Field and Compass Trip Report #1 Spring Ride up Little Wenatchee River Road

I filed a trip report with Field and Compass....check it out....there are even photos!

2016 May Edition of the Good Life Magazine: A Sail in the San Juans

**This article was written for the Good Life Magaine, May 2016 edition**

I started to fall in love with sailboats during middle school. In art class, I would spend hours painting watercolors of sloops, schooners and colonial trading vessels. I would sketch small figures in striped shirts manning the decks and would imagine that it was me. My art teacher told me that, in dream psychology, boats represent a desire to escape and be free. That revelation couldn’t have felt any closer to my own personal 13 year-old truth.  This was also about the time when my family acquired a small, single-sailed Sunfish. During the hot summer weekends, my dad would load the small craft into the back of the truck and would take us sailing on Crystal Lake. On windier days, we would race the little boat as fast as possible to see how far she would lean before catching water in her sails; eventually swamping or flipping. Over time, our family dynamics evolved. Weekends of taking the little sailboat out on the water made way for pre-college employment and other teenage distractions. The Sunfish was eventually sold and my sailing days came to an end. However, in the years that followed, I found myself gravitating toward the water now and again, if only to admire the beautiful sailboats that were moored along every coast that I have ever visited. I kept having this urge to jump aboard the deck, throw the lines loose and sail away on some epic deep sea adventure….but it never happened; until recently.

Robin Kodner has been my best friend since college. She is a take-charge kind of woman and her adventurous spirit never ceases to amaze me. During grad school on the East Coast, Robin found herself leading multi-week sailing courses for Outward Bound during her summer vacations. After graduation, she crewed for a private family and spent time sailing around the Canary Islands and various other exotic locations. For years, we have joked about running away and becoming pirates; two women on the high seas with wind in our sails and salt in our hair. So it came as no surprise, when she found herself permanently residing in Bellingham that she would end up as a partner in a 3-way boat share of a 38 foot sloop named ‘Arpege’.  

Peg is a beauty. Built in the 70’s, her interior is composed of impeccable mahogany with sleeping space for 5 people, a small kitchen and an even smaller ‘head’ (bathroom). Her lines are classic and graceful and her previous owners showed obvious care for her (including all new upholstery and a full engine rebuild). Although a financial stretch for a single, professional woman, Robin couldn’t refuse her and drained a good portion of her savings to both purchase the boat and pay for moorage. During the first months of ownership, Robin defaulted to her more experienced boat partners and never took Peg out in Bellingham Bay or the San Juans without a few additional crew members to help out with the lines and the rigging. But when mid-summer arrived, I could tell that Robin was itching to become the captain of her own vessel.  I talked her into taking me out on an overnight sail as her only crew member. Just the two of us, like we had always imagined.

My summer work schedule is hectic. I am often limited to trips that can happen within 36 hours or less from door-to-door. I knew that taking on an overnight sailing trip in this amount of time was pushing the limits of what was logistically possible coming from Leavenworth. But the idea of taking Peg into the San Juans with my best friend was too good to pass up. I was in my car by 10 AM on a Monday morning in July. By about 1 PM I was at Robin’s house. By 2:30 PM we were loading up the boat and throwing off the lines. The weather was sunny and bright with a variable wind of 5 to 10 knots. The water was flat and glassy; a perfect afternoon for sailing.

We tacked our way across Bellingham Bay and crossed Lummi Channel with a favorable wind. Peg glided through the water at a reasonable pace and we only needed to tack one time while shooting through the narrow channel between Lummi and Eliza islands. We set ourselves on course for Vendovi Island, a remote private island that is now held in a preservation trust. We reached Vendovi without incident and went on a quick hike around some of the most amazing, pristine forest I have ever visited. All vistas on Vendovi looked out over the water and the multitude of small islands that dot the Washington coast. Vendovi closes to the public at sunset with no overnight moorage available, so we hopped aboard Peg and motored our way back over to Lummi Island where we spent the night anchored in Inati Bay. We entered Inati just as the sun was sinking into the water; the heavens ablaze in oranges, reds and purples. The night entered the sky clear and calm, with the stars in full array across the horizon. I fell asleep to the gentle swing of the boat on its bow line as Peg swayed back and forth with the surging tide.

In the morning, we awoke to an unforeseen bout of weather. Although Inati Bay was calm, we could see that the Lummi Channel was surging with five to six foot swells and a wind blowing a steady 20 knots in the wrong direction. Feeling slightly out of my league as first mate, we motored across the channel and only raised the sails after passing into calmer waters, coasting gently back to Bellingham.

