Enya

You all know Enya, and you all know "Orinoco Flow", even if you're unaware that you do.
Go ahead, YouTube it.

Enya is always on my mind during the last week of the semester.  I am a TA for an online music class and the final for the course is a video presentation on an international artist.  Enya is a staple.  I grade at least four 13-15 min Enya presentations every semester.

We have a week break between Winter and Summer semesters.  In that week I went to 2 wedding receptions, switched house sides, welcomed a new roommate, waded across the bay to Goat's island, worked, picked flowers and went sailing twice.

We planned to sail out in the open ocean on Thursday.  We started- as we usually do- at a marina in Kaneohe where BJ keeps his sailboat.  This thing is HUGE. 42 feet long, some 1500lbs.   It was a 4-man crew.  BJ, Spencer, Spencer's best friend Pahu, and me.   We could either go to Waikiki or Laie and we decided to sail to Laie, since we make that drive all the time.

When you come out of a bay there is a channel.  There is always a channel between two coral or land shelves, it's the path of safe passage.  The waves in the channel were huge, but the boat cut through them and surfed down the back.

And then we were there, the waves were smaller as we were in the wider expanse and I looked over to the island from whence we came and looked and looked at it.  It must have been this way when the very first travelers came to the islands.  The sudden mound in the middle of an endless, rocking, blue body.  The sky was clear but you could see mist over the summits of the Ko'olau range.  The green stood as sentinels that seem to always have existed over the ocean.  How comforting this island would be to those traveling from Jarvis, Marquesas or Hawaiki.

Legend says that Hawaiki was the island that the Maoris left as they sailed to New Zealand.  It is said that the Maori and Marquesas  are the oldest. Cook Island and Tahiti cultures follow that.   It is from there that some say travelers found Hawaii.
Jarvis Island is a desert coral island that was used as an airfield during WW2.  There were about 11 men, graduates from Kamehameha school, that were chosen to man this island.  The horrors of that time would have been slightly buried in the swell of their hearts as they sailed back and saw their luscious island home.
I've always looked from the island out, into the endless sea.  I've never been in the endless sea looking to the island.

I didn't get seasick.  Not one bit.  I can't say that for the rest of the crew.  There were times when BJ and I were the only functional people and it's hard to man a boat.  It took hours to sail to Laie Point, and hours to sail back.  On our way there I saw a dolphin jump out of the water a few yards ahead of us.  It didn't jump again and it didn't come back around.  There are flying fish that are as long as any fish I've ever seen in a lake.  We waved at Spencer's dad as he kitesurfed by.   It took hours to go back.  As we went around the rain and made it back the boat surfed a little on the big waves in the channel.

With everyone feeling significantly less seasick inside the bay, we had some fun.  I'll have to edit the videos together once I get the chance, but for now, here I am swinging on the halyard (it's a rope, I'd explain but you kinda need to be there to put all the names to faces ropes).

Oh yeah- I was talking about Enya. *doom, dm doom* Sail away, sail away, sail away.... 
Back to that.  Enya is an very popular international artist.  The fact that Spencer is Scottish and Enya is Irish and that the landscape there is pretty similar has not escaped me.  But also, I remember hearing Enya in Cambodia.
Spencer's family, specifically his father, has a really special connection to Cambodia.  I love siting and talking with them about Cambodia and our experiences with the Khmer people.
For lack of  Khmer students at BYUH, and a wealth of Thai students, the family hosted a Thai feast.  The Thai students come, make their own food, have spiritual thought, make fun, and eat.
I was invited.
No, not by Spencer.
I was first informed by little E.  And then I was invited by middle brother.  And then Doc asked me what I was doing on Sunday and I replied, "Well I hear there is a Thai feast."
Oh heavens it was wonderful.  It smelled like Southeast Asia.  You know how your house has a smell, or maybe your room...actually, my cousin's laundry has a smell and I always associate that smell with lots of food and fun.  Southeast Asia has a smell:  it comes from some of the curry that they make; the way they spice their meat; the long leafy veggies that you don't see on the mainland; the way the rice lumps together; the way the oil separates from the soup when it sits in a pot.