Rude Adults and Respectful Kids

A few days ago I was awakened by a loud crash on the roof. I looked out the window to see an entire frond of our coconut tree lying on the ground, with several large coconuts still attached. Neil was on the roof, learning how to harvest coconuts. He had also harvested one of the branches on accident. (Picture below.) (The title of this post has nothing to do with Neil. This was just a funny experience.)

(Lauren, Neil, and Gigi are my roommates.)

 There is a pumpkin patch on Maui! Lauren and I went to see it. It was nice to have a little bit of fall.  The pumpkin patch is upcountry, which is much cooler than the beach. After the pumpkin patch, we drove through a tiny little town whose name I can't remember, and Lauren showed me the coffee shop where she sees Owen Wilson sometimes.  Have I mentioned that Owen Wilson lives on Maui? I haven't seen him. Supposedly he's off island shooting a movie right now.

Gigi said that he is kind of rude. One day she was walking to the grocery store, and she heard someone behind her yell "MOVE!" She jumped aside only to see Owen Wilson whizzing by on his bike. That is NOT the aloha spirit.  I was shocked to hear this since so far, everybody I've met on Maui has been really polite and helpful,  except some of the tourists who are disrespectful to the turtles.

 One morning I got up early and went to see the turtles at Ho'okipa Beach as they woke up. It was really sweet to be with them by myself  for a little bit.  I saw my turtle friends Makapoku, Monamona, and Kai. Later that day I met a great girl named Isabel. She came to see the turtles and we started talking and totally clicked. She is from the Netherlands and also loves turtles. Later in the week we watched the turtles together and told off rude tourists. 

This brings me to the main reason for this post which is to tell you stories about rude tourists! Please bear in mind that most of the tourists are very respectful and are shocked at the rude ones. It's just not as fun to tell stories about polite people. 

One morning I went to a different beach to relax. It is called "mama's beach" and it is pretty small, which is why I like it. Ho'okipa beach is big.  I was surprised to see a turtle basking on this beach. He was all by himself, surrounded by tourists. One of them  took hold of the turtle's flipper and tried to pull it out of the sand. I yelled at him not to touch the turtle because it is an endangered species, and he has to stay 15 feet away. He looked at me, then posed for a selfie with his hand on the turtle's shell.  In a very angry tone of voice, I reminded him of what I had just said. He replied, "I'm just touching the shell," and walked away after several more pictures. 

 Our next story is brought to you by a very fat middle-aged man.  Magda and I were watching over the turtles at Ho'okipa. This man stepped over the rope and walked about 20 ft farther. He stood on a rock and began snapping pictures of the turtles. I went over and kindly asked him  to move back, but he just stared at me.

"Do you see how everybody else is standing behind that line?" I asked him. "There is a reason we have this rope up."

"But the sign says 'ocean access open,'" he protested. 

"Yes," I said, "that is for people who are actively accessing the ocean." 

He pointed to little puddles of seawater in the rock around him. "I'm accessing the ocean." 

"Ocean access includes swimming, snorkeling, and surfing," I said, growing angrier by the minute. "YOU are accessing the turtles. You have a camera and are not wearing a swimsuit. I am asking you to please step behind the line with everybody else. There is a $25,000 fine for people who come too close to an endangered species." 

I walked back toward the crowd of respectful tourists. A little girl stopped me and said, "I'm so sorry for my dad stepping over the line." 

I felt really bad for her being so embarrassed by the person who should be her role model. It's funny how sometimes kids know better than adults. "It's okay," I told her, "it's not your fault. Hey, I see you're wearing a fish hook necklace, is that Maui's fish hook like in Moana?" Fortunately this had the intended effect of cheering her up and she started rambling on about the necklace. I sort of tried to listen, but really I was interested in what Magda was saying behind me. I heard Magda scolding the dad. "People like you have no respect. Do you have any questions about what this woman just said?" 

The whole family left shortly after that. They actually came back the next day, but the dad behaved himself. Good for him.

Tonight, after the sun had set, Anthony and I were packing everything up and getting ready to leave the beach when four tourists walked up with flashlights and shone them on the turtles.  Anthony politely reminded them that the beach was closing in ten minutes, and that their lights were disturbing the turtles so please turn them off. Of course this had no effect. Anthony said, "We are here to protect the turtles. You can see that neither of us has a flashlight. Just shine those lights in each others' eyes and see how it feels." 

"Yeah," I said, "your light is pointed at me right now and it's really hurting my eyes." 

Instead of turning their lights off, they stuck their phones in their pockets. Unfortunately one phone was stuck so that the light still poked up out of the top of the pocket  and keep shining directly in my face. Anthony sent me up to the truck with our stuff, and after 10 minutes he followed. I can't believe it took 10 minutes for those people to finally get their act together. 

I'll end on a positive note. Yesterday when I was watching the turtles, a little boy approached me. This kid can't have been more than 10 years old. He asked some questions about the turtles and then started rattling off facts about sharks.  I learned that a cheetah is probably faster than a shark, and that both Megalodon and a Great White shark would be able to bite through a turtle shell. 

At some point, I started putting on more sunscreen. I told him about reef safe sunscreen, and how oxybenzone is damaging the coral reefs, but it is still in most sunscreens. He turned around and yelled, "Dad, does our sunscreen say 'reef safe'?" 

"Uh... no," replied dad. 

"You can get reef safe sunscreen at  any health food store," I told the boy. 

He yelled to his dad, "WE HAVE TO GO TO A HEALTH FOOD STORE RIGHT NOW AND GET SOME REEF SAFE SUNSCREEN!"

That's the spirit!" I gave the boy a high five. 

"Well," said dad, "I think we'll finish up here first. But then we will go to a health food store." The boy beamed. 

One more thing. On a different day, I was telling a little girl about reef safe sunscreen and oxybenzone. She looked up at her mom and said, "We have to go get some sunscreen without oxybenzone in it, because that's bad for coral." I was really impressed that she remembered the word oxybenzone! 

These kids know how to school their parents!