True to plan, I was back in Leavenworth by Tuesday afternoon having completed my first overnight sail with one of my favorite people. This summer we plan on sailing together out to the Sucia Islands. It’s our practice trip for when we really do run away and become pirates. 

2016 February Edition of the Good Life Magazine: Van Camping on Maui

**The printed story with photos can be found at The Good Life Magazine, February 2016 issue. The unedited text is below...

Every fall for the past 4 years, my husband Willy and I have embarked on a multi-week family road trip with our two kiddos. It is a chance for us to re-connect as a family through camping and adventuring. This year, instead of remaining in the Continental United States, we decided to branch out and do our first ‘exotic’ road trip. Since our kids are now 8 and 6, I wanted to start exploring parts of the world with them that are highly inconvenient/less enjoyable when traveling with toddlers. For our first airplane-necessary road trip, we decided to explore the Island of Maui in a 1989 pop-up Volkswagen Westfalia camper van. I’ll preface my story by saying that the trip I am about to describe is not for everyone. If a Hawai’ian vacation to you means poolside drinks and over-priced luaus then please don’t attempt our style of vacation. However, if you are comfortable with adventure and the unknown, then this may be the next trip for you.

I first came across the ad for Aloha Campers when I was searching for tent camping options on Maui. We knew we wanted to visit the island but didn’t want to be stuck in one location for the entire trip.  We also weren’t interested in visiting Maui for the resort experience. A vacation for us means the opportunity to see new plants, animals, birds and aquatic life. It also means hiking, sleeping under the stars and (at times) putting ourselves as far away from civilization as possible. We knew that logistically, it was going to be difficult to bring all of our camping gear with us on an airplane. Renting the Westfalia seemed to be the best solution to our problem…..enough sleeping space for 2 adults and 2 kids, a small fully stocked kitchen and the ultimate freedom to explore. This was going to be a great trip!

We landed in Kahului, Maui at 2 PM in the afternoon and caught our shuttle to Kihei where we first became acquainted with our home away from home for the next 6 nights; a 1989 Steel Blue Volkswagen Westfalia pop-up camper van. Brandon, her owner, briefly acquainted us with her quirks and showed us the location of several essential features including the jumper cables and an extra screwdriver….just in case…. We threw our packs in the back and prepared for departure. As I was about to turn the key, one of the mechanics knocked on the passenger side window. Willy rolled it down and the guy threw us a big smile…. ‘Her name’s Stella!’ he shouted through the window. We promised to take care of her and headed out in search of a grocery store and a place to spend the night. We made a quick stop to a local pawn shop and purchased a set of snorkel gear for $8 and a fishing rod and reel for $25. We were set!

Camping on Maui was an interesting experience. Lately, the islands have been getting a reputation for being un-friendly to tourists. Although this may be true if you are touring around in an ȕber fast cherry-red mustang convertible or a shiny new Jeep Wrangler, this isn’t the case when cruising the island in an old Volkswagen bus that tops out at 50 mph. People love these vans. Even though we knew we were running the risk of stepping on the toes of locals during our camping trip, we found that it was easy to make friends when traveling along in Stella. People would wave, throw us solid shakkas and made a point to come over and say hi and have a look inside the van. We discovered that Westfalias are a hot commodity on the islands these days. Very few of them still remain in private hands. They are a throwback to a time when surfing and good vibes still ruled the island; before the mega-resort complexes became king. We had no trouble backing the van in to some prime on-water camping. Often, we were peacefully nestled between old-school surfers who had been living on the beach for years.

Truly, this trip was amazing from Day 1. We hit up nearly every public beach on the island; snorkeling 2 or 3 times a day in warm, pristine azure waters. We spotted more sea turtles than we could count, saw octopus and eels and more fish than an aquarium can hold. The only beaches with trash in the sand were those adjacent to the mega resort complexes. Those beaches also held the least diversity of sea life and the cloudiest waters. The county beaches set aside for locals were well maintained and uncrowded. They often had showers, bath houses and sometimes a playground.

Because of the mobility the van afforded us, we were able to drive the infamous road to Hana and could spend several nights exploring the more remote areas of Maui. We hiked through bamboo forests, slogged up muddy trails that wound beneath wild papayas and banyans to hidden waterfalls, explored freshwater caches within ancient lava tubes and spotted elusive native birds in their jungle homes. Willy fished the rugged inlets along the North Shore and the kids made sand castles from dawn until dusk with intermittent pauses for boogie-boarding and snorkeling.  We dined on fresh pineapple and star fruit, tiny sweet bananas, creamy avocados and sugar cane.

