BARKING SANDS – Navy pilot Lt. Robert Fullick appreciates his premium bird’s eye view of Kauai. Regular missions 1,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean are bound to give that to an aviator. Flying 200 mph over the ocean is part
BARKING SANDS – Navy pilot Lt. Robert Fullick appreciates his premium bird’s eye view of Kauai.
Regular missions 1,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean are bound to give that to an aviator.
Flying 200 mph over the ocean is part of Fullick’s job when crews on ships train near the island. The 17-year veteran flies overhead, as a lookout, to ensure dolphin pods, whales or tour boats aren’t in the area.
As one of eight pilots stationed at the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Fullick never takes the views of water and sea life for granted.
Just ask him.
“Flying is like a meditation onto itself,” Fullick said. “You lose who you are and become one with the action. It’s awe-inspiring when you’re up there and see the clouds and the ocean. You get a sense of how small we really are and realize how insignificant everything is.”
Fullick’s perspective may have something to do with his previous assignments around the world, including one in Helmand, Afghanistan.
“It’s mostly desert and a lot of bad guys,” said Fullick, who saw extreme poverty and oppression while living in the Middle Eastern country.
“You would see little girls dressed up in colorful clothing and wearing makeup,” Fullick said. “Then they hit puberty and get locked away until they hit menopause. It’s heart-wrenching to see.”
But his current spot is far from that.
Fullick requested a three-year stay on Kauai. It wasn’t a move he made to build his career, per say, more of way to scratch an itch for adventuring west.
“Neither my wife nor I knew much about Hawaii,” Fullick said. “We just thought it would be a stress-free place for my wife and I to live and have our children.”
A year and a half into his assignment, the couple had their first child, a son named Knox, born in January 2013.
“I want to teach him to fly,” said Fullick, who joined the Navy as a way to escape bad influences hanging around his rural hometown in Iowa. “And I’d like him to get his pilot’s license when he turns 14.”
Fullick’s other passions include mountain biking, paddling, astronomy and yoga.
Two days a week he clears his head at the Barking Sands beach doing an intensive workout with sand bags and kettle bells or striking a pose during his yoga regime.
“I love it,” said Fullick. “I feel like the ocean and the beach are talking to me. But I haven’t heard the barking dogs yet.”
Flying is a field he’s always been passionate about.
“Flying is freedom and it’s pretty cool,” he said. “To me, it’s the most beautiful combination of engineering, economics and teamwork will ever exist. I could talk for hours about this.”
While he has never flown combat missions, during his two tours to the Arabian Gulf, he provided logistical support for the ships stationed in the Gulf, as well as some surveillance missions and lots of flights to Kuwait and Iraq.
The gravity of being around military targets, operations and maneuvers isn’t lost on him. Especially juxtaposed to a recent visit to Hanalei, where kids were playing on the beach.
“There were all these children — 2-, 3- ,4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds — running around without a care, not worried about the bad guys, nobody judging them, no stress,” said Fullick. “They were jumping in the waves and making goofy happy faces. I would love to see my son grow up with that lack of stress. Not to be cliché, but Kauai is the most beautiful place in the world. It’s laid back, it’s calm and if you live here, you’re family. That’s how people treat you.”
• This is an ongoing weekly feature in The Garden Island. It focuses on everyday people who reflect the spirit that makes Kauai the place it is today. If you know of somebody you’d like to see featured contact lcapozzi@thegardenisland.com.
