While living on the north shore of Kauai, I got a job as a
cub reporter at the Kauai Garden Island
News. This gave me access to people
on the Island I found noteworthy.
Suzanne “Bobo” Bollins, who lived at the notorious Taylor Camp (1969-1978)
where young people fleeing the Viet Nam war and materialism of the mainland were
living out the ultimate hippie fantasies, seemed a good prospect. It was said
that Bobo swam the tumultuous waters of the Napali Coast wearing only a belt
with a pouch containing a dry pareau for when she reached the shore. This
seemed quite a miraculous feat to me, so I made an appointment to interview
her.
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| Napali Coast Kauai |
She welcomed me in her tree house abode with a glass of
Merlot. She told me that dolphin often played with her on her swims from Ke’e
Beach to Kalalau Valley—some eleven miles away. She said she felt their
intelligence when they came close to look her in the eye. She seemed perfectly at ease in her Spartan
quarters, forerunner to the “Tiny House” movement today. Her brown skin was weathered from the sun and
a thick braid of golden hair went to her waist. Stories of the residents
cavorting nude were over-stated, she told me. She was wearing a sarong tied at
the shoulder in the early Hawaiian kikepa style, and said regular clothes were
worn by residents in the evenings to fend off mosquitoes.
She was highly
animated in the telling of her month-long stays in the valley held sacred by Hawaiians,
but abruptly stopped short to announce that the lava rocks in the canvas-domed
sauna just outside her door were ready. This was to be an evening of sharing
with the other residents in the camp. Bobo offered me a hit off of a joint of
the most powerful pot I have ever run into in my life, and asked me if I would
like to join them in a ceremony celebrating Earth Mother. Curious minds want to
know, so I stripped to my undies and joined the group wearing no more than
their birthday suits. We sat in a circle around the steaming crimson rocks
holding hands while chanting a reverberating Om. The heat generated by the cauldron of molten
rocks combined with the intense communal sharing of energy brought me to a
feverish crescendo. I stumbled out of the sauna, and planted myself face down
in the frigid mountain stream running through the camp to cool off. Energy shot through the top of my head like a
comet, leaving my mind as clear as the sparkling heavens above.
At that time, the highly romanticized camp of peace and love
hippies, glorified in coffee table books today, was nearing an end. Elizabeth
Taylor’s brother, Howard who owned seven acres of beach front property had
originally allowed a group of thirteen disenfranchised youth from San Francisco
to build their camp on Ke’e Beach. Soon, there were over 120 people, including
women with small children living at the camp. The residents of Taylor Camp who did
not pay taxes, lived on welfare and food stamps, soon found themselves at odds
with the locals. What’s more native Hawaiians didn’t like the desecration of
the Kalalau Valley by hippies camped there. It was rumored that
home boys had put a dead pig upstream the week before my visit to contaminate
the water and encourage the tree-house people to move on.
Still, I admired Bobo for her extreme bravery and
athleticism. At the time I did not know
that I had found the inspiration for the dolphin that would be the loyal friend of my heroine in Wai-nani, A Voice from
Old Hawai’i. It is fascinating to
witness how life experiences boomerang into an artist’s consciousness and
appear in their work. Many Wai-nani
readers view her relationship with a dolphin family as fantastic. The truth is
that all of the interaction between my heroine, and her best friend--a
bottle nose dolphin, is real. That is to say, I researched the behavior of
dolphins and their relationship with humans throughout history to bring
authenticity to the story. A documentary
film detailing life in Taylor Camp was released in the Islands. Bobo’s granddaughter,
Natalie Noble, stars in the film swimming alone in the buff along the majestic
Napali Coast. I suspect there are dolphins playing in her wake.
Adventure-travel writer, Linda
Ballou, has a host of travel articles on her site, along with information about
her travel memoir, Lost Angel
Walkabout-One Traveler’s Tales, her historical novel Wai-nani, A Voice from Old Hawai’i and her latest action-adventure
novel The Cowgirl Jumped over the Moon
at-www.LindaBallouAuthor.com. Subscribe to my blog
www.LindaBallouTalkingtoyou.com and receive updates on her books, and travel
destinations.