When it was time to return Stella, we were all overcome with sadness. We had become attached to our nomadic life in the van. Living on the beaches of Maui for that brief period of time was certainly one of the best adventures of my life. I am overcome with happiness that we could all enjoy the trip together as a family. I am already planning our next vacation. Who knows what possibilities the future holds? But I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat our Maui road trip. Indeed, I would return to van life in a heart-beat…..and my family would too.

On The Road: Maui Part 1

Iteration #2. First iteration having been swallowed whole by a passing shark (or a bad keystroke).

Introduction:

For me, after a new experience, it is helpful to decompress through writing. I am not much of a travel writer. Or in reality, I have never tried to be a travel writer. However, having just returned from my first trip to Maui I am feeling compelled to write a travelogue of our adventure. This is the story of our trip, though my eyes.

 Hawai’i is a complicated place with a relatively recent history of upheaval that still remains a very real part of its culture. After this visit, I not only have an appreciation for Hawai’i’s fragile diversity of abundant life (both on land and sea) but also for its people and their traditions and language. Traveling can do amazing things for a person. It may be the most important form of education. It is one thing to read books with lists and dates and facts and figures and a very different thing to witness living reality with your own eyes. I am always grateful when life allows me the chance to expand my horizons. This trip has been one of my favorites. It has changed my heart and if anything I have left the islands feeling more compelled than ever to lend myself toward their conservation (which ultimately, relates to a planetary-wide mindset of conservation). Hawai’i sits in a precarious position. Without an awareness of and a desire for a change in anthropogenic habits, the decline of Hawai’i seems as inevitable as the loss of polar ice or the expansion of the great American deserts.

 Aloha and Mohalo Maui. You are an incredible gem. A paradise; proof of the profound beauty our earth is capable of. Thank you for sharing your treasures with me.

Prologue: The Plague

For the record, this trip was nearly cancelled due to natural circumstances. Leading up to departure, Leif succumb to a bout of stomach flu, Ingrid developed a 102+ fever and I came down with a mild cold. Fortunately, we persisted and everyone (except me) made a miraculous recovery just in time for travel. Illness did not re-appear until our return to the mainland (and a return to 20F nights).

Day 1: Meeting Stella

After an overnight on the backside of Tiger Mountain with Jeff, Lisa and Isiah, we are immediately swallowed up by the early morning rainy Seattle commuter traffic (When isn’t it rainy in Seattle in November?) on our way to the airport. A stop-and-go session leaves us 45 minutes behind schedule, yet we survive the late airport parking shuttle, the understaffed airline check-in counter and the ridiculous (yes) process of homeland security before being essentially forced to run to our gate. Breakfast is not a possibility and I make promises to the kids of on-board snacks (peanut M&Ms for breakfast…no problem!) as we become the last family to board our mid-morning flight.

Flying is uneventful and both Willy and I are amazed at how well the kids handle 6 hours of being strapped into their seats like sardines. Apparently the years of training them to survive 12 hour car rides to Salt Lake City have paid off.

We land in Kahului around 2 PM and are hit with a sweet-smelling wall of heat and humidity as we leave the plane. Birds fly through the open-air sections of the airport and banana trees reach for the sky all around us. We catch our shuttle to Kihei where we first become acquainted with our home away from home for the next 6 nights; a 1989 Steel Blue Volkswagen Westfalia pop-up camper van. Brandon, her owner*, briefly acquaints us with her quirks and shows us the location of several essential features including the jumper cables and an extra screwdriver….just in case…. We throw our packs in the back and prepare for departure. As I am about to turn the key, one of the mechanics knocks on the passenger side window. Willy rolls it down and the guy throws us a big smile…. ‘Her name’s Stella!’ he shouts through the window. We promise to take care of her and head out in search of a grocery store and a place to spend the night.

After stocking up on groceries, ice and guava-papaya juice, we end up heading out toward West Maui in search of an ‘official’ campground. We miss our turn and our turn-around ends up being a roadside fruit stand, which is a good omen for us. We stock up on pineapple, star fruit and strawberry papaya. The dude who runs the stand, although mildly sketchy, is friendly enough and gives us directions to the campground.

