Calico Pennants Read Online Free PDF Page B

unexpected time and place. He was making some rather eccentric friends here in Hawaii—not the safe sort of relationships to which he was accustomed. Kamehaloha Kong, Song Cajudoy, and Tamara Sly were colorful characters compared to his own thin-lined chiaroscuro, yet they seemed to accept him without condition.
    Sleepy-eyed and fifteen minutes late, Kamehaloha appeared on the wharf wearing a T-shirt, baggy shorts, and flip-flops. He hadn’t bothered to comb is overgrown hair, nor had he recently shaved. “Aloha, brother,” he said to Julian, and patted him on the back with his thick hand.
    “Aloha,” Julian responded.
    “Did the bank in San Diego send the cash?” the Hawaiian wanted to know.
    Julian held up the attaché and confirmed, “Sure thing.”
    “Song told me you invited Tamara Sly to go with us this morning,” he said.
    “I hope it’s okay,” said Julian.
    “It’s your voyage, brother.”
    “How far is it to Hilo?” Julian asked as they went on board.
    “About seventy-five miles, as the crow flies. It usually takes me two and a half to three hours, depending on the sea. I know it looks calm here in the harbor, but once we reach the Na Pali coast of the Big Island, there’s no way to know.”
    Immediately they began making preparations to leave. Kong instructed Julian in the particulars of how to fuel the engines and adjust the two finicky carburetors, as well as how to raise anchor and back out of the slip. Before they were ready to cast off, Tamara Sly came sauntering up the pier. Though it was not yet seven o’clock and the sun was still behind the mountains, she was wearing her bikini over-draped by a sarong, rubber-soled sandals, and a pair of Raybans. She carried only a cloth over-the-shoulder bag. “What a beautiful morning!” she said as she came on board.
    No less brightened by her presence, Julian thought. Not to mention his own revitalized fantasy. He bit his lower lip as she sat on deck, tossed her wavy, blond hair back, and crossed her slim legs.
    Kamehaloha coaxed the engines to life and called to Julian, “Take the head, sailor boy!”
    “Are you sure I should guide us out of the harbor?”
    “You gotta learn sometime, brother.”
    Of course Kamehaloha was right, and Julian took the helm.
    Slowly out of Lahaina Harbor they went in early morning: Julian Crosby, Kamehaloha Kong, and Tamara Sly. The water in the bay was calm, and Julian piloted the Scoundrel with the care of a new father handling his baby for the first time. Kamehaloha offered words of encouragement, as well as directions: “That’s it, brother. Take it slow and easy. Around the reef you go. Once we’re a few hundred yards offshore, you can open it up!”
    The engines rumbled and coughed up dirty exhaust, while the foamy wash splashed against the ship’s hull. At the head, in the captain’s chair, Julian felt curiously at home in this less than familiar part.
    Clearing the arc where the cruise ships were often moored, he pulled back on the throttle and felt the power of the twin inboards rise. His accumulated doubts and insecurities faded with the emergence of the tropical sun. And even before the deserted south shoreline of Maui was out of sight, the north shore of the Big Island, with its twin snow-capped, volcanic peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, came into view. Sheer, windswept cliffs mantled in the delicate hues of a verdant rain forest rose majestically from the tranquil sea. Great waves thundered against the rocky outcroppings and black sand beaches, ever changing the cast of the water from steely gray at its depths to marine blue near the reef, to an intense shade of aqua in the lagoons, and finally to a foamy froth as it washed on shore. Around the northern apex of the archipelago’s youngest island they sailed, past the wild and barely accessible Pololu Valley, along Hamakua Coast. There the ghosts and artifacts of Waipio Canyon offered stories of the ancient culture through one of its