Note: Read "Legends of My Falls," "One Flew Over the Basement Stairs," "Snow White Falling on Cedar," "Down, Down and Away," "The Accidental Tourist," "The Latte Show," "Up the Downed Suitcase," "Hawaii K-O," "Things That Go Bump in the Night," "Pop Goes the Damsel," "Not-So-Secret Garden," "Slip Slidin Away," "Brokeknee Mountain" and "California Texting" before reading this post.
I once blogged about my 'other blog,' a weekly family thing I started seven years ago this month when my husband and I moved from Hawaii to Virginia. Apparently I never blogged in my family blog about this BVG blog. My three grown children were just here for a fantastic week of family fun (more on that later), and on Sunday a lot of friends were in and out catching up on old times. Elletu and j were both here. (Cool would have been, but she never got my text as she was out working in her yard all day.) Elletu's daughter and her two girls came too. Elletu's daughter and my son go way back. She was 17 months old at our first BVG picnic, he was 20 months old. They did preschool together, but then Elletu's family left Bethel Valley Lane and moved out to Manchester, putting Elletu's children in a different school. Still, I got a picture of the two of them at their high school graduation in 1998, and then we moved away to Hawaii. Sunday was their first time to see each other in 16 years, and yet it seemed like they never skipped a beat. In the course of their conversation, my son found out about this blog. He was surprised I have never clued him and his siblings in about it. In retrospect, that does seem silly. After all, they are BVGO's! (Note to my children, should they read this blog post: You are a Bethel Valley Girl Offspring, or, a BVGO. Be proud of that heritage!)
So Sunday we sat there discussing this blog with Elletu, and specifically my recent series, Legends of My Falls. I told my son I wrote about my Top Twelve Falls, and he right away mentioned one that didn't even make my list! In fact, to be honest, I hadn't even thought of it, but once he mentioned it, the thoughts of all of that blood came back to me. And the fact that I became shark bait.
The place was Goat Island, on Oahu's North Shore. It was a family favorite but something that was only accessible a certain part of the year when the current and waves were not too formidable. This is an island you wade out to, but I use the word 'wade' loosely. Mostly you jump with sideways swells that plop you down, leaving you unstable. Part of the time you swim, and the other part of the time you actually do wade. If you make it out to Goat Island, it's a real treat because it is part bird sanctuary, part pristine white sand beach where you often see no one else.
To get to Goat Island you are walking on jagged coral, so you must wear some sort of rubber things on your feet. I wore aqua socks. You can't carry much with you, if anything at all, especially towels because you keep getting inundated with water. The water is powerful, and sometimes it knocks you off your feet. That's what happened to me, I got knocked over by a powerful wave, and in the process I got nasty jagged cuts on my legs from the coral. The blood was profuse, and all we could do was wash it off with the salt water. We certainly didn't have Now that my son has brought the memory back to me, I can say that it was a rather dramatic, bloody fall, and it did hurt a lot, and I was a mess. I think that's the only time my older son has seen me fall. My daughter was there for the Boston Steam Party (see The Accidental Tourist).
But in the grand scheme of things---mainly, my falls---the Goat Island fall was actually a lesser one. Would I like to do it again? Not BLOODY likely.
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