Aloha!
To start I’m the new intern here at Keawe Adventures! My name is Rebecca and I have been in Hawaii for about 2 years now. For a big city girl from Texas, Hawaii is a big change but an incredibly inspiring one. I spent the first 19 years of my life here and there with a very dedicated father in the military and then ended up here for my last two years of college. I’ll be graduating soon but wanted to have something on my resume that shouted adventure and experience.
I mean what better way to do that than by actually having the word Adventure in there, am I right?
I came into this industry not really knowing anything about tourism or hospitality and to say I was hungry to learn is an understatement. So, I applied for this internship hoping for something new, and boy did I get something new! I have to do 400 hours of my internship and I’m so excited to have the opportunity to do that here. This will just be a fun way to document my time at Keawe Adventures.
As for my first official day ‘on the job’ I learned more about fish, fishing, and the fishing community in three hours than I have in my whole 21 years of life. I feel like I’m going to be learning a little bit of everything with my time here.
I came into work this morning at 6:30 with my venti Starbucks coffee in hand. I’m definitely not a morning person however I was really excited to start my internship adventure. I was expecting to sit at a computer, answering phone calls and spending the day in an office, but let me be the first to tell you guys, that was not the case. As soon as I walked in Makani, the owner of Keawe Adventures, was ready to go! He told me that we were going to be spending the morning “taking people fish”.
Now being the naive city girl I am I assumed we were taking frozen fish, or already cooked fish to friends, and while half of that is true (everyone we took these fish to were friends) the fish was definitely not frozen or cooked. It was fresh. Like from the ocean, probably was alive 24 hours ago or less, fresh. I’ve never seen a real fish, because in Dallas about the closest thing we get to fresh live fish is a cow, so this was a real eye opener!
*No Pun Intended*
The first place we went to was a concierge friend of Makani to drop off some fresh fish he had caught. Keawe adventures is so appreciative of the relationships they have built with the local community and so far I’m learning just how to spread the Aloha Spirit and be thankful to all the people who make this industry successful.
*Sidenote: Keawe Adventures does do Fly Fishing tours! How awesome! I seriously might just need to take one myself because when it comes to fishing I knew nothing before today.*
Anyways after, we went to the fish market to really open my eyes to what the fishing business is truly like. (Pictured above and below) I can honestly say I have never seen so many fish in one place.
Like, what? This is actually a thing!
(Pictured above, fisherman boots, because apparently slippers are not acceptable in the fish auction, and for good reason it was freezing in there and there was fresh fish EVERYWHERE!)
Honestly, I felt like a fish out of water.
*Okay, Pun definitely intended.*
But overall it was so cool to see all of the fish and to see all the fisherman interact. Relationships are so important in this industry and being able to gift someone with fish and even just make connections with fishermen is priceless.
After the large scale fish adventure, we headed over to a small pier where Makani met with his friends who had just returned from fishing. Man did they have a lot of fish! The boat seemed so small but the amount of fish they had was a ton! Literally!
They were all so nice and they worked so hard for all the fish they had caught! Two whole days of fishing, but you know what they say hard work really does pay off. They were kind enough to give Makani some more fish and instead of just keeping it he decided to pay it forward and go to more concierges with gifts of fish! It was so much fun and everyone was so appreciative!
Overall today was great although I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a morning person, I might need to start because look how productive we were, and mind you this was all before 9am!
I can’t wait to see what this next few months has in store for me and Keawe Adventures. And don’t worry, I’ll keep you all posted on what this new chapter brings.
–Becca