We arrive at Olowalu after the office has closed for the night and pull into an over-flow parking area that is currently under construction. There’s orange ‘Caution’ fencing everywhere and a shitload of torn up palms and vegetation stacked on the margins of the platform. Not exactly what I had envisioned when dreaming about camping on Maui but a perfectly acceptable option for the night*.

We exit the van and wind our way down to the beach to enjoy the sunset and wet our toes. Approximately 20 minutes in, Leif has the good fortune of stepping on an extremely thorny branch which alerts us to the fact that the trees overhead are littering the beach with shrapnel. ‘Note to self, wear shoes’ is the take home message of the evening.

We head back to the van, pull together a make-shift dinner of fresh fruit, rice and beans and figure out how to pop up the top of the camper. Still unaccustomed to the tropical heat, we restlessly move through the van trying to figure out the best place to store gear and how to open the windows without blowing out the flame on the propane cook stove. The night is WINDY with gusts around 40 mph. Keeping the windows open is nearly impossible due to flying dust and so we spend a semi-uncomfortable night tossing around blanketless. I get up in the middle of the night to pee and am awe-struck by the clarity of the sky. The stars are bright and clear and the planets are easily visible and in near alignment.

 The van continues to rock in the wind throughout the rest of the night but we are all too tired to care. However, even minor time differences are a bitch and by 4:30 AM all four of us are awake and staring at each other wide-eyed (but good humored) as we wonder when the sun will rise over the horizon. Renegade chickens begin to call from the forest all around us and at about 6 AM the darkness fades into daybreak. By 6:45 AM the van is converted back into a traveling machine and we are on our way.

Day 2: Beaches, Kings and Locals

We drive down South Kihei road and start to sus out the terrain. At the far end of the road we find a quiet public beach which technically falls into the Wailea district. It is 7:30 AM. We make some good strong coffee in the van, cut up some more pineapple for breakfast and head out to explore the beach. Ingrid begins to collect Plumeria blossoms like treasures and an older gentleman with an amazing tan shows us the overhanging avocado and banana trees in the parking lot. I nearly start giggling as I wade into the 80+ water. The sun is still low in the sky and everything is lit in a golden hue.  By 8:30 AM the kids have already built a sand castle village and the beach is filling up with morning walkers and runners. By 9 AM the air is hot and we decide to track down some snorkeling gear. We end up at a Kihei pawn shop and purchase a snorkel and mask for $8 and a fishing pole and reel for $25. We head back to the beach and decide to start doing a little underwater exploring….

On my second snorkel of the day I have my first real-life encounter with a sea turtle. I will admit that I screamed briefly through my snorkel. As it approached out of the blue haze of open water, its size was immense. For a mainlander like me, you spend your life seeing pictures of these incredible creatures, watching nature videos and even visiting them in an aquarium now and then. However, the magnitude of their size is not truly tangible until you are face to face in open water. I am 5’3” tall and my first turtle was almost equal in length and certainly larger in stature than myself. It moves through the water with delicate ease and I feel incredibly clumsy in my false plastic flippers and artificial air. The turtle swims directly toward me with amazing speed and just as quickly changes course and heads off toward the far end of the reef. I exit the water in a state of bliss, with a huge smile and my body vibrating with adrenaline.

We spend the rest of that first day wasting time on the beach (it was still so novel!). Our pale skin starts to feel a little bit crispy from the large doses of UV and salt, so it is time to take on a new adventure…preferably out of the sun. We agree that camping on the coast toward West Maui seems like the best plan for the night so we head in that general direction. There is just enough time in the day to explore the Iao Valley and, as a last-minute detour, we crisscross the van along roads lined in sugar cane for a quick hike in this valley of kings.

The Iao Valley sits just to the West of Wailuku. Wailuku and Kahului tend to blur together into one, large suburb. This is where I start interjecting the not-so-pleasant observations of my time on the island…..

So, we drive North along HWY 30 and encounter the first historical signs of Hawaii’s most recent colonization; namely old plantations, a sugar refinery and some beautiful old buildings that are now home to a grade school and a historic church. The guidebooks claim that before the surge in affordable airfare the islands received about 500 outside visitors a year. After airlines started using Hawaii as a hub (and the US set itself up as a military power) that number jumped to nearly 7 Million. Alongside the older buildings and structures from another era are the pop-up neighborhoods one associates with the suburbs of any large American city, including their strip mall accompaniments. So one starts to ponder the immensity of resources necessary for maintaining a Western-style standard of living on a remote, Pacific Island. Honestly, if the tanker ships stop arriving tomorrow, the population of new-breed Hawai’ians will be forced to live off of sugar cane. There simply aren’t the on-island resources available to keep this many people alive without major environmental degradation and collapse.

