Day 120: Last Night in Paradise

For their last day in Hawaii, before moving on to Alaska, most of Laetitia’s group wanted to go shopping. Some went to elegant shops for clothing and beachwear, but others went to Hilo Hattie’s looking for bargains. In the evening, they came early for happy hour and had drinks for several hours before having a late dinner. It was the last evening in “paradise,” and Mike, a rancher from Montana, Daphne, an office manager from New Jersey, and Clem, a retiree from Vermont, were desperate to have one last fling before going home, providing Laetitia with material for three limericks.

Young Mike from Montana’s Big Sky land
Cruised beach bars as he tried to beguile and
Entice young wahines
With double martinis
To wed him and leave the Big Island.

When Daphne from near Perth Amboy
Came to visit Hawaii for poi
She escaped her bikini
Just like old Houdini
When seduced by a beachcomber’s ploy.

Old Clem from near Ticklenaked Pond
Viewed himself as a senior James Bond
On Hawaiian adventures
‘Til he lost his dentures
As he tried to make time with a blonde.

Day 115: Maui Wowee

Laetitia took her group to Maui. First they did a whale watching tour in the shallow sea protected by Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kahoolawe, where the humpback whales come to give birth to their young, traveling thousands of miles from their feeding grounds in Alaskan waters.

That evening the group went to a Luau. A fellow from Gilroy, California, named Gilbert (Gil to his friends) joined the tour. He hadn’t been to either a luau or any of the Hawaiian Islands before, but he had been to the annual Garlic Festival that his hometown puts on every year. He told Laetitia that he liked to put garlic sauce on everything, which perhaps explained why he didn’t seem to be popular with other members of the tour. His complaint about the relatively bland food at the luau provided one limerick of the day. A local amateur bird watcher who had joined the tour to view tropical birds, especially boobies (genus Sula), provided another.

At a luau, when Gil from Gilroy
Took large helpings of roast pig and poi
He found it lacked zest
And thought ‘twould be best
When smothered with garlic and soy.

A birder who’s from Hala’ula
Could only think of genus Sula
When he saw boobies brown
As the girls danced around
At a Luau, while doing the hula.

Day 66: Poi Joy

Fermoy is a town of around 6,000 residents on the Blackwater River in County Cork. Its Gaelic name, Mainistir Fhear Mai, means “Monastery of the Men of the Plain.” It was named after a Cistercian Abbey that was nearby from the thirteenth century until monasteries were dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII and their lands transferred to the king’s supporters.

Laetitia took her group to Ballyhooly Castle and on a hike in Castleblagh Woods. When they did their walkabout in Fermoy, Laetitia heard a story about a middle-aged woman from Fermoy who went to Hawaii and decided to stay there.

Went a spinster who lived in Fermoy
To Hawaii, she said, to try poi
And was modest and staid
Until she got leid
And went off in search of a boy toy.