“The entire Clark family on
one island? Ok, I need to know two things. Where’s the police station and where’s
the hospital?”
I muttered these words to myself as we stepped off the plane
in Oahu Hawaii
last week. I love my brother and sisters a lot but let’s be honest; we put the “fun”
in dysfunctional.
There were five of us growing up in a small house in a small
desert town in Southeast Arizona . Our family
could not afford to do things with all of us so it would become a competition.
If my mom was going 30 miles to the nearest big town she could only take one
or, at the most, two of us. So the game began. The game was to do whatever it
took to call attention to ourselves, or negative attention to the others.
This pattern has followed us our whole lives. We now live
our lives trying to call attention to ourselves. Fortunately for me I have a
wife that loves me and doesn’t mind feeding my ego and showering me with
attention.
So began a week full of selfies and craziness to get
attention from each other. It was tremendously fun and quite a bonding
experience between us all.
We actually didn’t need the police or the hospital but we
did have a few close calls.
Chinamans hat:
My incredibly smart and beautiful wife found, on the
internet, an island just a few hundred yards off the east coast of Oahu . It was only minutes away from where we were
staying. Supposedly, you can wade out to this island during low tide and
explore it and come back before high tide arrives. They said the low tide
waters should only be waist deep at the highest point and ankle deep in some
parts.
My brother checked the tide conditions (again, on the
internet) and we learned that low tide would be at 9:00 am. So we set out to
WADE out to this island at 7:30 and that would give us ample time to get there,
explore and get back. The internet had said that if we did not come back during
low tide the journey would be quite treacherous.
Well… we did not take into account the hurricane that had
just passed through the day before. We began our journey to wade across to the
island. I decided to take my boogey board that I had purchased the night before
just in case. Right away I knew something was amiss. The water quickly came up
to my neck.
My brother and one of my sisters were already ahead of me
and was swimming. My wife and I chose to stay together and use my boogey board
as a flotation device to help get us through the waters that was over our heads.
Several times my wife told me we should turn back but, much like everything in
my life, once we had started I could not turn back.
I could drag this story out for a long time with edge of
your seat details but the highlights are: Large waves, deep waters and…MAN OF
WAR! One of my sisters got stung by a Portuguese man of war on the swim to the
island. She had some gnarly looking welts from it.
On the way back across another sister got hit by a man of
war! She panicked and screamed for help.
I was the only one close to her. I set off swimming towards her thinking, “I’m
swimming INTO a group of these things! Who does that?!” Well, fortunately my
sister freed herself from the man of war and continued toward the shore. I
turned and went around them.
The Chinamans Hat island was beautiful though and, as far as
I am concerned, well worth the hazards of getting there (but I wasn’t stung by
the man of war).
The North Shore of Oahu is famous for large waves. Even
larger after a hurricane but that didn’t stop the Clark
clan from jumping in head first! The waves were big! They were breaking really
close to the shore. We were standing in the water and the wave would come and
pick us up and slam us right into the sand! We called this fun!
After a few minutes of getting beat up by waves and sand the
life guard made a general announcement to everyone about how the waves are big
and breaking close to the shore and novice surfers and swimmers should avoid
the water at this time. I’m pretty sure he was directing that last part towards
us.
Anyway, my brother-in-law got slammed into the beach and it
hurt… a lot! He came up from the surf, covered in sand, staggered to the beach
and sat down. He was zoned out and covered in sand. He just sat there. When
asked if he was ok he replied, “I’m done!” And, he was. Luckily he was not
seriously hurt but he felt it for a couple days.
Seasickness:
We went on a dinner cruise one fateful evening. Now I have
always known that I get motion sickness pretty easy. Well… it runs in the
family! Three of us got pretty ill on the dinner cruise. I have dealt with this
before so I knew to go above deck and just sit and breathe in the fresh air.
This meant I spent $65.00 to sit above deck and be sick while everyone else
enjoyed the buffet and show but I was ok with that!
Three of us are so sick in this picture
My sister was not so lucky! She became violently ill and had
a pretty rough time. I am sure the employees that had to clean up after her had
a rough time too... Sorry about that…
All in all I had a fabulous time and highly recommend both a Hawaiian vacation and a get away with all your siblings. It is easy to drift apart over the years and enjoying something like this together will bring you back together. I realized, while on this trip, how much I love these dysfunctional people.
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