LIHUE — Matt Feeser, a tour guide, actor and photographer, has always had what he calls the “wanderlust,” but that has changed since he discovered Kauai. “I’m 26 and this is the first time I’ve ever felt at home,” Feeser
LIHUE — Matt Feeser, a tour guide, actor and photographer, has always had what he calls the “wanderlust,” but that has changed since he discovered Kauai.
“I’m 26 and this is the first time I’ve ever felt at home,” Feeser said.
The Philadelphia native left home at age of 16 to help with the installation of an irrigation system in the Amazon and to participate in a dig in biblical city of Gath in the Middle East.
“Since I was 3 or 4 years old, I wanted to be a paleontologist,” Feeser said. “I think my parents had to look up what it meant.”
Feeser said that because there is no such thing as an “everything” college degree — and he’d considered numerous career choices including, doctor, lawyer, historian, writer and poet — he would “gypsy about” until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. Further travels took him to Finland, Prague, Germany and Italy.
In Gath, he uncovered an infant skeleton estimated to be from before 9 B.C. But since moving to Kauai, he’s turned his attention away from archaeological digs, and onto the ocean.
“Since moving to Kauai, I became obsessed with fan waves,” Feeser explained.
That’s the phenomena where two waves smack together in heavy surf and create an unbelievable shape. The tour guide for Kauai Photo Tours spent hours at Kee Beach on the North Shore after he got off work waiting patiently every day for three months for the perfect fan wave. He wanted to snap an image. When he finally saw one, he got so excited, he didn’t catch sight of the one right behind it.
“I missed the next one and learned a lesson the hard way,” Feeser said. “Don’t take your eye away from the camera.”
Another thing that blew him away on Kauai was moon rainbows. It was at Salt Ponds Beach Park where he discovered the Kauai phenomena where rainbows can sometimes be seen at night during a full moon.
“I thought I imagined it at first. It was like the silver specter of a rainbow,” Feeser said. “Then I remember snapping out of my awed-reverie and shouting, ‘Where is my tripod? It’s a freaking moonbow.”
Outside of his appreciation for nature and love for hiking, Feeser loves to act and sing. He has performed the role of the love interest, Lt. Cable in the Kauai Beach Resort production of the musical “South Pacific” for the past year. Prior to that he landed a regular gig as an extra working 13 months in the film “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“It was like getting paid to have the coolest vacation,” said Feeser, who learned to fence at the age of 6. “I was really stoked to dress up like a pirate and play with swords.”
It was another escapade in a list of experiences, because living for Feeser is all about learning. And the way he learns is to explore, though Kauai feels more like home than anywhere else.
“If I ever run out of things to learn, that is when my time on Earth is over,” he said. “It’s in my DNA. I have to explore, wonder and wander.”
• 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, email features and education reporter Lisa Ann Capozzi at lcapozzi@hegardenisland.com.
