Every once and a while, Thomas and I would go to the north shore of Kauai, to check in with JR and the status of my necklaces. We had been hanging out the whole time on the Kapaa side of the island.
We would go to the dry cave, and there would be JR, always sitting there at his table and selling and stringing jewelry. There were a few other vendors there too, who sold everyday. The cave is this huge, deep, dry cave, that is across the road from a beautiful beach park, Haena Beach Park. Tourists would stop and look at the cave, and then of course, they would look at the jewelry.
Now money still wasn't much of an issue with us. I seemed to be on endless unemployment. But we would just go and check in, every once in a while for the heck of it. No one was buying my necklaces. I guess they were just too hippie organic for the general population. One day JR asks us, if we want to make some money, selling his jewelry for him, while he sits in his car and strings. He will pay us. We say sure. So we start hanging out on the north shore which is the most lush and beautiful anyway. We are selling and JR is stringing.
Every week a wholesaler comes and opens up his trunk and has the most amazing beads. He has strands of shells, corals, jades. He has beads, that are outlawed and not harvested anymore. He has Mediterranean Red Coral and Angel Skin Coral. He has nice beads. He is also a nice guy. One day Thomas and I say, why don't I buy some beads from this guy, and I make necklaces from them. These are the beads people like, not the Jobs Tears. I figure I can make necklaces just as good as JR and the others.
So the next time the wholesaler comes, we make our big purchase. We buy 7 dollars worth of beads, and that was a big deal. It was also the true beginning of my jewelry business, I still have to this day.
I made a few necklaces on JR's table, and they sold! So the next week, we buy a little more. I make them up and they sell. So the next week a little more. Soon we decide to have our own table, so we stop selling for JR and start selling my work. We became regulars down there selling everyday at the dry cave.
We were becoming true cave people. Because besides this, we ended up LIVING in a cave for 7 months. The cave we sold at, was part of a mountain rock formation, that continued a few miles, until the road on the north side of the island actually ended at the ocean and what is called the Na Pali Coast. The Na Pali Coast is cliffs pressed against the ocean. There is a trail you can walk for 12 miles, and then that even ends. You can not go all the way around Kauai by land. It becomes too treacherous.
So, about a mile or so, from the end of the road was a mountain called Buddah Mountain. It looks like a pyramid. Under it there is a cave that is like a ledge. People used that place to live in. It had a bamboo bed built in it, and a drip to gather wash water. There was a lovely stand of Hau Trees that rustled with the wind. You could hear the ocean echoing against the walls of the cave. It was vacant, so we moved in.
Across the road was another hippie commune called Taylor's Camp. It was right on the ocean. Elizabeth Taylor's brother owned the land, and were letting people live there. There were handmade houses. We never really got very involved with Taylor's Camp. We got more involved with selling our jewelry at the dry cave.
So we lived in our cave, and sold at the other cave for quite a while. But then everything changed, as it always does. We were living in our cave when they closed down Taylor's Camp. The state somehow did it. It was famous enough to make the National Geographic. They were burning it, and people were vandalizing it, and we didn't feel safe across the road, with all that going on so we left. Then they closed down us selling. This is how that happened.
There was another place on the other side of the island, The Spouting Horn. It was a big tourist attraction. There were alot of vendors selling jewelry there. There were people of more Hawaiian descent, making unbelievable gorgeous necklaces. They were more like leis, very long and many strands of expensive beads. There was a lot of in fighting among the vendors over the best spots to sell. Finally, the fighting got so bad, somebody called the cops. This drew attention to the vendors and the county figured out people weren't paying their taxes. They shut them down, and we were just thrown in to the pot. So that was the end of that. But not totally.
Remember JR?? He was kind of like our jewelry guru. He tells us we aren't done. We just have to walk the beach now, that is all. So, he takes us to another part of the island, and we start walking the tourist beach everyday, selling necklaces. He starts at one end, we start at the other and meet in the middle. It worked pretty good. It was actually not allowed, but no one ever caught us. We made way more money in way less time doing that.
Eventually Thomas and I rented an apartment to get rid of the head lice. This whole time we were struggling we it. We got a place on the Poipu side. Thomas found a spot in the mornings, where tourists would walk from one hotel to the other. He would go out and set up for an hour or so. He did great. That was better than the dry cave too. But I will always have happy, fond memories of selling at the Haena Dry Cave.
copyright 2010 © Stacey Bander. Please contact for any reuse.
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