Thursday

Pineapple Park is a 60s era motel, all low eaves and vertical siding.  It is now a hostel and a place to rent surf and swim equipment, managed by a tiny Hawaiian woman with an even tinier dog.  You see the dog first, clicking out from its spot under the counter.  The walls are covered with advice, maps, rate schedules and photos of happy couples and families.  The dog looks up at you as if asking for your approval.  I give it to him and the woman pads out from some back storeroom and tells me that he generally barks loudly at strangers.  I just smile and say "Oh yeah?"  It must be my lost look.

The woman finds Meredith's equipment no problem, but she looks at my feet and tells me that I must take off my shoes.  They, the feet, are long and narrow, to be sure.  The fins she brings out are ridiculous.  I see them and think of "Sea Hunt" with Lloyd Bridges.  I do not see myself in them.  I think even then I determine not to use them.  I would regret it later, but only slightly.  She tells us to be careful as we walk out the door.  We load the stuff in the trunk.

The online listing Meredith found describes Kahaluu Beach Park as a good choice for novice snorkelers.  From a distance it seems so, but reality soon intrudes.  There's a moment of lightness when we see each other in our masks.  We don't put on the fins.  That would just be too much.

We study the beach.  We realize with a growing discomfort that there is no sand at all, just head-sized black cobble.  Farther out, maybe as close as a few yards, is a blurry line of yellow.  But a yard is as good as a mile when you have to get into the water past your shoulders, and you have to get in on the rocks.

And when we get in, everything changes for Meredith.  The mask feels like a device to drown her and the water pushes her around roughly like a bully at an open-air concert.  She tries to find a place to stand and the rocks gouge and scrape her feet.  The waves pull her out gently, then push her head-first toward the rocks.  I do my best to calm her, take her by the hand and lead her to deeper water.  Finally we finish fiddling with the masks and swim with our faces under.

It's paradise, with whipping and drifting schools of yellow tangs, elongated triggerfish and nameless silver fingerlings, shimmering like evening gowns.  The white and ivory reticulations of coral and stone harbor deep violet urchins, orange urchins with spines like thick pencils, and in the bigger holes pink brain coral.  I keep a hold of Meredith.  It's hard to stay in that safe harbor between the shallows and the drop-off further out.  After a time I decide to swim to deeper water; by now Meredith can make it on her own, though we stay within a few feet of each other.  She signals to me under the water; the gesture is urgent, but not panicked.  Her face, though, is strained.  It's time to go in.

Coming in is much tougher than anything we'd done so far.  Meredith is tired from fighting the current and the waves push her roughly into the rocks.  She makes several attempts-- with my help-- to pull out of the undertow to stand and wade through the rattling cobbles.  At one point the lifeguard even steps out of his shack, waiting.  The third time she manages to break free and we wade in.  I find a place to sit on the seawall and hold the towel around her and stroke her hair.  My knee smarts.  It's bleeding.  She murmurs something about taking care of it and I tell her it's fine.  I never should have taken you out there, I say.  She leans her head on my shoulder and I stroke her hair.  I curse myself for laughing off the fins.  They could have saved us a lot of grief.  But they also could have jammed in the rocks; who knows?  Meredith's hair smells good, like heat and salt and a little shampoo.  Her breathing slows.  The sun warms us.