A Waimea Coconut Cloud

A Waimea Coconut Cloud. Photo by David Lansing.

The thing about staying in one of the Waimea Plantation cottages is that you tend to not want to go anywhere. You spend the late afternoon hanging out at the pool, a simple old-fashioned rectangular affair with no water slides, no infinity edges, watching the pink-skinned children playing Marco Polo while their moms and dads snooze or read their books, and then about five you reluctantly wander back up the great lawn that stretches for 200 yards from the beach to the resort’s restaurant, The Grove, dragging your beach towel behind you, grasping a wet magazine or two in your water-shriveled hand, back to your cottage where you take a long shower and spread coconut-scented lotion over your slightly-sunburnt limbs and wonder whether you’ll have a cool glass of Chardonnay or a g+t out on the veranda as the sun sets.

And then, although you contemplate driving into town and having dinner at the Hawaiian barbecue place or maybe the shrimp place, you end up getting lazy and decide to just follow the tiki torches that line both sides of the great lawn back up to the old plantation house that used to be the main residence of the Faye family back in the early 1900s, and ask for a table on the lanai of the restaurant.

They’ll bring you a menu printed just for the evening and you take your time contemplating the virtues of a paniolo-style grilled ribeye versus the furikake seared ahi with wasabi butter sauce but there is no hurry to make a decision. The tiki torch flames dance in the ocean breeze and the conversation around you tinkles like glass wind chimes and the air is sultry and warm. So you order an appetizer of hamahi sashimi and the resort’s signature cocktail, a Coconut Cloud, made with coconut milk and pineapple and rum, and you just take a sip and smile at the couple sitting across from you on the veranda who are celebrating their wedding anniversary, and you promise yourself that tomorrow night you’ll have dinner in town. Really. For sure.