Sailing Ohana

We decided to get a slip at the Emerald Bay Marina so that we could provison, clean and prepare for our friends’ visit. Our generator broke and our friends would be bringing us a new pump to fix it, but in the meantime we wanted to be someplace convenient with electricity. Initially they did not have a slip with electricity available, but when we docked and I went into the office to check us in, I told them our sad story and the wonderful woman who (I think) is the harbor master was able to find us a spot where another boat was a no-show. There was much rejoicing on Ohana because that meant at could have a/c, which is important when you’re at a hot, hot marina with less wind and more bugs! Our docking was pretty hilarious because it was windy and our slip was a little hard to get to. We are very out of practice since we are always on “the hook” rather than the dock.

We caught a beautiful tuna on our way up.

Emerald Bay Marina is adjacent to a fancy resort where they have a poolside restaurant (and bathrooms that Spencer and I swooned over), so naturally we ate there a lot and the boys enjoyed the pool. Laundry and showers are free at the marina so we felt totally spoiled. I arranged for a rental car so that we could stock up on groceries and pick up our visitors from the airport. I also was very anxious to take Spencer to the local medical center for his poisonwood rash which was spreading and getting much worse, despite our best efforts to treat it.

The medical center was a pleasant surprise, and reminded me a little of the Lyndon B. Johnson Tropical Medical Center in Samoa where my dad worked in the 80’s. It is on top of a hill with a beautiful view of the ocean, and the nurses and doctors were all very professional, warm and helpful. They did everything with paper forms and carbon copies, and there was not a single computer that we could see anywhere. I didn’t have Spencer’s passport for identification which was required, and they only accept $30 in cash for an appointment if you are not a local, and I only had $20. I was not looking forward to driving back and forth to get more cash and Spencer’s passport, especially because the roads are in poor condition and they drive on the left side with the driver’s seat on the right. The women at the payment desk were very gracious and allowed me to pay my $20 in cash and promise to come back later or the following day for the other $10 and a copy of Spencer’s passport. We saw a doctor who diagnosed Spencer with Impetigo that was a result of bacteria in the poisonwood rash, and gave us prescriptions for a few medications and told us to come back in the morning to see the pediatrician which we did, with the passport and cash. I will never forget little Spencer singing in the back seat of the rental car as I dragged him all over the place to get the prescriptions filled, buy groceries, and navigate crazy roads with crazy drivers. He offered to be my “radio” since the rental car stereo was all in Japanese and we couldn’t operate it. We loved that when I turned on the car, a high pitched Japanese woman’s voice would welcome us in Japanese. An exciting discovery on our grocery trip was Smitty’s, a store that sells a few items in bulk, where we found SKITTLES… Minds blown. 🤣