When you tell people that you live in Hawaii, you can see a mental image forming in their heads: palm trees, sunset on the beach, overly-pink cocktails and dancing hula girls. The truth is you spend as much time shopping in Safeway, moaning about the price of baked beans, and getting stuck in traffic jams as anyone else. But just occasionally, enough unusual things happen in one day to make life on the island feel unique. And yesterday, this happened to me.
On Saturday morning, the phone rings. It's Sarah, a friend from work, and she wants me to go shopping with her for a surfboard on the north shore. "We can go snorkelling too!" she promises. I reluctantly agree and, after finding my beachwear (this particular Englishman has long since swapped his 1980s Speedos for a pair of surfer-cool Billabong boardshorts), I jump into the car and drive straight to Starbucks to begin the day.
Like most things in Hawaii, Starbucks is better over here than anywhere else. This is the Hawaii effect: the birdsong, the mountain views, the rainforest, the waterfalls, the sandy beaches, the sun on your back, the cocktails, the cold beer after a swim at sunset. It's all better, take my word for it. Let us forget for now the traffic on the H-1 freeway, the price of milk, the corruption-stained politics, the mess on the 'local' beaches and the US military's propensity for blowing up half the hiking trails on the island, and focus on the good stuff.
With a double latte and a cinnamon swirl safely stowed in that most useful of American inventions, the car drink-cup holder, Sarah and I speed (for once) up the freeway to the north shore of the island of Oahu. The "north shore" sounds kind of cool - and it is. Like Venice beach, Portobello Road or perhaps the north face of Everest, this is undoubtedly a place to hang out. From November to March it is blessed with seven miles of the most perfect surfing breaks in the world. The rest of the year, the Honolulu weekenders flock to the pretty beaches and the snorkelling, diving and hamburger joints of Haleiwa, the little town in the heart of this coastal strip.
We pull up outside Vicente Surfboards, and park under a handy mango tree. The place looks promising, just on the outskirts of tourist Haleiwa. Inside, boards are stacked up to the roof and we wander around, frightened by the prices. A wiry little man appears and begins the hard sell. He looks incredibly strong and tanned. "Ahh, you should try zis one - perfect for beginners!" he advises, pointing to a beautifully smooth, gold longboard that towers nine and a half feet high in the corner. "Normal price $600, for you $550!". Vicente's wife appears. "He's the third best shaper in the world," she announces. Things begin to get technical. "This is a gun - for dropping down a big north shore face." He gestures towards a miniature seven-footer, thin, sleek and mean-looking. It's not for us. In the corner stands a ten-foot 'tanker' that is nothing short of beautiful, shaped from a solid piece of balsa wood, all grainy and knotted like a item of fine furniture. "We sold two of these last week to a Brazilian millionaire, $2000 each!". We manage to extricate ourselves, although I think if I had $2000 in my pocket I may have been tempted.
Haleiwa specialises in surf shops, burger joints and bad traffic. The burgers are more affordable than the boards, and the 'Surfer X-ing' bumper stickers are more affordable than the burgers - which is why they're what I usually end up buying. After a quick pineapple burger for lunch, we head down to a place called Shark's Cove for a spot of snorkelling. Even on a crowded Saturday it's a stunning spot. A rocky enclosure, protected from the pounding surf and filled with clear blue water and white coral sand. There are one or two species of hard coral, and thousands of fish graze on the thin algal turf that covers the rocks. It's no Great Barrier Reef: the isolation of Hawaii has insulated it from foreign species and only the hardiest corals have made it here. But the water is warm, and we swim down below the breaking surf, watching the maelstrom above filter the strong sunlight to a scattering of aqua-blue on the white sandy bottom.
Back on the beach, I soak up some afternoon sun. Around me, some tourists are getting ready to go snorkelling. If surfing is the coolest, most pretentious sport on Hawaii, then snorkelling has to be the opposite. This is presumably why you can't yet buy an Oakley mask or Prada flippers. Some tourist rednecks try to make up for it with their conversation. "Yeah, dude, you know I can't believe how deep we dived down there!" "Man, that was one big turtle, I could'a speared it right through its head!" In desperation they raise their voices, but the hot blondes on the beach just aren't listening. I like to think they are distracted by my cool English detachment and floppy sun hat, but strangely I don't think those are working either.
