Come sail away

Whew! Busy days here. Back to work for me, the usual school days for the boys, and lots of homework for our first grader at night. Add a couple of field trips and a lost baby tooth (literally lost on the school bus!) and I'm happy it's the weekend over here.
Robbie is officially a Tiger Cub (Boy Scout) and we attended the annual Raingutter Regatta for his pack earlier this week. The boys made their own boats out of supplied kits and raced them. One creative mom also made matching cupcakes for post-race snacks. I was impressed! Also concerned. She sets the bar pretty high for the rest of us with a designated snack day is still to come.

Proof!

Well, thanks to the fine journalists here on Oahu, we now have the near-complete White Plains shark bite story. Vindication for the paddler...no longer an "alleged" event! Still a little troublesome is the time gap from when the attack happened and when they actually closed the beach, but I'll let that go. And I guess we will just have to laugh off the initial report that the shark took off with the board. (Are we a human telephone experiment over here or what?)
Here is the scoop from Monday's Star Advertiser:
Federal lifeguards reopened Nimitz Beach this morning after a shark attack damaged a surfer's board on Sunday. The incident happened about noon Sunday as a surfer was paddling on a 10-foot board about 50 yards from shore, according to Ocean Safety personnel.
The shark, of an unreported size and type, bit the rear of the board, missing the man's foot, an Ocean Safety employee said. The man on the surfboard paddled back to shore unhurt. A second unconfirmed sighting was reported about 2:40 p.m. Sunday.
State and federal officials put up warning signs and closed the beach Sunday.
Here's a link to a picture of the board plus the story of what happened in the surfer's own words (local news video).

Weekend water wrap-up

It is a very sad holiday weekend around Hawaiian waters, with a little strange thrown in the mix as well. It started Saturday with reports of two Schofield soldiers drowning after being swept up in currents around Chinaman's Hat. Next a diver drowned off the Waianae coast, plus a freak accident during an organized Maui to Lanai swim left a swimmer critically injured. None of this I would have even been aware of had we not attempted to go to White Plains yesterday afternoon.
We arrived around 4:20 to the sight of a lot of people leaving. It was late in the day and it wasn’t particularly too hot nor too sunny, so seeing families and surfers packing it up in the parking lot and heading home didn’t seem unusual. We pulled in next to one such family pulling out. As we opened the doors and started to unbuckle the kids, they told us the beach was closed due to a shark warning. Whhaaat? Tell us more! Well, they tried and were very kind as we peppered them with questions they didn’t quite know the answers to either. What we gathered was at some point earlier in the day a shark had taken a bite out of a surfer’s board. No known injuries to the surfer, but they hadn’t seen the board either. Not sure why it took lifeguards so long to close the beach, but they finally made the call and asked everyone to get out of the water sometime around 4:00 PM. When we listened, we could hear the sirens wailing, sending the “get out” sign. So we got back in the car and drove off to KoOlina instead. When we got there…jelly fish warning! A first on Leeward beaches for us. Sure, they are regular occurrences in Waikiki, but KoOlina? Well, Lagoon 4 was packed so clearly no one was too worried. Noel and the boys got in and had fun in the water and no one saw a thing.
After KoOlina we hosed everyone off and headed to dinner. While waiting for our meals, we checked out various local news outlets for the shark story and stumbled on all the other bad news from around the island. It was interesting about the shark event - every web story used either “alleged” or “apparent” to describe the shark attack. Seems it was a paddle boarder who was attacked, and it was reported that the shark became entangled in the board’s leash and swam off with the board attached. So the paddle boarder had no physical proof of the attack and is left with a story of an “apparent” attack. Escaped injury, yes, but no trophy for the man cave either. Because you know if you are a boarder and a shark takes a big bite out of your board that is going up on display in the garage!