Rhys Darby: Patience key to marriage on warm Waikiki nights

Rhys Darby meet the 'Pacific Knights' at Waikiki Beach.

Bikers and bit of snorkelling rekindle spirit of ageing love birds.

The wife and I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in Hawaii. I was already booked to do a show there so the timing was perfect. We decided to leave the kids behind with friends and go it alone, like two ageing love birds rekindling the spirit that connected us all those years ago.

Of course once we got there most of our conversations revolved around the kids. We tried to take our minds off them by sipping copious amounts of cocktails but that just made us miss them more. In the end there was only one thing for it, we had to set off on some island adventure ...

We hired scooters and took off down the main street of Waikiki. Unfortunately my scooter had an acceleration problem and Rosie slipped away leaving me stuck at the lights. Seconds later no less than 20 loud motorbikes pulled up beside me. They all had matching jackets so this led me to believe it was a fully-fledged biker gang. Either that or a massive coincidence. I was now in the middle of them and I looked pretty pathetic on my nifty fifty. I felt like I'd been engulfed, much like the US space capsule in the opening sequence of You Only Live Twice (that's a James Bond film). Anyway, as they were all staring at me I decided to make light conversation.

"Are you guys all in a gang ... or is this just a massive coincidence?"

"We're the Pacific Knights," said one of them while pointing with his thumb to the patch on the back of his jacket that I really couldn't see. I couldn't hear him well either over the loud rumbling and revving of the machines.

"What's that?" I replied.

"Pacific Knights," he came back with.

"Which nights exactly?" says I, "I'm keen to be involved but I'm only here for a limited time. When do you get together?"

"We're the Pacific Knights," was the response, this time from one of the other bikers.

"Yeah, but which nights? Is it Tuesdays and Thursdays? I bet it is. Look, I'm busy on Thursday guys ... The wife and I have planned a snorkelling trip."

Suddenly the lights changed and all the bikes took off. I slowly departed myself, not overly convinced but quietly hoping I'd been inducted into the gang.

Later that afternoon I caught up with Rosie, my wife of 10 years. We had a fantastic time snorkelling at Hanauma Bay. There at shallow depths were dozens of beautiful fish. We entered their world with an underwater camera. Between us we used up all 30 shots on the film. Yes that's right, it was a camera with a film. Weird, eh? It was a cheap one we picked up at a gas station. I look forward to one day getting that film developed. It mightn't be for another 10 years. Who knows ... but hey, that's the key to a successful marriage folks ... Patience. I think my wife has a lot of it.