The sun is getting low and it is time to head back to Honolulu. If there is one thing you don't expect to be doing on a Saturday afternoon in Hawaii, it's playing cricket. But I have been persuaded to give it a try by a member of the Honolulu Cricket Club, apparently the oldest sporting club on the island. "It's just for fun, not that competitive!" I am told, but memories of school games lessons and unpleasant hard leather balls flying at your face are hard to repress. The idea of 'colonial-style' cricket in tropical climes rather appeals, however, and a vision of sitting under the long afternoon shadow of a palm (not oak) tree, with a cold (not warm) beer persuades me to give it a try.
The reality is a little different. The match takes place on a dusty baseball strip in the centre of town, and there aren't any palm trees. I park close by, ready to make a hasty exit. A couple of other English people appear and then the captain, an American, shows up. It is surreal to hear someone with an American accent discuss the relative merits of two slips and a gully versus a cover point, or some of the finer and more miserable aspects of the English Test side. But what really worries me is the 12 extremely young and fit-looking Indian students who have just arrived. Nowhere is cricket played more intensively or more competitively than on the sub-continent. Sides are hastily drawn up and it looks very much like India versus the rest of the world: a motley crew of about six more Indians, an Australian, three English and a couple of Americans.
I notice that Rob, one of my fellow countrymen, has drawn up some deckchairs, pizza and beers and is blatantly opting out of the fielding practice that is going on in the centre. This is more like it. Clearly he belongs to the David Gower school of cricket - a glass of champagne for breakfast, a few slashing cover drives and then out before a leisurely lunch in the pavilion.
It's a whitewash for India. They score freely for 25 overs. I am first in to bat for our team, a little too eager to get to the bar, and am stumped first ball. My batting average can only go up. It's time to leave, and I watch the remnants of our team collapse before an onslaught of quick bowling. I promise to show up again, but we shall see. They are playing next time down by Waikiki beach, which sounds a little closer to my palm-tree vision.
The day is not over. The final act is due down at Anna Banana's, the closest Honolulu has to a decent pub. In fact I have to be honest and admit it is a lot better than most pubs in England. Imagine a cosy little establishment in London, alcoves, candles; a comfortable and safe drinking den. Replace the antique ploughs, horseshoes and real ale with antique surfboards, the finest tequila in Honolulu and some decent burritos, and you have something approaching Anna's. Upstairs they have live bands most nights, and they don't chuck you out until 2am.
I meet some friends, Andreas and Yves, outside. It is Brazilian Independence day and a tradition at Anna's is to have a wild Brazilian party, with west African drummers, Amazonas music, shaka samba, dancers, capoeira, and Brazilian jazz - or so the programme says. We go in and the place is already packed. There's a great atmosphere: beautiful Brazilian girls, families, elderly couples, university students and faculty members. The beer flows, dancers come and go as the dance floor is periodically cleared by a scary Brazilian lady, who seems to be organising the whole thing. Everyone is dancing to the rapid beat of the samba, the English and the drunk students sway happily out of time, watching the bottoms of black girls perform incredibly rapid circular movements and trying to work out how it's done.
A group from Capoeira Hawaii come on. They're a north Brazilian combination of martial art and stylised acrobatic dance, and have a following in Hawaii. There is barely any space: 100 people are packed around the dance floor and the ceiling is so low I frequently hit it with my head. But they perform superbly; I have seen capoeira before, in Rio, but the Hawaiian version seems even more spectacular. The combatants, dressed in what look suspiciously like knotted handkerchiefs, wheel, dive and attack each other with wild loops and kicks, but never touch. The dancing is performed in time to a rapid beat - a famous Brazilian percussionist, who happens to live on Oahu, provides the music. The knotted handkerchief guys depart are replaced with athletic-looking girls and boys with sticks. I slowly realise that capoeira is actually the cool version of morris dancing. Well, it is Hawaii, and these girls have more attractive bottoms than any morris dancers I remember from tedious English country fairs.
The night rounds off with a superb jazz band, and a final few acts from the shaka samba boys. The Brazilian jazz is led and sung by a large and very un-Brazilian Korean lady. The Hawaii factor strikes again: where else are you going to get Brazilian jazz sung by Koreans in an English pub, with morris dancing (of a sort), following a pleasant spot of cricket with the Indian under-18 A team?
We may be several thousand miles from the nearest land mass, but I don't think you could do all those things in one day anywhere else. If you think this is weird, wait till you hear my account of a trip to Hawaii's only Dungeon...
