Double Haul Out + Office Redesign
January 30- February 17, 2023 Holo Holo Charters will not be operating any of our fabulous Napali Coast or Niihau boat tours. Please bear with us through this time as we remodel our check-in office and haul-out our catamarans for regular maintenance.
In the summer of 2022, the Holo Holo Charters maintenance department moved out of the small, dark, crowded shop space that we had occupied for years, and into our brand new, light-and-bright 8,000 square foot, state-of-the-art boat maintenance facility. Being in our own space that was designed and built for our specific needs makes the daily grind for our guys in the shop much more efficient and enjoyable.
Now it’s 2023, and it’s time to upgrade our office facility! If you’ve ever taken a Holo Holo Kauai boat tour, you checked-in at our office in the Port Allen Marina Center. On the first floor is our retail area, reservations desk, and lounge/breakroom. Upstairs there are several rooms and offices for our general manager, operations manager, human resources, accounting, sustainability coordinator, and marketing.
We’ve been in this space in the Port Allen Marina Center since 2004 and hey, it’s gotten us this far, but it’s time for a refresh. Modern, sleek, and efficient are adjectives that inspire our on-the-water operations and it’s time our office areas reflected those terms as well. It’s well-known that a neat workplace increases employees’ morale and transforms the office into a cleaner, safer, healthier, happier work environment.
So, we’re doing a pretty major overhaul of the existing space! Jim Archibald of JKA Design, here on Kauai, has been super helpful in designing the layout and showing us the latest and greatest in ergonomic, modular, and versatile office furniture. We’re also working with Susan Irie of Kilohana Lighting, the folks at Aloha Flooring, and we’ll be replacing all the ceiling tiles, baseboard, and giving every square inch a fresh coat of paint as well.
We’ll be adding a proper tech-forward meeting space for 12 people that we can use for staff trainings, CPR trainings, etc. We’re adding a lot of built-in storage so there are less random filing cabinets and stacks of boxes in every corner and more designated spaces for every little thing to be in its place and out of the way.
We’ve hired Curtis Law Construction for the job, which begins January 31 and is projected to take 45 working days, which means that for February, March, and into April, our office staff will have to work around the construction. For some of our staff that means working from home, for some it means temporarily squeezing into and working from random spaces. It’s sure to be frustrating and inconvenient at times, but we’ll make it work!
That said, we can’t imagine getting much of anything done in those first couple of weeks– the “demo” period– so we went ahead and cancelled all of our tour operations from 1/31-2/17 and will be using that time to do annual maintenance haul outs on our two catamarans, Holo Holo and Leila.
For the first time ever, we’ll be able to haul out both boats at once, and park them side-by-side inside our fancy new shop. Such a luxury compared to what we’ve always done before– haul outs on the gravel and in the elements. Before, it was always guesswork to estimate how long any given haul out would take because we were subject to the wind, the rain, and the beating sun. Now that we’re not working around the whims of mother nature, we’re able to make and stick to a pretty accurate haul out schedule.
This year the main mission for haul out is sanding and painting both boats. It will be all hands on deck– our captains and crew members will work alongside our maintenance department to remove every single item possible off the boats, and sand, tape, prime, and paint every square inch of them both. When Holo Holo resumes operating on February 17th and Leila starts back up on February 21st, they will both be looking bright and shiny, fresh and fine.
A few weeks after that, we’ll be able to say the same about our offices and guest check-in area.
We apologize for any inconvenience our temporary closure causes, and we appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding during the office remodel. We’re committed to continuously making updates and upgrades across all our departments, so that we’re able to attract and retain the most talented employees on the island, and provide the highest-quality boat tours in the state of Hawaii.
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