AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
I have often mentioned my flights from Alaska to Hawai'i on Western. These links may give some idea of why I enjoyed Maui and the Polynesian Resort, The Maui Lu, so much.
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=planes&id=add
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=planes&id=adc
The first photo is of the owner's ship, the Maui Lu II, that he let me play with for a year when he had it over there from Vancouver, BC, Canada. Really a toy for him: 131 foot,
7 staterooms, 5 heads (bathrooms), quarters for a crew of 3 plus Captain, twin Gardner 8 cyl diesels (800 rpm), 2200 gal diesel, 2200 gal fresh water. Oh the fun we had with it. He let me play with it 6 days a week and on Sunday, he would take it out along with 60 or 70 guests at the resort just to charge up the batteries and I would help crew. The whole thing ran on 12 volt except the radar and that ran off an inverter with an emergency gas generator topside just in case. He taught me just about everything there was to know about the ship.
The second photo is of our main swimming pool (we had two). Since I flew to Maui about every two weeks for 5 years, I got so I knew many people from all over the world that came back each year on vacation. My work schedule with Wien at that time at Prudhoe Bay was two weeks on and one week off. All airline passes were free of course. Needless to say my room at the resort was free as well as a convertible staff car.
Just as soon as I got there, I would pick up a staff car and head for a liquor store and get a bunch of different booze at my expense. I would than set up a free bar at poolside and all it took to get a free drink was to tell a joke from their home country. The resort would furnish the plastic glasses, ice and mix. This parties would go on all day with people coming and going all the time. Talk about fun, a joke for a free drink. Often at sunset we would all chip in for steaks and salad and head to the beach for a cookout.
One day when I was picking up a staff car to pick up the goodies, I ran into the owner. Chit chat of course and at one point he asked where I was going. Told him to the store to get some T-bone steaks and salad makings for a cookout on the beach. He put a stop to that real fast and went with me to the kitchen where he told the chief to fix me up. Dinner on the house that night. About 15 of us moved to the beach and did our thing. Blankets and pillows from our rooms of course. Long after sunset (always beautiful on Maui since the resort faced to the west), the owner, Gordon Gibson, came out of the water after a swim and joined us. Now comes something I had never seen before. Gordon was known as "Bull of the Woods" back in Canada. Remember Canucks? Very loud gruff voice but always happy. He had been quite high up in Canadian government in his time. Anyway, he sat down with us and started talking about his life. Not a word was said by anyone and Gordon just kept talking in such a very soft voice for hours. I had never seen or heard of him doing that before and when I mentioned it to his wife, she hadn't either. His life was unbelievable since he lived in "the old days".
I often wondered if he did it on purpose that night since I had told him what area we would be in. Oh the respect I had for the guy and needless to say, he liked me.
I always enjoyed showing our guests how to open up a coconut, including husks, by using only my hands and feet. Easy and impressive especially when showing off to a beautiful lady. Always ended up with two half shells half full of milk for them to toast each other. Just part of my "job" so to speak.
I was supposed to help crew (crew of 3 including Gordon) the ship from Maui back to Vancouver but ran into a rather bad tooth infection and figured it would not be a good idea to be stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and needing immediate medical attention (which I ended up needing). Maybe a story later about that trip. It would sure have been fun though and the trip took 13 days. What a way to spend a vacation, right?
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=planes&id=add
http://supercub.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=planes&id=adc
The first photo is of the owner's ship, the Maui Lu II, that he let me play with for a year when he had it over there from Vancouver, BC, Canada. Really a toy for him: 131 foot,
7 staterooms, 5 heads (bathrooms), quarters for a crew of 3 plus Captain, twin Gardner 8 cyl diesels (800 rpm), 2200 gal diesel, 2200 gal fresh water. Oh the fun we had with it. He let me play with it 6 days a week and on Sunday, he would take it out along with 60 or 70 guests at the resort just to charge up the batteries and I would help crew. The whole thing ran on 12 volt except the radar and that ran off an inverter with an emergency gas generator topside just in case. He taught me just about everything there was to know about the ship.
The second photo is of our main swimming pool (we had two). Since I flew to Maui about every two weeks for 5 years, I got so I knew many people from all over the world that came back each year on vacation. My work schedule with Wien at that time at Prudhoe Bay was two weeks on and one week off. All airline passes were free of course. Needless to say my room at the resort was free as well as a convertible staff car.
Just as soon as I got there, I would pick up a staff car and head for a liquor store and get a bunch of different booze at my expense. I would than set up a free bar at poolside and all it took to get a free drink was to tell a joke from their home country. The resort would furnish the plastic glasses, ice and mix. This parties would go on all day with people coming and going all the time. Talk about fun, a joke for a free drink. Often at sunset we would all chip in for steaks and salad and head to the beach for a cookout.
One day when I was picking up a staff car to pick up the goodies, I ran into the owner. Chit chat of course and at one point he asked where I was going. Told him to the store to get some T-bone steaks and salad makings for a cookout on the beach. He put a stop to that real fast and went with me to the kitchen where he told the chief to fix me up. Dinner on the house that night. About 15 of us moved to the beach and did our thing. Blankets and pillows from our rooms of course. Long after sunset (always beautiful on Maui since the resort faced to the west), the owner, Gordon Gibson, came out of the water after a swim and joined us. Now comes something I had never seen before. Gordon was known as "Bull of the Woods" back in Canada. Remember Canucks? Very loud gruff voice but always happy. He had been quite high up in Canadian government in his time. Anyway, he sat down with us and started talking about his life. Not a word was said by anyone and Gordon just kept talking in such a very soft voice for hours. I had never seen or heard of him doing that before and when I mentioned it to his wife, she hadn't either. His life was unbelievable since he lived in "the old days".
I often wondered if he did it on purpose that night since I had told him what area we would be in. Oh the respect I had for the guy and needless to say, he liked me.
I always enjoyed showing our guests how to open up a coconut, including husks, by using only my hands and feet. Easy and impressive especially when showing off to a beautiful lady. Always ended up with two half shells half full of milk for them to toast each other. Just part of my "job" so to speak.
I was supposed to help crew (crew of 3 including Gordon) the ship from Maui back to Vancouver but ran into a rather bad tooth infection and figured it would not be a good idea to be stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and needing immediate medical attention (which I ended up needing). Maybe a story later about that trip. It would sure have been fun though and the trip took 13 days. What a way to spend a vacation, right?
