“Hurricanes and broken planes and fire trucks on the runway…”
(I believe I just wrote the chorus to a new song)

Note: All pictures are during the Kaulana fiasco. The weather was still not that bad at this time.

So what took me so long to get my New Years reflections article posted?  Well if I can help it, I’d like to have a topic to write about. If I have to write a column about some sort of nonsense, I’d like to be inspired somewhat.  I thought by the end of my New Years Eve cocktail cruise I’d have a story.  Little did I know that it would take a weeks long struggle and countless strings of now the famous “Erik’s bad luck” to complete my inspiration.  Let’s flash back to New Years Eve; 6:00am…

I wake up as Captain Erik for my first part of the day more excited than usual.  I was scheduled to drive a charter on the “Shooting Star Scarab”, my bosses 34’, 50knot, yellow speed boat that formerly carried the likes of Pam Anderson and her two friends on the epic world class TV series “Baywatch” (yes that boat).  Being a flashy boat, we usually get some flashy customers.  Today’s charter was to take Jim Carrey out diving.  There are few celebrities I find interesting enough to want to meet and Jim’s at the top of my list.  Well… 6:00am and it raining cats and dogs in Lahaina.  Charter cancelled.  (For those of you not familiar with Lahaina it never rains in Lahaina). 
     No sooner than we officially cancel the charter, it of course stops raining as expected but no worries, Jim Carrey rescheduled for Friday.  “So you’re telling me there’s a chance…”  By 5:00pm I’m now the Whaleshark aboard the Kaulana for my 2 back-to-back cruises that make up New Years Eve.  What can I say?  Maui County is way too cheap for fireworks so the whole night is relatively uneventful, except of course for the guy whose savior I offended with the edited version of “Tourist Town Bar”.  (If there’s one night to loosen the hell up…)
    6:00am Thursday morning came early as I had another charter.   This time the weather held off. Well, it held off until I was fifteen miles out of Lahaina and I had all my snorkelers in the water.  Then the Noah’s Ark rain started.  Not a lot of people know you can get hypothermia in Maui, but the people on my raft sure as hell know now.  The 6-7’ seas made the ride back crappy and slow.  Yes, they were as cold and miserable as a tourist could be.  Back in the harbor, cold, and wet, I looked forward to going home.  That is until I was flagged down in the harbor by the office girl of the Scotch Mist sailboat.  It would seem that the Scotch Mist was broken down with 17 passengers onboard somewhere offshore of the Hyatt in Kaanapali.  They didn’t know where exactly of course because the rain had now reduced visibility to about 1000 feet.  Well before I was going to send my crew and I out into that cold wet search, a couple of cranberry kamikazes were in order (for medicinal purposes of course), and then out into the rain we went.  When the boat finally emerged from the fog, all we could see were 17 thoroughly soaked-to-the-ass people.  The youngest an infant, the oldest about 117 (A.D.).  All in all they looked horribly miserable yet surprisingly happy to see me.  All aboard and we were back underway to the harbor.  Upon arrival it was determined that I had to go out and tow the boat back to shore.  So with 2 more cranberry kamikazes to warm the soul, it was back on the water we went.  All said and done, after a hair-raising tow through the channel markers we got the 65’ sailboat back into her slip safe and sound.  As far as I was concerned the day was over.  In celebration of a job well done, and for breakfast, it was up to the Whales Tale for some double bloody Marys and Vodka Martinis.   It’s now 12:30pm (not am) and thoroughly inebriated I head to the harbor to get my bike and go home.  On a chance meeting I run into my harbor buddy Fisherman-Ryan who offers to buy me a beer (long time no see) and it’s off to the boat we go. 