I avert my eyes from the new-found sprawl and divert my attention to the abundance of plant life that lines the roadside. The Pothos plant living in my house would be embarrassed to meet its tropical cousins! Hawai’i is a botanical paradise. Even mundane roadsides become exciting when a person stops to enjoy the diversity of species that call Maui home.

The road we are traveling takes a sharp left and begins to climb up toward a looming, cloud-filled valley ahead. Like all good roads on Maui, the driving becomes more involved as the road narrows. Corners become blind obstacles and all bridges become single lane right-of-ways.

We get to the entry booth for the Valley (which is now a protected State Park) and the guy inside looks at us, looks at the van and says ‘You local?’ We feel compelled to tell the truth and to pay our $5 entry fee…our small donation to keeping this place beautiful and accessible…..

Side Note: The Hawai’ian islands have become so popular as a world tourist destination that resentment has been building among the locals for some time now. After essentially having their royal government overthrown by a handful of white colonial sugar and shipping barons, there is still a strong negative emotion elicited toward the large population of visiting ‘Haoles’ (yes, this term is derogatory, and aimed strictly toward Caucasians). We knew this coming into the trip but decided that we would do our part to be respectful visitors and hopefully avoid being labelled too vigorously with this slanderous term.

As a consequence of the upsurge in visitation by the outside world, certain culturally significant and historical sites have been forced to check IDs; charging entry fees to off-island visitors while allowing the local population to continue to enjoy their home country free of charge. This feels completely acceptable to me. So even though, as it was becoming obvious that our family could pass for Hawai’ian locals, we were always honest about our origins and paid our way.

Immediately upon exiting the van, the Iao Valley swallows us whole. The kids run loose up the trail toward the overlook and I feel a little breathless as I marvel at my surroundings. The energy emitted by this valley resonates clearly with me and I understand why it has been set aside as sacred ground. We spend an hour or so wandering about on the winding pathways both up toward the needle and then down along the stream. We scan the treetops for native Hawai’ian birds. For the first (and only) time on the trip our bare legs are bitten up by hungry mosquitos. The sun begins to drop lower in the sky illuminating the foliage. Our stomachs are starting to grumble and we make the decision that it is time to leave and start heading toward our new camp somewhere out along the beach.

 We had decided to camp ‘legally’ on our second night and bought a permit for the county park known locally as ‘Grandma’s’; an unmistakable strand that winds along the coast between Maui and West Maui. All of the sites are drive-in style with a bush or two delineating one camp site from the next. We find a vacancy and back the van in so that it is parked about 20 feet from the edge of the breaking waves.

Within a half an hour we meet our first locals, Jimmy and Chris. Both of them live on the beach. Jimmy, in his converted cargo van and Chris in his Previa. They come over to check out Stella. This is when we learn that Westies are a hot commodity on the islands. Very few are still in private circulation, forcing most Maui surf bums to convert older mini-vans instead. We knew that at some point during our camping adventure we would be running the risk of stepping on the toes of the locals. But Dirtbags love Dirtbags and we all hit it off immediately….our parking spot being located directly between both Jimmy and Chris. Jimmy had been living on the beach for probably 25 years, with his spot marked by the grave of lava stones dedicated to his dog Nuisance. Chris is an East Coast transplant who saved enough money to move to the island full time for its warm and sometimes ‘sharky’ surfing. We talk about fishing and turtles and surfing and winter and van life. Then, as quickly as our visitors arrived, they departed… Jimmy leaves to go turn off his TV (so he wouldn’t drain the battery) and Chris decides it is time to settle in for the night. The beach becomes quiet and dark as the sun sets and the sky lights up in a rainbow of color. Everyone turns their attention to the ocean, the sky and the soft warm sand.

During the night the campground is dark and quiet so we open up the back of the van and let the air move in off of the ocean. We fall asleep to the sounds of crashing surf. I wake myself up regularly to look around and soak it all in. This was going to be a great trip!

*Westfalia rentals on Maui available through Aloha Campers 

*If ‘van camping’ on Maui, skip Olowalu. You can’t park anywhere near the beach. The tent camping is much more inviting here. We opted to not ‘pay’ for the experience of spending an overnight in their parking lot.