KEKAHA — Family and friends met at Kekaha’s Kikiaola Small Boat Harbor on Tuesday morning to bring supplies to flood victims stranded on the North Shore.
A team of volunteers loaded three boats with supplies to motor around the Westside and deliver essential items to those impacted by the flooding that washed away houses, caused landslides and closed roads and bridges.
“I know they said help is on the way, but they need help now,” said Westside waterman and co-owner of Blue Ocean Adventure Tours, Captain Cody Kimura, who spearheaded the community effort, along with his brothers and employees, to help those in need.
“Our whole company is helping,” Kimura said, “we canceled four tours so we could do this today.”
The company stopped operating tours to utilize its two 26-foot Zodiacs equipped with twin 150-horsepower engines to boat in bottled water, non-perishable foods and other desperately needed items.
“A lot of my family’s homes got taken down in Wainiha, Hanalei, Kilauea, Kepana, and Koloa,” Kimura said. “But the guys in the north, we know how hard it is to get up there. There’s not too many boats besides the Air Guard and a couple local personal boats up there. We know we can be a big help.”
They bought two pallets of water, about $1,000 worth of clothes, and around $6,000 worth of goods with the help of Kuhio Auto Group and Kauai Air Conditioning. The volunteers stayed up until three in the morning readying the boats and supplies.
“We got brand new generators, we bought about a pallet worth of flashlights and lanterns, a pallet full of batteries, dog food, diapers, baby formula, baby food, you name it,” Kimura said.
“It was more than 7,500 bucks with the generators,” Kimura said. “It was amazing all the people that came together last night.”
Within two hours on Monday evening, the crew loaded two trailers and the backs of several trucks and cars.
“Our family is in there,” Kimura said. “So that’s kind of why we feel like we’ll be more effective than the air guard, because we know exactly where the supplies need to be.”
Marine conditions along the western shores were favorable despite the 25-knot east winds and 6-foot windswell. Water depths varied with the tides and erosion along North Shore access points, so they brought divers to jump in and guide or navigate beach landings.
“The wind is blowing hard out of the east, so we should be pretty good up until Kee and then we’ll head into the wind,” Kimura said. “These boats are Navy Seal boats…. so we’ll see when we put them to the test today.”
They planned to go into Kee first, Wainiha second, then YMCA Camp Naue and Lumahai last before turning around.
“I got family stuck up in Lumahai Valley, and they have no power,” Kimura added. “My auntie needs medicine, so we’re gonna take medicine up there. We got juice for the kids, we got everything. We even brought beer for all the uncles.”
Other items they were delivering included toilet paper, soap, pillows, garbage bags, ramen noodles, Vienna sausages and Spam.
“Our friends hiked out yesterday, and they took pictures of 13 different landslides — major landslides that’s not going to be fixed anytime soon. You know the locals, they’re in there and they want to be in there. They want to stay with their homes, so they can be there for the whole run. It’s important that we can get them as much supplies as we can.”
On the way back, they were planning to pick up stranded people at Kalalau and Hanakapiai to shuttle them out, after hearing Monday that some of the charters from the north were charging people $200 to get out.
“So we’re going to go in and just bring them out,” Kimura said. “We’ll do as much as we can, spend all day out there and see what we can do.”
stevenbaptiste@ymail.com
On this article it should be pointed out that the statement from blue ocean adventure tours co- owner Cody Kimura that he stated that “charters from the North were charging $200 to get out” is a False statement. All the permitted charter boat companies are not doing any tours and have shut down to help the community in this time of need. I own and operate Napali Coast Hanalei Tours, and I along with some of the other permitted boat companies on the north shore have suffered damages to our businesses and we are still helping the community of hanalei that supports us. There are Pirates that have been running illegal unpermitted tours on the north shore with one person in particular who has been identified as one of the pirates that has been charging people to get out of the far north side of the island. If the garden island news paper would like to help with some sensational news reporting and get the community involved then do the research and contact the DLNR and find out why they are permitting illegal boat companies with websites and booking agents to allow this to go on for years on the north shore of Hanalei. This would be a great story to sell a lot of newspapers and provide information to the community to bring awareness to the illegal unpermitted boaters running tours out of Hanalei and Anini.
Mahalo
PIRATES!.. REALLY?! How dumb can people get. So this did happen. I heard about it but I thought, no way. No ones stupid enough to extourt money from desaster victim and treaten to throw them overboad if they didn’t pay. AND not expect it to end up on social media. And finding out now it’s an illeagal tour charter. Morons I hope it was worth it I hope it was worth getting arrested have your face in the news your name and business dragged thruogh the mud, you know their going to sieze your boat(s) WHEN you get caught right? And thier going to shine a light on all of the illeagal tour charter out there.. So yeah I hope it a worth the 200 dollars.. YA DUMMY!
Apply for federal aid or assistance. To get your money back. Since lives and property were used, the money should go to those helping out. $1,000 + $6,000 is a lot to spend. You can get it back through a federal aid program.
Who are you pertaining to???? These volunteers who had addition people donate lots of money and things needed for these people who are stranded are not the bad ones here…
I like you, helping out. But if you want to give your money to fame and popularity Bernard p. Carvalho jr., it is your choice. Politics? Just get your money back.
My Two Cents, I liked your post. Here it is with correct grammar: “PIRATES! REALLY?! How dumb can people get? So this did happen. I heard about it but I thought, no way. No one’s stupid enough to extort money from disaster victims and threaten to throw them overboard if they didn’t pay. AND not expect it to end up on social media. And finding out how it’s an illegal tour charter. Morons! I hope it was worth it I hope it was worth getting arrested have your face in the news your name and business dragged through the mud, you know they’re going to seize your boat(s) WHEN you get caught right? And they’re going to shine a light on all of the illegal tour charters out there. So yeah I hope it’s worth the 200 dollars. YA DUMMY!”
Lolz.. Thanx for clearing that up for me professor. Wasn’t ever known fo winning spelling bees.