Getting to Molokai

August 26-27
Our new adventure begins... Ben will be the caretaker of the Molokai Sea Ranch (hereafter known as MSR) and I will continue with Foraker working from Molokai. We are planning to be here until mid January. We are excited to be back on Molokai and look forward to adventuring as much as possible. I am starting the blog again so we can share those adventures with you and also to allure you here to visit!

We left Anchorage August 26th with 2 duffel bags, 2 totes, 2 bikes in boxes and 3 carry-ons . Thank you Nathan for the ride to the airport with all our stuff. Groceries are expensive and semi-limited so we stocked up on bars, vitamins, and other Costco necessities. We also wanted our snorkel gear for diving and general snorkeling adventures, and bikes for exploring jeep trails on the West end. Clothes took up a very small space!
Arriving in Honolulu Gretchen headed directly to Enterprise to rent a van for all our gear while Ben waited at the curb with everything. Directly from the airport we drove West to meet someone from Craig's list with a car to sell. After some tire kicking and a test drive we drove off with the rental van and a 1998 Honda CRV!
We spent the night with a friend and his girlfriend (thank you Cale and Lahela) and got up early the next morning to brave Waikiki traffic and go to the DMV. We got there at 7:30, 30 minutes before it opened which put us 4th in line. Thank goodness we were early because the line stretched half way down the strip mall. Couple hundred bucks later and we have a clean title and registration in our names.
I will say here that by this time it is 8:30 and the car has to be at the boat yard by 11:00 to make it on the boat so we can get it a couple days later.  This is one of the reasons why we bought the first car we saw. If we miss the boat we have to wait another week for the car to arrive Molokai.
Back through Waikiki traffic to Cale and Lahela's place where we collect the CRV, say our thank you's and leave to get to the boat yard early so we can be relaxed about the process. What we didn't know before we went to the DMV is that the boat yard is just down from there so basically we have to go back the same way.
Ben makes it directly there and I take a very unplanned detour via halting hardly moving "highway" traffic to go back around to eventually make it to the boat yard about a 1/2 hour later. (I wouldn't exactly call it "lost" because once I got up on the highway/parking lot I could see where I needed to go).
I keep my cool, only cursing Honolulu traffic every other minute, and make it to the docks by 10:00 where Ben is working with a local State Farm agent to insure the CRV because we have to have insurance before they will ship it. We did start the process before we left Anchorage so it wouldn't come down to the last minute but State Farm seemed disorganized. We reorganize our bags to send some things with the car to save baggage fees, unfortunately the bike boxes are a bit too long.  Ben calls about 4 times relaying the urgency of our request and my heart starts beating faster and I'm getting anxious when we finally get the fax at 10:55.  Apparently Molokai is uncharted territory for State Farm and the agent had to call the underwriter.  We run over to the other customer service section where we take a number only to wait another hour before our turn is called.  As we are sitting there Ben notices a sign that says, "more than 1/4 tank of gas?" with some service station info below that.  He asks one of the ladies working there and sure enough, you can't have more than a 1/4 tank of gas...we have 1/2.  Quick thinker and go-to guy Ben jumps up gets in the rental van and finds an auto parts store, buys a gas can and some hoses, races back and tries to siphon the gas out.  Meanwhile I am sitting in the air conditioned milvan holding number 69 hoping the process for the people ahead of me goes very slowly. (Apparently as long as you are through the entrance gates by 11 you're ok). At number 67 I see Ben's head out by the CRV and I hope for the best.  Number 69, that's me.  I hand the lady my paperwork trying to go slowly, say my husband filled out the form but he's just outside trying to siphon gas.  She says, "you can't siphon gas here!" and I calmly reply, "he's just outside there at the car." to which she smiles and says ok. So, she goes out to inspect the car and apparently there are anti-siphon devices now so Ben wasn't able to get any gas out, we are still at 1/2 tank.  We can't ship it and the next boat is a few days away, then there is the holiday so we may get it next Wednesday.  Now we need to figure out how to get rid of 1/4 tank of gas and who will store it and return it to the boat yard 2 days later. It's 12:30 and neither of has eaten more than 1/2 Larabar and 8oz of water we haven't had coffee and it's Hot.  Our flight to Molokai leaves at 6:15 and we need to return the rental car first so we need to be back at Enterprise at 4:30. That gives us 4 hours for everything, but remember Waikiki traffic...
