Cliff House

Glimpses: Behind the Scenes Series
Written By Deborah Rudell

Nawiliwili Harbor in front of the Westin Kauai Resort. After working in the boatyard each day, I swam a few times across the bay here. It is beautiful and calm in this photo, a rarity, as there were often three-to four-foot waves~ April 1988

I swam across Nawiliwili Bay every day. The breakwater in the distance is the one in the opening scenes of the movie, Jurasic Park. There was a huge storm when they were filming that movie, and the photographers caught some great footage right here in the harbor.

My favorite rental house was the last house up on the cliffs to the left. It was owned by an elderly couple from Vancouver who spent six months a year on Kauai and had done so for many years. He was a shrewd businessman and an astute judge of character. Somehow, he took a shine to the twins and rented us the cliff house for the part of the year they were away. There were two fully furnished two-bedroom apartments: Kiran and Riko were upstairs and we were downstairs.

This exquisite location was at the end of the point and above the 18th hole of the fancy Kaui Lagoons Golf Course. A famous golfer had designed the course and lived next door. He came home one day and parked his car in front of our driveway and I (not knowing who he was) asked him to move it. He was quite incensed that I would make such an unreasonable request. Didn’t I know who he was?  No, I didn’t!  But when he moved his car I noticed he walked into the house next door and I realized I’d just asked a celebrity to move his car … the boys laughed for days about that!

View from the cliff house over the 18th green and into Nawiliwili Harbor

True to her reputation, Kauai is the island of rainbows.

Deborah Rudell

I grew up in a small town in British Columbia, the eldest of four children. Typical of the 60’s and 70’s, there were many children in the neighborhood and plenty of independence and autonomy. My parents were busy with younger siblings and as a child I found solace in my stuffed animals and imaginary friends. As a preteen, my grandmother taught me about reincarnation, Edgar Cayce, yoga and Jesus. As a teen, my coping mechanism for the pain I saw and felt in the world was a reading list that included Max Heindel’s The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, Gina Cerminara’s Many Mansions, Levi Dowling’s The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ and books about Atlantis.

https://www.deborahrudell.com/
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