Hitchhiking...Or Not

Hapuna beach is about 8 miles from Kawaihae. Some of us boys decided to go one day. It is on the way to Kailua-Kona so we got a ride with someone going to town and we were just going to walk back. We had boogie boards and had a great day catching waves. As we were walking back, it started to rain. But it wasn’t just a sprinkle, it was a tropical downpour.

Of course, we had already been wet from being in the water so it wasn’t going to kill us. But the rain was so hard, it hurt. And even though we were in Hawaii, it made us cold. We had a dilemma. The ship rules forbid hitchhiking because of the danger it posed. And even if we were allowed, who was going to pick up soaking-wet boys with boogie boards? Also, there is not a whole lot of traffic on that section of that road. 

Some people are wired to be rule-breakers. I’m not. I believe most rules have been made with good reason, usually to protect people from others or themselves. But in this case we were desperate.

We decided that if we didn’t put our thumbs out, we wouldn’t technically be hitchhiking. When a car came along, we would just stand there, stare at the car and look miserable. It worked! Unfortunately, the person that stopped only had room for one. But a little while later, what should come along but a bus! We tried our strategy and it worked again!

He gave us a ride for a few miles but at the end of the road the bus had to go right and we were going left. We thanked the driver profusely and got off. It was still raining but the road to the ship was on a downward slope. Since there was plenty of rainwater running down the road, we decided to see if we could ride our boogie boards. It didn’t work too well but it made the rest of the journey at least a little fun.

On the last day we were in Kona, the university put on a big party down at the Old Airport for anyone who wanted to come from the ship. Samuel and I went but we weren’t ready to leave when the last van went back to the ship. Somehow, we thought we had worked out some other means of transportation. It never materialized and we were in trouble. The ship was leaving early the next morning for the other side of the island and we had to be back that night.

This time we decided this was such a desperate situation that we had to break the rules against hitchhiking. We walked up to Kaahumanu Highway which is the main road up the Kona coast. Most of the traffic on that road runs from town to the airport about 8 miles away but there are also people coming and going to the resort hotels further up the coast. Hapuna Beach is past the resorts and Kawaihae, further still.

We got a ride pretty easily with someone going to the airport. We were encouraged as they dropped us on the main highway before they turned into the airport. Then we waited and waited and waited. It was now getting dark and we had to figure out what we were going to do. We decided that we would have to hitchhike back to town, find somewhere to stay and try to find some means of transportation very early in the morning.

We crossed the road to begin again and got a ride. The people who picked us up were staying in one of the resorts up the coast and were coming into town for dinner. We told them our sob story and amazingly, they solved our problem. They offered to not only take us to dinner with them (which was a treat in itself for us) but to also drive us back to the ship before they went back to their resort! We had been praying for God to help us and I still wonder if these people were actually angels in disguise. I’m sure we got into trouble for the whole escapade but we were just so relieved to be back that the trouble was miniscule compared to our ordeal.

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