When we got to Hawaii, we had someone greet us with leis (which smell AMAZING, by the way). You can see said leis in previous post. They were supposed to provide us transportation to our hotel, until they found out we had surfboards. They won't fit in the car, we were told, so we had to take a cab. I was slightly surprised by this, since I thought Hawaii of all places would be pretty accommodating to surf boards, but hey, no big deal!
(Yeah this is a limo. It cost the same as a cab, but more comfy for us and our large board bag.)
A couple days later we rent a car so we can go check out the north shore of Oahu. We're cruising along in our sweet Yaris, and I'm sitting almost on the dashboard because we had to squeeze the boards in there, but we're still having a great time. Then we see the sign in the car "don't get the key wet or else the car will not start." Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
(View from inside the Yaris. BTW Honolulu traffic was baaaaaaad.)
Electronic keys are a major difficulty when surfing. And the whole "leave it on the wheel" thing isn't going to cut it in a place where every 3rd person we talk to tells us how their car has been robbed on the island.
We drive to 2 or 3 stores before finding some small ziploc baggies, and then go for a short surf with the key in a bag. When we got out, the key was almost completely dry. Oops. Thank goodness the key still worked, but we thought we better not push our luck again. Serendipitously, we saw a car in front of us which showed us the ultimate solution to the problem.... a Combo-lock-key-storage-thingie.
The next day we find a hardware store, buy this dang thing (for about twice what it's going for on Amazon), and head out to the surf break. Our big fat key fits in the box, or so it seems until we try to close it! Nooooooooo! So close, and yet so far!!!!!
This was pretty devastating, as you can imagine. So when we got to the big island, we vowed not to let this happen to us again. When the lady at Alamo tried to give us a car with a fat electric key, we asked for a car that has an 'old school' key. The fun thing was, she looked around until she found one, which was a Kia Sedona (mini van) and gave that to us for no upgrade charge. (Try this trick next time you want a free car upgrade... might work?)
The Kia was sweet.... I got used to having 8 cupholders in the front and don't know how we can go back to living without them. But guess what?!?!? In our excitment to get a different key and sweet van, we failed to notice that this 'normal' key was attached to its electronic keyfob friend via a cable!!!! Not a keychain, which you can open and close, a freaking cable.
Well, guess what we did. Sean found a lifeguard who helped him saw the cable with some kind of sharp tool. (Don't worry, we gifted Alamo with a new, normal keychain.) By the way, that lifeguard then proceeded to tell us not to get into the water because it was too dangerous, despite the fact that we could see tons of snorkelers and complete beginners taking surfing lessons. Cheers, friendly Hawaiians.
So the moral of the story is - keys are crafty adversaries!!! If you are going on a surf trip, eternal key vigilance is required.
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