John Mee – Some programmer in Sydney

December 30, 1992
North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii

Hi Guys,

I suppose its about time I got around to writing about Hawaii. Especially now that I’ve decided when I’m leaving. The weirdest thing here is that I keep having to remind myself that I’m having great fun. It doesn’t always feel like it, but I know I’ll look back and say “those were the days”. It hadn’t occured to me before but now that I think about it, its not all that different to when I was living in Newport. The surf is better, but still just across the road; the surf is crowded; the supermarket is just down the road; I share a room with some-one not entirely unlike Rhonda. The only problem is the expense.

I booked a ticket today which should see me fly to Seattle on Jan 7th. That means I’ll have spent 7 weeks here. I’ve done that by working here at the backpackers. The routine is to get up about 8am. I have one building to clean so I usually start about 8:30. What I do is change sheets, sweep and mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, take out the garbage, and chase people up to do their dishes – that sort of thing. If you do it all properly it does take a good 3 hours, so I can usually be finished by about 11:30. In return I get to stay in the staff hut for nothing. If I work extra hours then they pay me $5/hr. I’ve been a little slow to catch on, but apparently the go is to claim a few extra hours every week, regardless of whether you did them or not, which provides a little extra spending money.

A much easier way to make money is to use the vans to take trips. The one’s I’ve been doing is in to Rosie’s – a mexican restaurant in Haleiwa, the nearest town, Pizza Hut or down to the Turtle Bay Hilton – the only hotel on the North Shore. This surprised me, but the North Shore is really just a country town. Foodland is the only supermarket – and alledgedly the most expensive supermarket in the U.S. aside from two small ones in Haleiwa. Haleiwa is just a spread out collection of small shops – nothing over one story high. Paradoxically whilst its pretty much unpopulated and not touristy, its still pretty hard to find locals – or rather people who have been here since birth. No shortage of people here for a year or two.

As I was saying by charging people for a lift in the “all-you-can-eats” at Rosies or Pizza Hut or whatever, provided you put petrol in the van the driver keeps the money paid for transport somewhere between $10-$50. Other ways to make money are to feed people. For a while there I was having all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts where I charged $2 and made people pancakes. Unfortunately another guy here already has a monopoly on the best money maker here. For about 3 hours work Pete does an all-you-can-eat spagetti night. At $4 each he can profit about $50-$60 every week. He’s even got it down to a fine art of running out at strategic times and making more, then people have to wait for more spagetti to cook. Whilst waiting they get distracted, or think that maybe they don’t really want that 3rd plate, or just can’t be bothered waiting and all generally loose their appetite. He’s also found the perfect plates – small but don’t look too small. All terribly devious and don’t worry there’ll be a new batch of turkeys here next week.

It’s difficult to remain friendly towards everyone. There are so many slobs, whingers, and freeloaders come through it gives you the shits. I imagine most of the compaining comes from people travelling from Australia/New Zealand, where everything was a third the price and double the standard. The slobs are mainly people who’ve lived at home with parents and haven’t had to clean up after themselves. The rest of the distastefuls are just people who don’t care. They know they won’t be here very long and don’t care what mess or attitude they leave behind. You get the impression they do it constantly, always moving on just in time. Still there’s a few very pleasant people come through but they never stay very long.

Going back to money. Over in Kauai people are making their fortunes in the rebuilding after Hurricane Iniki. Apparently its not quite as flat as Darwin was, but pretty close to it. Streams of guys are going over for labouring, roofing, plumbing, electricians – all the trades, even if you don’t have one appartently you learn it quick enough. People with no experience are getting $18/hr. Generally they live in the house they are working on, or in a tent, and have nothing to spend their money on. US$400/day is common. Saving well over $1500/week is normal. Guys who are going over on their last pennies without a care in the world are coming back talking about putting a deposit on a house.

The surf. It was only a matter of time wasn’t it. Well I’ve been waiting all this time for some REAL hawaiian surf, but it has never arrived. In the first month somewhere there was 12-15ft Waimea. Big, but nothing more impressive than I’ve seen before. In the Honolulu papers they were calling it 20ft, but no-one here believes that. In general the surf has been lousy, totally lousy. At first it was good. 6-8ft and offshore, not as good as Uluwatu was when I left Indonesia, but still excellent. Since then we had 2 north swells which are the wrong direction, and almost dead flat. To top it off the last week it has been onshore wind. For non-surfers it has rained every day, with little exception. Still its never cold and since its winter here, never too hot.

Whilst talking about waves I can see the difference now that a continental shelf makes. At home a 2 metre swell at sea means maybe 1/2m surf at the beach. Here a 2 metre swell is 2 metre surf. At first I couldn’t really notice the difference in the speed the waves come in, but I realise now how much harder you do have to paddle. I guess I just thought it was the extra crowds before. And yes you do need a bigger board – mainly just to paddle on, beat the rest of the crowd and manage that first bottom turn. I bought a 6’8 from a guy who was leaving for $50 – great board – and was using it always when the surf was good. When the contests were on, you couldn’t even look at the surf without seeing countless pro surfers. They might still be around, but the surf has been shit for weeks now so I don’t know.

My favourite spots would be:

1. Rocky Point – a long shallow right hand barrel (Yes I pulled in and made it out)
2. Sunset – which is always bigger than anywhere else, very crowded, but bearable, and not as dangerous (shallow)
3. Velzyland – supposedly a heavy local spot, but there were always plenty of “haoles” around, and it was always pretty obvious who to avoid.