Our Honolulu
Sand Island treks were adventure

Bob Krauss is on vacation. This column first appeared in The Advertiser on March 3, 1996.

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Today's adventure takes us to the Sand Island of around 1922, when it was the most remote place in Our Honolulu with a population of one.

The only person I ever met who went to Sand Island in 1922 is Randy Borges of Kailua.

"Nobody went to Sand Island," said Chris Faria, a retired police officer who played on the waterfront as a boy. "It wasn't connected to O'ahu. You could only look at it."

The only way to get to Sand Island back then was by boat or across a reef that was submerged at high tide. So this adventure ranks with being shipwrecked on Kaho'olawe.

Sand Island was so isolated that for many years it was called Quarantine Island, because immigrants were landed there at the Quarantine Station to prevent the spread of epidemics brought by ship.

"My father was a grade-school classmate of the lighthouse keeper, a Hawaiian named Keone, the only inhabitant of Sand Island," Borges explained. "Every year, we had to go and visit Keone.

"My mother didn't want to go to Sand Island because she knew what would happen.

"My father loved to reminisce. His father jumped ship here in the days when whalers wore gold earrings. My father and Keone liked to talk story.

"My mother packed a picnic lunch: rice, pork and beans, salad greens. We didn't make a fire. My father brought along a bottle of 'okolehao because it was a big day for him. He didn't drink much, and it was Prohibition, but we always had good white oke in the house.

"Our house was on Gulick Avenue in lower Kalihi. We'd leave at low tide early in the morning. Kalihi Street ended at the reef that was exposed at low tide. There was a track across the reef to Sand Island. We'd drive out to the end and park by the lighthouse.

"My father would shout for Keone, and they'd start swapping stories and sipping. We kids would scatter to explore the island. There was nothing to see but kiawe and naupaka.

"... The reef shore along the harbor side of Sand Island was good for crabbing. There were beaches on the ocean side of the island where we found seashells.

"All afternoon, my mother would try to get my father to go home but he'd have one more story to tell Keone. Finally, when the sun was low, we'd start back.

"By that time, the tide was up and it would be dark. ... All you could see in the dim headlights was water.

"I'll never forget the crunch of the tires on the coral and the splish-splash of water on the running boards. I was in the first grade, sitting in the front seat, my father grimly gripping the steering wheel.

"All my father had to steer by was one light on the Kalihi shore. If we got too far off the track on either side, we went into deep water. My mother sat in back vowing, 'Never again, never again.' But the next year, we'd start out for Sand Island to see Keone."