Another Funny Sign

In Hanauma Bay, Hawaii there is a path that leads to a lesser known Hawaiian attraction known as "blow-hole". Here, the waves come in to the rocky shore and force water into a hole in the rock. When the tide is coming in, the rock resembles a whale's blow-hole.

Further down this path there is a depression in the rocks that is the size of a hot tub. You can sit in this spot as it fills and drains with water. This is cool for kids and old people. The stuff for 20 year-old Marines full of testosterone and addicted to adrenaline is just a few feet to the right.

I cannot remember what this spot was called, but I still shiver when I think about it. It is a tunnel through the rock about 3 feet wide and about 20 feet long. It leads to the hot tub. When the hot tub fills up, the hole fills up. If you timed it right, you could enter the tunnel head-first as it began to drain again; the power of the ocean would pull you through the tunnel and into the hot tub. It took a matter of seconds to travel the tunnel, but it really had an affect on your adrenal system.

Now if you are really brave, you can try to enter the tunnel from the hot tub. The timing is trickier, the angle is more difficult, and you have to do more steering, but the payoff is worth it. It felt like an accomplishment, especially since there were those of us who would swim it backwards and those who wouldn't. We, the initiated, were made of better stuff I guess.

There were several times that I got too anxious and didn't time my push with the tide. When this happened, I stalled in the tunnel for a second and then began to be pushed back the way I came. Luckily, I had the lung capacity to wait it out and the mental capacity not to panic.

When the tide was weak, you could swim either way through the tunnel without resistance or assistance from the ocean. One time, I traveled halfway down the tunnel from the hot tub and bumped into someone coming from the hole. I was able to back up and pull her out, and we both had a nervous laugh. I shudder to think about how that could have turned out.

Kansas is a good place to live and raise a family, but I often miss Hawaii. There were holes to swim through, cliffs to jump from, sunsets that invented new shades of red and purple, rainbows on a regular basis, mountains, sweet air, and Mother Ocean. In Hawaii, I felt alive on another level.

Anyhow, on that path to blow-hole, the hot-tub, the tunnel, and oblivion, there was a sign. I like signs that are unusual. This one made me laugh every time, so I finally snapped a picture: