Rebekah’s Studio

Good morning, studio fans! Until today we’ve been hanging out at Kaneohe Yacht Club where I and my team have been crafting lei for some of the arriving boats in the Pacific Cup Yacht Race from San Francisco.

I say “until today” because the thunder-lightning-rain storm that is ripping the Islands has closed roads, etc., and we are taking a rest this morning, enjoying the waterfalls, retrieving wet pets from outdoors, and surveying the flooding and mudslides. We can hardly imagine what it must have been for the small-boat racers at sea last night. What a light show!

Here’s Jennifer, Kaneohe Yacht Club member, thrilled with her first boat lei. She and Nancy, pictured below, discovered they went to the same high school in Minnesota. Now they meet on Oahu!

We are making 40 lei, wili style, each 12-feet long and uniquely beautiful. All the plant materials are gathered and donated voluntarily. Our lei makers range from first-timers to professionals. Our team is composed of folks from Kaneohe Yacht Club, Ko‘olauloa Hawaiian Civic Club that receives scholarship funds from the lei sales, and my friends. It is a fun, social activity that we do every even-numbered year.

Kamakea of Ko‘olauloa Hawaiian Civic Club is from a family of professional lei makers who go way back. Her father Gus Kalili made and sold lei out of his woody along Lagoon Drive on the way to the old Honolulu International Airport back when.

Kathleen Sattler, my glee club sister, welcomes the break from her otherwise stressful schedule this week.

Thanks to all the volunteers on all of the Pacific Cup committees.

Carol, experienced in making lei for hats, crafts her first giant one for a boat.

Friends Nancy and Pat enjoy helping with lei construction.