Ohai is still going strong as a fisherman. He's the captain, navigator, cook and chief diver on the fishing vessel Libra, berthed at Pier 18 at Honolulu Harbor.

Interviewed Wednesday, Ohai was helping the Libra crew repair nets in preparation for another fishing trip. "We're probably going out Friday," he said.

In the 1950s, Ohai pioneered the use of airplanes to spot schools of fish in the ocean, logging tens of thousands of hours of flight time when his fishing business was based on Kaua'i.

"When the tuna boats came out here from California back then, he took the captains up and showed them how it was done," said Ohai's son, Nephi, who now does all the flying for the fishing family. "They couldn't believe it, and they tried to get him to go back and work with them in San Pedro."

But the part-Hawaiian Ohai had a life to live — and headlines to make — in the Islands.

While skindiving off Kona on the Big Island in 1963, Ohai suffered a case of the bends and had to fly himself back to O'ahu for life-saving treatment at the Navy's Pearl Harbor recompression chamber.

A 24-year-old woman, Virginia King, accompanied Ohai on the two-hour flight because she didn't think he should be alone. Ohai kept losing consciousness and King, who didn't know how to fly, kept reviving him.

"He'd check the instruments and get us straightened out, then we'd be all right for a bit before he began blacking out again," King told reporters at the time. "It was like that for the whole two hours."

The landing "wasn't the smoothest" but it "was good enough for us," King said.

In 1967, Ohai's plane crashed and sank in the Moloka'i Channel. He drifted without a life vest for 20› hours in the ocean, riding the currents and tides halfway back to O'ahu, then halfway to Lana'i, and finally bodysurfing ashore at the tip of Moloka'i.

Naked and barefoot, Ohai had to walk another six hours before finding help.

The following year, Ohai landed his malfunctioning Piper aircraft on the 12th green of the Ala Wai golf course.

Some of his exploits landed him in trouble. In 1969, Ohai and his boat crew were arrested for illegal net fishing in Honolulu Harbor. He pleaded guilty and was fined $150.

He tried opening his own wholesale/retail fish markets in 1978, selling at less than market prices. The venture failed.

While unlucky in business, Ohai continued to prove himself a survivor. He was seriously injured in a shark attack off Moloka'i in 1981. His right hand was "hanging by strings" and had to be surgically re-attached at The Queen's Medical Center, his son Nephi said.

"He's got some numbness because of nerve damage, but basically it's OK," Nephi Ohai said.