Labor Day at the beach

The kids and I spent labor day at the New Hope Mililani "Fishing, Free-diving and Fun" day up at Camp Mokuleia on the North shore. We were expecting to have a great time fishing, but honestly everything related to fishing went badly and everything related to relaxing and playing on the beach went well.

Driving over we had a fishing pole fly out of the bed of my truck and get crushed under the tires of the cars behind us. That made Bradley especially sad because it was going to be his pole for the day. I quickly decided that we would stop by the Haleiwa Fishing Supply store to replace it, but when we arrived it was closed for the Labor Day holiday.

We had a little trouble finding parking, but eventually wedged ourselves into a spot and headed for the beach. Once there the kids played for a couple hours on the shoreline and were loving it! I think all I saw of Bryan the whole time was his back and the top of his snorkel. We they finally came up and decided that it was time to fish. There was a large group of people gathered on a rocky ledge trying to coax the Oama into biting some hooks!

As we started out to join them we discovered that the rocks were SUPER slippery. Bradley was really afraid of the waves that would wash over the ledge and he wasn't paying attention to his line. It wasn't long before Bryan and Bradley's lines were tangled up. I started to untangle them when I forgot about a little "dunking" pole that was under my left arm, and when I raised my arm it fell into the water just as a wave rushed by and it went over the ledge. Fortunately, it floats, but unfortunately it was floating with a hooked line toward some snorkelers.

I got the attention of a snorkeler, and she was bringing my pole back to me when sure enough her swimshorts got hooked and it wasn't letting go. At that point I sounded a retreat and ushered everyone to the beach. Just as well, because by the time we got everything sorted out it was time to eat.

Not very many fish were caught that day, but you can see that somebody speared a nice sized Uhu! After lunch the kids were content to go back to the beach and play, and so was I. I spent most of the time being lifeguard, but it was such a beautiful, relaxing day, I didn't mind at all.

Peace, Love and Uhus,

Rich