Since going to work for local freight outfit my life has devolved into a bleak, proletarian ritual of staggering out of bed at some ungodly hour, wolfing down what ever is left in the fridge and then driving in the direction of Honolulu Airport with all the drunks, druggies and others whose failed lives find them on the freeway at 2:45 in the morning instead of in some nice warm bed with a nice warm honey, which is where all the sane people are at this hour. Still, there’s nothing like humping a ton of cargo into a Beech 18 to get you nice and warm—and sweaty, and dirty. Then, climb in through the window while trying not to think of how you’re going to get out of this flying coffin if anything goes wrong, thunder off into the night sky for the evocatively named Mud Flats and hope the runway lights come on as advertised.
It couldn’t last, of course. The balmy days booming along over the ocean at 2,000’ with the side window open; with not a care in the world and with those big radial engines reeling in the horizon at 140 kts.; the clear nights and smooth rides spent scanning the eastern horizon for shooting stars upon which to wish in the pre-dawn darkness; soaring through cloud castles in the tropical moonlight. Dues must be paid. For everything gained, something must be lost. Yin and yang.
In the pre-dawn darkness Keana and I slam 750 lbs. of frozen New Zealand salmon into our company’s new Cessna Caravan. The fish comes in bulky Styrofoam tubs weighing 75lbs. each. Keana’s real job is baggage handler at Hawaiian Airlines, a skill that serves him well here, as he tosses the heavy tubs up against the forward bulkhead like they were 5 lb. bags of flour. No sooner are we done with the fish then the boss rolls up with a pallet stacked high with 500 lbs. of fresh fruit and vegetables. There are Thompson grapes from Chile, organic lettuce and strawberries from California, fresh blueberries, local bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic, fresh bread, orange juice — heavy stuff up front, light stuff in the back and anything squishable on top or in the underside pods. We finish up with two cases of French Chardonnay and some Dom Perignon. The good stuff, packed in wooden boxes
When the sailing ships began arriving off Kalaupapa in the late 19th Century their crews often simply threw their passengers into the sea, forcing them to swim for the rocky shore or drown trying. This was in part because Kalaupapa has no natural harbor. Located midway along the north shore of Moloka’i, and fully exposed to the almost constant onshore wind and powerful waves, Kalaupapa is a sailor’s nightmare. To venture too close to this ironbound coast on a sailing vessel was to risk ending up on the rocks. The other reason for the drastic disembarkations was that the passengers were lepers — pariahs exiled from Oahu for their loathsome and contagious disease.