• Saving a life with the Rescue Tube • Unpleasant ferry crossings of yesteryear Saving a life with the Rescue Tube Thanks for publishing the fabulous news that a 16-year-old visitor saved his father’s life at Larsen’s Beach with a Rescue Tube.
• Saving a life with the Rescue Tube • Unpleasant ferry crossings of yesteryear
Saving a life with the Rescue Tube
Thanks for publishing the fabulous news that a 16-year-old visitor saved his father’s life at Larsen’s Beach with a Rescue Tube. What a blessing.
What a blessing it also is that one man named John Tyler Cragg started putting Rescue Tubes on Kauai’s beaches in 2008, first funding it out of his own pocket, then with a donation from the Rotary Club of Hanalei Bay.
We are also blessed that emergency room physician Dr. Monty Downs (who is also president of the Kauai Lifeguard Association) has worked tirelessly to multiply the number of Rescue Tubes on Kauai and make the life-saving devices a household word.
And mahalo to members of the Rotary Club of Kapaa who were the driving force behind the water safety video that plays at the airport for everyone to see. (That’s how the 16-year-old visitor said he learned how to use a Rescue Tube.)
This goes to show that we can all make a difference — a tremendous one when we all work together.
At least 50 more Rescue Tubes are still needed on Kauai. They cost only $90 installed. Donations can be made at www.kauailifeguards.org.
Lincoln Gill, Wailua Homesteads
Unpleasant ferry crossings of yesteryear
Here we go again.
I’d like to spend a moment or two on the Superferry. I’ve lived on Kauai for 45 years and sailed our channels many, many times. The Kaiwi Channel between Oahu and Maui. The Ka’ie’ie Waho Channel between here and Oahu. Been seasick too many times to count and that was in an open boat. I could sit on deck and throw up.
“Just a note that the channels between the Hawaiian Islands are the worst in the world and great care and planning is necessary for a safe sail,” was a quote from that time in 2005.
My guess would be that those who support this ferry idea have never sailed or motored or kayaked or canoed or dipped a toe in any of these channels.
Our channel, Ka’ie’ie, other than the Alenuihaha Channel — great billows smashing—it is one of the fiercest channels in the state. I’ve never sailed the billows — which racing yachtsman called, “Ali as in jolly, Nui as in phooey, Ha Ha as in crutch”— but I’ve been out in the middle of Ka’ie’ie when it reared up. Out of nowhere. Twenty-five foot seas and winds like spooky, wild horses on a rampage. If my husband had not been an excellent yachtsman, we’d have sunk, never to have been heard from again.
I’d like to talk structure. The Superferry is nothing but a dolled-up troop transport. It also comes in handy to move Stryker tanks, and we need some of those in Waimea to protect us.
This vessel is completely enclosed. One is locked in a space full of people, many of whom are first timers in the channel and will be vomiting. There will be vomiting, and vomiting is catching in an enclosed area. You can’t escape. There’s nowhere to go. Should a fellow passenger vomit on your shoes or in your lap it’s not going to make for a pleasant three-hour journey. Even if you’ve taken seasick pills.
Passengers on a voyage from Oahu to Maui called it the “barf barge.” The thing had to be scrubbed and scraped and stink refreshed after docking before any one could make another voyage. Most passengers refused ever to board again. They flew back home and waited for their cars to return.
We need a ferry. A slow boat from island to island. With an open deck. Maybe cabins. A dining room and bar. No cars. Or troops. Or Strykers. How do you think people got island to island before there were planes?
Great tourist attraction. Think about it.
Bettejo Dux, Kalaheo