     3 sips into my beer and it’s at this time that all holy hell breaks loose.  The wind kicks to somewhere between 40-50 knots, the ocean gets enormous and turns into this brown awful mess.  If you were offshore at this time you were busy running away from the 5 or 6 enormous waterspouts that materialized out of nowhere and make you wonder if your $100 for a day of fishing is worth it all.  As we stood there hanging on (We’re in the harbor remember) I look out to see the Kaulana (the cocktail boat I earn my living on) drifting sideways through the anchorage outside the harbor heading for the same goddamn piece of reef that my boat (see: Erik’s Bad Luck - Tales from the Whaleshark) went aground on 4 years earlier.  I’m about to lose 1-2 months income in the next 5 minutes, so I run barefoot down the dock as fast as my drunk ass can and jump onto the ocean raft I captain (Erik’s note: this boat was built as a rescue boat for the police / fire dept.  It’s not a “raft” in the traditional sense).  No sooner than I get the engines started, my two fisherman buddies are onboard untying the lines and we’re off.  I turn the corner of the harbor into the open ocean and am immediately greeted with 8-10’ breaking swells in the harbor channel.  By breaking I mean surfable by very capable surfers.  It’s all I can do to keep the boat between the markers.  I make it out to the Kaulana a minute too late and get to watch as the boat first impacts the coral with a horrifying crunch.  When the boat stopped, the waves that hit it made a spray that shot over 40’in the air.  It was sickening to see but we knew there was nothing else we could do.  We tried.  At the same time, every charter boat had its head Captains and crew headed out into the storm in little dingies to man and secure their boats lest they suffer the same fate.  We stayed out in the maelstrom a little bit longer to make sure all the boys in the little boats made it (yes it was that bad).  After 15 minutes or so we called it over and headed back into the harbor but not before surfing the 10’ swells dangerously close to the big rock jetty at the entrance. 
     When we pulled into the harbor, I turned the boat around just to get another look at the water and to make sure one more time that no one else was out there in any trouble.  Ryan and I commented on how we have never seen anything like this ever in Lahaina and turned the boat around once again to head for the slip.  As we approached the slip, the fishing boat “Start Me Up” raced by us and charged headlong in to that water.  We watched as their boat rose from sea level to about 14’ above sea level, paused, and crashed down on the other side.  Scary.  It was then that we noticed that the fishing boat “Islander 2” had broken its mooring and was headed for the same place.   I turned the boat around again (a bit to the dismay of myself and my friends, but that’s just what you do) and charged through the channel entrance again.  We got out next to “Start Me Up” who was now with the disabled boat and got within yelling distance of their crew (by yelling distance I mean 15’, the wind was howling so loud) and heard that another Captain, Captain Jimmy was on his way out in a dinghy to get the I-2 started (Jimmy was former crew on the Islander and knew how to run the boat).  Immediately turned the boat around and headed back to the harbor.  I busted through the entrance again and met Jimmy’s dinghy as they turned the corner to head back out.  Jimmy jumped aboard and I came about one more time into the weather.  It was when I hit the throttles that all four of us on the boat realized we could very well be in very big trouble. As I stand (6’1”) 3’ above the water, I stared at waves coming at us that were over my antennas on top of my helm.  The boat rose like I’ve never seen it do before and all we could do was hang on.  This was it.  Up and Up and Up and backwards we went!  We poked through the top and we were outside the channel markers effectively over open reef.   I just slammed the throttle to the helm and off we went over the next and the next and the next; wave after wave.  Seriously, it had all of us scared shitless, though no one would have said anything.
    Past the harbor entrance we were in open water (Lahaina Roadstead) off to the Islander.  When we got there, the Start Me Up’s crew was in the water, clinging desperately to the Islander’s bow mooring.  I pulled the raft in as close as I dared, (the islander II was only in about 5 feet of water with 14’ waves breaking down on it.  Jimmy donned a lifejacket (no macho bullshit here, this was pretty scary) and it was only before I got to within 10’ of the Islander that I gave him the go.  Jimmy jumped in and swam like a bastard.  When I say swam like a bastard, that’s just what he did.  There was no playing.  Jimmy got to the boat and tried to climb aboard.  I could only look behind me for swell and that’s when I got worried.  I was looking back at some waves that seemed surreal.  These waves were f$#%ing huge.  I yelled “Jimmy!  Big Set!”  He turned and saw it coming.  Somehow by the grace of god Jimmy was literally thrown into the back of the boat.  While he worked on the engines, we now had to take care of the other boat’s crew who had now been in the water for at least 20 minutes. We managed to get a lifejacket around him and pull him off, Jimmy fired up one engine and got the boat clear before she hit, and everyone of our sorry asses made it into the harbor with out a scratch.  A job well done that some people just will never understand.
    Well it’s now 5:00pm and I have to go on stage in an hour.  No sooner do I get home than the Whales Tale calls me to let me know that my show has been cancelled because the rain was blowing sideways and soaked the entire restaurant. I just smiled.  I have now been soaking and cold to the bone for the greater part of 10 hours and the loss of the performance is a blessing.  I turn on the hot water in the tub, and just about scream when the warm water touches my legs.  It felt kind of like defrosting frostbite.  10 minutes later it’s ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  And this is just the beginning...
