Pacific Ocean
June 2016
Lately I’ve been told, more than once, that Hawai’i is the most remote inhabited place on Earth. This is totally untrue although I’m inclined to believe it anyway. Hawai’i is 2471 miles from mainland California. The house where Lisa and I lodge on the island is 4602 miles from our own house; about half of that distance is over the Pacific Ocean. Flying over that much water gives me the clear impression that Hawaii is remote. Because being up so high freaks me out, I won’t look out the airplane window, and that’s a long time of not looking. (I do peek.)
My point is that when you fly over water for such a long time, and you are stuck in one long room crowded with other people and nowhere to take a walk, there’s not much to do. Fortunately the state of Hawai’i makes a small effort to keep us entertained. They do this in the form of what they call the…
STATE OF HAWAI’I
Department of Agriculture
PLANTS AND ANIMALS DECLARATION
MANDATORY DECLARATION
FOR ALL PASSENGERS, OFFICERS, AND CREW MEMBERS
This is a paper form that we incomers to Hawai’i must read and sign before we are allowed to set foot. They explain…
ALOHA and Welcome to Hawai’i. Many plants and animals from elsewhere in the world can be harmful to our unique environment, agriculture, and communities. Please help to protect Hawai’i by not bringing harmful pests into our state.
An anti-cootie promise.
Some items you are not permitted to bring onto the island include fresh fruit, vegetables, insects, fish (actually they specify “live fishes,”) lobsters and clams, your cat, protozoa and more. If you intentionally mess with them by trying to smuggle in, say, a snake or a bacterium or an oyster, you could be hit with a $200 000 penalty plus five years in the clink. They seem to be serious about this.
Of course when we flew out of Pittsburgh, we first went through a security check. When we arrive at the airport in Kona, we need to go through another security inspection.
No kidding, a sign at this checkpoint reads…
DO I REALLY HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN?
Underneath this question on the same sign it reads…
YES, YOU DO
Another sign explains that this is an agricultural inspection. This area of the Kona airport looks a little like a farmer’s market but without the fruit.
Oh wait, there is fruit. As the conveyor belt transports your bag/suitcase into the mysterious, radiation-filled metal box with the video monitors attached on the outside where a serious and seriously bored uniformed agent stares at the screen, there is a basket of fruit perched on top of the x-ray unit. In the basket are bananas, mangoes and apples. Not a market, but confiscated contraband, in the form of nutritious comestibles.
They mean it.
Some cootie or other gets loose on the island and there could be big biological trouble. Grow your own.