Column: Mail carrier delivers an unusual object to San Diego Opera

Someone must be nuts about the San Diego Opera. Either that, or the opera is driving someone nuts! What other explanation could there be for the coconut delivered in the mail last week?

The opera’s downtown San Diego address was printed with black magic marker on the solid brown projectile, more suitable for the Bali Hai on Shelter Island. Most of the surface was covered with colorful postage stamps — as you might imagine coming all the way from Moloka’i, Hawaii.

San Diego Opera folks posted a photo of the mailed coconut on the opera’s Facebook page with the note, “We get the strangest mail here some days ...”

The comments were almost as entertaining as the shipment: “Request for season tickets?” “Maybe they are hinting at a production of the Marx Brothers’ ‘Coconuts?’” “The Pearl Fishers (a Georges Bizet opera) need to be rescued!” “Put the lime in the coconut and drink it up.” (To which the opera staff responded, “We like how you think.”)

Mystery sender suspect No. 1 is the opera’s special events coordinator Darin Dietz, known to be vacationing in Hawaii. Turns out, a post office in the tiny village of Ho’olehua on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i specializes in sending coconuts all over the world.

The Post-a-Nut program is a postal service begun 28 years ago to promote tourism and later expanded to help bulk up business so the tiny post office wouldn’t lose status or staff.

The coconuts, in plentiful supply, are donated by villagers, says postmaster Roxann Tancayo. The post office provides colorful felt tip pens and encourages customers to create their personal postcard designs.

Visitors pay only the mailing cost, which is determined by the weight and destination of the chosen coconut. Postage normally ranges from $14 to $25, Tancayo says, and delivery time can be up to two weeks. The unboxed coconuts can be sent almost anywhere, except to Australia and New Zealand where, even though the coconuts bear an agricultural inspection stamp, foreign produce is strictly regulated.

Tancayo says her office air mails about 3,000 a year, with Europe and Japan being very popular destinations.

The program has put Ho’olehua, Molokai, on the attractions list in popular travel guides, including Frommer’s and Lonely Planet, on the pages of Travel & Leisure magazine and on the RoadsideAmerica.com website. Trip Advisor currently designates it the No. 1 of 22 Moloka’i sights and landmark attractions.

The good news? Rarely are these rock-like “packages” broken by jiu jitsu-practicing mail handlers, and they certainly aren’t opened for inspection.

As for the opera’s coconut, Communications Director Edward Wilensky says it now sits on display in the lobby.

Other off-beat items they’ve received include 35 years worth of opera programs, a bootlegged recording of one of its performances, unsolicited vinyl records and CDs, coffee beans and an expensive espresso machine (sent from a board member). More often, though, they are sent alcohol and candy, which, Wilensky notes, are much appreciated.

Now, who is going to send the piña colada mix?