We finished up just in time for a bit of live music and a sunset over Haleiwa Harbor.

--jess

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