Ben calls Cale and he kindly agrees to let us park the CRV on the street near his place and he will take it to the docks on Thursday, so add taking the car back to his place and re-shuffling the luggage to the list.
We leave the rental van at a random parking lot, return the gas can, and find the service station recommended at the ship yard.  It's $45 bucks to have someone siphon the gas so we decide to take a drive.  It's 1 and we need food and coffee and as you can imagine there's not a lot of options near boat docks so this takes some effort.  We end up back on the street I took on my unplanned detour and go to the first place we see.  It's a strip mall and the savior Starbucks is part of the mall.  We have to get a notarized letter so Cale, who will get special mention here, can bring the car to the docks. This takes 20 minutes.  At this point it's about 2:30, our flight is at 6:15 but now we need to rearrange our bags again since we won't be getting the car for a week and we need to bring all our stuff this time and make sure the bags/totes weight under 50 pounds. And we have to pick up the rental car from the random parking lot, return it to Enterprise, and drop off the CRV and find street parking near Cale's place and remember Honolulu traffic...
We make a schedule, drive west on the highway, which is actually moving and burn some gas.  Ben ends up taking off the gas cap to use evaporation to help us along.  The one time when an efficient car is a pain! We see the ocean and new territory which is nice.  At the appointed time we go back where we left the rental van, pick it up, go back to Cale's, Ben finds street parking, we fill the van with gas, return it exactly at 4 which was our time schedule, take the shuttle to Mokulele airlines, walk in with our 2 duffels, 2 totes, 2 bikes in bike boxes and 3 carry ons and they look at the bike boxes and at us and say, "we can't take those, they're too big.  And so is this tote".
So, just a recap here for those of you who are skimming this.  We left Anchorage at 2pm (after Gretchen got up at 3am to take Taryn to the airport), slept for a few more hours then both of us got up cleaned the house, got on a plane, flew 6 hours, bought a car, got up the next morning at 6:30 went to the DMV, drove way too much in Waikiki/Honolulu traffic, we're down to the wire trying to ship the car which didn't work, didn't eat until 1pm, drove some more in traffic and finally get to the airport where this day continues.
We are all about solutions.  I go to another airline counter with larger planes but their last flight just left.  They can't take our stuff through their freight operation because we aren't "known shippers" so that idea didn't work.  Ben keeps working with Mokulele and a baggage handler says they can squish down the tote and another guy bring us boxes for the things inside the tote. Then they tell us they can take the bikes just not in the boxes so Ben takes them out and we tape them together.
Ok, we're through and checked in with about an hour to wait so screw it all and the money I'm going to the bar for a double G n T.  We get some food and about 1/2 way through the cocktail and food, with 30 minutes until departure the guy from Mokulele finds us in the bar and says, "come on, we're leaving!". Not being one to waste booze I dump my drink into my water bottle, the waitress helps put the salad into a to go box and we walk out to the plane.  By this time I'm just laughing, what else can you do? We're on the plane, the CRV is parked near Cale's and he's agreed to take it to the docks for us, and I've had part of a very expensive cocktail and we're headed to Molokai where I can sleep and relax!
To round out the day when we arrive Molokai we're missing a bag!

So, that's our adventure getting here.  I'll write another posting about the property and what Ben and I have been doing these last few days.
I'll leave you with some recommendations for when you come over.
Mokulele is a good airline, just make sure you don't have any oversize luggage.  They do charge per bag and carry ons have to be 15lbs or under.  Island Air has bigger planes but they are now known to cancel flights if they're not full and not necessarily put you on the next flight.  Not recommended to fly with them.
In my opinion it's worth the extra airplane time to arrive in Honolulu in time to catch a fight to Molokai.  All our direct flights from Anchorage get in after the last flight to Molokai so you'll have to rent a car, spend the night on Oahu and it's not worth it.
If you want to ship a car, make sure it has 1/4 tank of gas or less!