               So I now wake up Friday morning and it is of course still pouring rain.  Of course we have to cancel Jim Carrey’s private dive charter with yours truly yet again.  Well the forecast  doesn’t look good for the next couple of days so I say screw it.  No boat charters, the cocktail cruise boat is on the reef, and I’m not singing until Monday night.  I’ll get on a plane to LA for the weekend and see Tatiana (who happens to be there for the week).  Well we manage to get a flight back on Monday morning but it looks like I’ll have to fly standby to get there.  I’ve had decent luck in the past with standby so I give it a shot. To my amazement, I’m able to get on the plane and have a great weekend.  Well, that is until the pilot comes on the microphone an hour and forty minutes into the flight and says we have turned around as we have an engine problem and will be returning… to Oahu.  Of course I don’t live in Oahu. As we approach the airport on one engine (it had apparently been shut down) and dumping fuel, I notice the runway lined with fire trucks brilliantly displaying their flashing lights.  But we hit the ground before anyone seemed to notice and soon came to a stop.  After spending an hour on the plane at the gate, we de-plane and spend another hour at the gate.  Well most people did.  A handful of us walked down to the bar to begin our first day with Larry the bartender. The airline eventually informs us that our plane is reeeeally broken and will take the rest of the night to repair.  So they send the 255 of us downstairs to get on one of the 5 buses that “will be there shortly”.  2 and 1/2 hours later we get to the Ala Moana Hotel which just happens to be a few hundred yards from Ala Wai harbor.   Sure put me within walking distance of the harbor pub, the only place on the entire island I know everyone!  As we get to the hotel there are 254 people in line in front of me waiting to check in.  What’s one to do?  So I did what I would do and gave my bag to the valet and headed out in the rain to the harbor.  Lets just say that the next day came quickly and I’m now standing in a line at the airport waiting to get checked in again.  Seems the airport wasn’t quite ready for the flight so we wait… For four hours! (Unbeknownst to me, Jim Carrey was now stepping onto the boat I was scheduled to drive but with another Captain).  We get through the check in line only to be put in another line to get our complimentary tickets (ok so not all bad, we did get to walk away w/ free round trip anywhere tickets.  As I get my ticket, the bonehead at the counter has the balls to tell me to hurry up because the plane is boarding!  I was thinking to myself, “Dude! How do you walk with heuvos so big!”  And for a girl!  Well I run to the magazine stand for some new material, run to the bar to see Larry for the second time and then walk briskly to the gate where I notice a guy outside smoking a cigarette (he was on my flight).  I slow down and ask “I guess we haven’t started boarding yet?”  He looks at me like I’m the stupid one and just says, “Plane’s broke again”.  I’m sure at this point that he isn’t talking about my plane and I continue to the gate where 253 other people are standing.  The lady at the counter says they’ll know more in an hour.  So now I go back to see my old friend Larry at Stinger Ray’s and notice the same group of fellas as the day before doing the same thing.
      It’s all I can do to keep from laughing as they wisk us back to the hotel for our second day on Oahu.  It must have been quite a night the night before, because when I walked into the penthouse bar the entire band knew my name.  “Was I famous or merely infamous?” I thought to myself.  Second verse same as the first and it was tomorrow.  I was standing in that same damn line at that same damn airport, talking to those same damn people, and wearing my same damn clothes.  The only difference was that I was out of money and had somehow lost my credit card last night. I was now starting to get slightly annoyed with the whole scenario.  Got my second round trip ticket, bought another magazine, and made my fourth visit with Larry.  This day however our plane actually took off from Oahu and landed in LA finally.  There was only one problem.  It was 11pm in LA on Sunday night and my return ticket was for 8am the next morning.  All I knew was that I was not getting on another plane that Monday morning come hell or high water.
     All said and done I got back to Maui that Thursday safe and sound (maybe a little rough around the edges).  Lost a bunch of Captain shifts including the one with Jim Carrey, lost 2 months worth of work on the Kaulana, missed a show at the Whales tale, blew all my money, and lost a credit card (little over a thousand or so bucks all said and done).  Erik’s bad luck?  Yes it comes and goes from time to time but I’ll be recovering from this one for a while.  But what’re you gonna do?  It’s just another shitty day in paradise!
                                        Aloha!