Hanalei Baptisms – From Water to Ice
Time for a first swim
Looking out into the deep Pacific blue as Amy and I arrived at Moss Landing on Monterey Bay, I had only one thought – its time to baptize Hanalei. My loving wife was not trilled with my idea, as the Pacific is quite cold in January with only blubber-encased mammals willing to swim in its frigid waters.
Yet with the warmth of the Santa Anna winds and a cloudless sky, I knew it was time to connect our daughter with her birth name. The very waters at our feet in California also swirl through Hanalei Bay on Kauai. An oceanic baptism would also connect her with my own baptism 35 years before.
A Cold, Wet, and Impressive Kauai
Having fun yet, Amy?
Before Amy and I arrived in Kauai for our honeymoon, we read that this small island in Hawaii was the rainbow capitol. That rainbows would be visible at all time of the day. What we did not appreciate was the two sides of the local saying: You can’t have rainbows without rain.
Because it rained every day we were in Kauai. In fact, Mount Wai’ale’ale, in the center of the island, is the wettest place on earth with an average 460+ inches of rainfall. Knowing that, I expected a tropical rainfall pattern – steamy heat all morning with a hard downpour every day at 4pm. Such was not the case.
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