        
About Me: Hawaii
this page last modified on Monday, August 18, 2008
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This is me, Christopher Becker, flying near leeward Oahu's Kalaeloa Airport.
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You won't meet anyone who enjoys exploring Hawaii as much as I do. In 1989, I moved to Hawaii on a whim. I was just 19 years old. I had no one to meet me at the airport and no idea where I would spend my first night. But as soon as I stepped off the plane in Hilo, it felt like home.
Since my first day here, I've never stopped exploring Hawaii. I've seen valleys and mountains and beaches that most residents and tourists have never seen. I've been to Molokai's legendary leper colony at Kaulapapa. I've walked the beaches of Niihau (the Forbidden Island). I've been burned with hot lava from Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island. I've spent a night freezing my ass off in an observatory on the snow-covered summit of Mauna Kea. I've walked in the footsteps of kings.
I am a pilot and I did all of my flight training in Hawaii, sometimes visiting five islands in one day. From the skies over Hawaii, I've seen shipwrecks, sunsets, whales, rainbows, hidden beaches, abandoned airfields, remote peaks, and little-known places such as End of The World, Garden of The Gods and Stairway To Heaven. I used to work for a helicopter tour company on the Big Island. They flew tourists over Kilauea Volcano and hired me to make schedules and load passengers. I was free to sit in empty seats during flights, and as a result, I've seen the volcano more than a hundred times from the air -- an experience worth much more than the paycheck.
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This is me in 1990 sitting next to a lava flow near the Royal Gardens subdivision on the Big Island.
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In 2006, I walked across the island of Molokai. I also walked across the Big Island (a nine-day journey from Hilo to Hawi to Kona). I walked across Kauai in 2007. I'd like to walk across all the islands someday. By the way, it's true what they say about Molokai: it's like visiting Hawaii 50 years ago. No traffic lights on the island, few police (or a need for them), friendly, rural, and a world away from Waikiki.
Of all the major islands, I've explored Maui the least. Which is to say I've only been there 15 times or so.
Before I settled on Kauai in 1999, I lived on Oahu and both sides of the Big Island.
In my spare time, I used to grow rare and critically endangered native Hawaiian palm trees at my home on the westside of Kauai. In 2008, I sold them all to a homeowner on Oahu who actually sailed his own boat to Kauai to pick them up. I got married in 2001 at Kekaha Beach on Kauai.
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