It’s almost time to say “aloha” to the year 2020, and most of us just can’t wait.
Not every minute of every day has been uniformly lousy, however. As with every year, there have been high spots and low spots. For many, the low spots of 2020 were lower than in “normal” years. If you do choose to look back though, you may see some balance.
Take Rey Rubalcava for instance. He became the proud new proprietor of the Kona Charter Desk at Honokohau just in time for visitor quarantine and State suspension of all charter boat operating permits. That was not a high spot for Ol’ Rey.
Once charter permits were reactivated, there were still no visitors to charter the boats, so he went fishing himself, on his own boat. He entered a few of the tournaments that had managed to keep running, and at the Skins Marlin Derby he landed an 833.5 pound blue marlin. His fish was the biggest of his life and the largest weighed in the 2020 Hawaii Marlin Tournament Series. This was a high spot.
He would go on to place in a couple of other tournaments, so after a rough start, the middle of 2020 wasn’t so bad for El Rey. “El Rey” is Spanish for “the King” and at this point, he was feeling it. The year 2020, however, had its own ideas for Rey, king or not.
The closure of the visitor industry dragged on, and tournament season ended. Honokohau went pretty quiet. So, Rey went back out on the high seas, but this time in Alaska, where he skippers rather large commercial fishing boats.
He’s been steady at sea out of Dutch Harbor since October 1, with only a couple of days in port to fix stuff. “I can’t wait to get back to the calm waters of Kona, Up here, I’d say we average 35 knots of wind and 12 to 16 foot seas, day in day out. We’ve also had way more than our share of days with gusts between 60 and 80 knots and waves that ran up to 40 foot.” Those are hurricane force winds. High spot or low spot? You be the judge.
With tourism now open, Rey plans to head home to Kona in early January to get the Kona Charter Desk tuned back up, return to the calm Kona lee on his charter boat “Miss Mojo” and try to start 2021 on a little more even keel. Pun intended.
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Rey is not the only one who has been riding crest to trough, longing for the calm seas of Kona. Nakoa Borges was born on July 6 in Waimea, but he arrived ten weeks early. He was whisked off to Honolulu without ever seeing his home, and still hasn’t. In fact, he’s only gone further away – all the way to Palo Alto and the Stanford Medical Center.
His dad, Capt. David “Keoki” Borges said that they had planned to have the baby at Kapiolani and when they ended up at North Hawaii Community Hospital weeks earlier than planned, it was “the happiest moment in my life but still the scariest. I was in full panic mode worried if he was going to be okay because it wasn’t time yet. Sherryanne had been in so much pain, she couldn’t even walk into the hospital.”
Mom and baby were okay, but the doctors in Honolulu decided that Nakoa would need care that Stanford was better equipped to provide, care that ultimately included two heart surgeries. Over the course of the last six months, the highs and lows seemed as endless as the distance home, but through prayer and perseverance the high points continue to swing around. “Nakoa is our little heart warrior. He’s a miracle. He’s made it through so much already and he’s just six months old,” said Borges.
The family caught a break in late November and took a drive to Lake Tahoe, literally to get some fresh air. “For some reason I thought it was going to be like driving to Hilo, but six hours later we still weren’t there! It was beautiful though. Just what we needed.”
Mark Twain said that “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” so living in and out of a hospital and a hotel room were not the only factors in play when they returned to the Bay Area in December. At one point, Keoki posted a photo of the California sky at twilight and asked his social media gang what the sky looked like back in Kona.
After that, it started looking like they were heading into the downhill run of this journey. Doctors said that they felt like the work of the two heart surgeries was holding up well, and that Nakoa could grow up “normally” now. It appeared possible that they might make it home for Christmas, but Nakoa caught a cold and out of an abundance of caution, they are waiting it out. This would be another trough, but they’ve grown a bit philosophical about minor obstacles.
He’s getting better and they should be discharged from the hospital soon, so things are looking up, yet again. There is a bit of normalcy returning to their lives in the sense that they can now, finally, get the usual baby shots and vaccines they couldn’t during their long hospital saga.
Soon they will even be able to put their feet up and gaze out at their own sky again. At that point, they will know that they are home.
“You know, I had just gone to work for Dave Andersen. We launched a new boat and then I had to leave just as tournaments were starting. Dave has been awesome. He even donated some of his winnings to our medical bills! If it weren’t for the Andersen’s, we wouldn’t have been able to afford to be up here at all.”
If you’re feeling the Christmas cheer and goodwill, you can help defray the costs of baby Nakoa’s medical bills through a Venmo donation: @sllanesfuller.
See ya next year!
