The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

I have been very fortunate in my surfing. The way everything played out in my life could have been scripted from when I was very young yet it was entirely unplanned. Learning to swim at a very young age, taking swimming lesson after almost drowning then finding I enjoyed swimming lessons so taking as much as I could joining the swim team, learning to bodysurf in bigger waves, Learning to paipo board in bigger waves. Learning to surf as it seemed to be the way to go and my parents had given me a state of the art surfboard when I still wasn't interested in it. I had zero plans for my life except to move out of my parents house after I graduated from high school. I never expected to make it to 18 years old as I had several medical professionals warn me to change my ways or I would not see 18. I turned 18 and suddenly I was like "I'm still alive! What do I do now?" The job I got was taking care of a small zoo in a hotel near Wailua beach. I found that I enjoyed working with animals so much and recognized that I would not be able to surf as much as I want once the journey to a veterinary medical degree started so I got a passport and planned to go to California and work my way down to Mexico and maybe further south if money held out. I had saved up some money and sold my car and had a good little nest egg of cash to use. Lucky for me I stayed on Kauai and got to surf as much as I wanted there and used the money to finance 4 years of undergraduate school.

I was very fortunate to meet Greg and that he decided to take me along with him on these surfing adventures around Oahu and lucky that I didn't know his level of surfing or it would have bothered me. I would have been looking out for him and concerned for him in conditions that were not a worry for myself. Worried that he was bored not catching waves or might get injured. As it was my ignorance was a blessing for me and maybe for Greg as well. He didn't want my help.
Lucky to have caught so many awesome waves. Lucky to have survived relatively unscathed. Perhaps some of the luck was just me taking advantage of what was before me. I assume that there are lots of surfers who have similar stories. The one I read that I can relate to the most is Barbarian Days A Surfing Life by William Finnegan but if you have read it, it's obvious my experience was different from his. It's the way he relates to the ocean that seems similar to me. I can tell he feels about the ocean similar to me. Or maybe not lol I am so bone headed sometimes.

[oldmansurfer]

Driving by the beach today there is a good sized swell coming in at Wailua. It's not the normal angle so not tubing on most waves. Some surfers sitting in their cars looking at it no one out right now. Hurricane or the remnants of it nearby.

[oldmansurfer]

The swell was better the following day.

I remember a turn I did at Wailua beach a couple times. The waves were about 8 to 10 foot face and I turned right in the pocket below where the lip was breaking and pushed the tail hard up into there. The board pivoted back like a cutback but this turn took all the speed off the board and it just sort of stopped there but the wave was breaking and pushed it sideways causing it to sideslip until the fins grabbed and straightened it out. That was fun because I enjoy that sideways sensation.

Another turn I can recall was a backside top turn at Horners. I wasn't trying to do anything special but there was so much force on the board while I was basically parallel to the bottom of the ocean, it surprised me. I made a hard turn and the board didn't slide at all. It's one of the most powerful turns I have done since restarting to surf.

[oldmansurfer]

I had that one group of surfers who I surfed with regularly however eventually I mostly surfed with the regulars at the beach I learned to surf at because they were there. I enjoyed surfing with those guys but it was hit mor miss, either they were there or they weren't. Later on there was another couple of guys who I surfed with more than once. One of the guys was a real mess. He spent much of his youth in youth correctional facilities and was sexually assaulted by his stepfather. I first met him when he got released from a juvenile detention center in the mainland and his family had moved to Kauai so he came along and went to the same high school as me. The second year he was there he did not attend school so the school thought his registration to attend there was a mistake and his parents assumed he was going to school. He got caught and was sent to a bad boys camp to get a school diploma and keep him off the street till he was 18.. Once he was 18 he was in and out of jail. But then he seemed to get his stuff together. Anyway one particularly funny thing that happened with him was a drunk surfing episode. He was my paipo boarding friend and he started surfing once I did.

Now I associated with all kinds of criminals when I was a kid and was a criminal myself but changed my ways. We were still friends through all his trials and tribulations. He graduated from his bad boys camp and got a high school diploma and we were drinking beer and fairly well along when he says "Let's go surfing." I say "shoots" so we went to my usual break and it was stormy with about 8 to 10 foot faces which I felt completely comfortable in. It was Kealia and at that size there was no concern for my safety at all. I knew what to do to stay safe at that break at that size and conditions. There was a closeout section on the end of the wave and for fun if he was there to watch, I would turn up to the top of the wave run out on the nose and do a somersault from the top of the wave (no leashes). I used to be on the swim team and spent a lot of time in the swimming pool. I learned to do a bunch of dives when I wasn't swimming on a 3 foot regular dive board and a 10 foot high dive board (Kapaa pool was not metric). Consequently I was quite comfortable doing a somersault from that height. I did this a couple times and he paddled over to me to tell me I had to stop because he was laughing so hard he was going to drown. Of course I did it again. Then he started pleading with me to stop or he was going to drown. I thought he was just joking but he was serious. I realized this surf was probably too much for him in his condition right now so we went in. I don't recommend anyone surf while drunk but it was fun for me and a good story to tell LOL

Another funny story about him was he glassed a marijuana leaf into his board. On his first attempt he made the resin batch too hot and it caught fire. He managed to salvage that board and glassed another leaf into the deck then ended up having to cut it out or get it confiscated by the police.


he was the friend from this story as well. It was the latest design a "stinger", something I had only heard about and not seen much till then. It was made by a local surfer so not the real deal (not a Ben Aipa board). Here it was and I had no clue how he got the board since he had no money as far as I knew. I didn't press him for an answer as to how he got it since I really didn't want to hear it figuring he had done some kind of shady deal. But my friend knew I wanted to try the board out and see how it worked so he offered to let me try it out one day at Kealia Landing.



I surfed on it for about an hour and then decided I wanted my board back so I went in and waited on the beach for my friend to come in. The board was ok but I still preferred my own board. While I was waiting I saw a guy running down the beach from the far side of the beach. I started worrying that maybe this was his board and my friend stole it so I made up my mind that if that was the case I would just hand over the board. As he gets closer I hear him yelling at me and I think Oh my gosh it is his board so I kind of hold it out away from my body so he can take it easily but he stops by me and catches his breath a little and says his friend is drowning and needs help while pointing down the beach to the far side. I guess he was so out of breath from running that I couldn't understand what he was yelling as he ran. I look down at the far side of the beach and there are 4 people in the water so I say "Looks like someone else is already out there helping your friend." He responds "Those guys don't know what they are doing. Come on! Help out my friend he's drowning" motioning me with his arm to follow him and then he runs down the beach so I follow him. At about a third of the way back to where his friend was the guy got completely winded so I continued on by myself.



By the time I get there only 2 people remained in the water so I jump in and paddle out. One was outside the break and the other just inside of the break. I could not tell which one was having problems so when I got to where they could hear me I yelled "Which one of you is having problems?" The guy closest to me, a fit looking haole guy says "Me,Me,Me, I am!" So I put him on my surfboard and start pushing him in. There was a slight current going out right there but I was a strong enough swimmer to overcome that even pushing the board in and swimming behind it. I figure that is why he got into trouble this slight current was more than he could handle. He starts yelling at me "We're not getting closer to the shore!" I tell him calmly "We are." He says "No we aren't. We're hardly moving." I told him to relax and we were getting closer and that he was on the board so he wouldn't drown even if I did. Then I hear the other guy yelling "Help! Help!" So I ask the guy I am pushing in if the other guy was having problems too? He says "Yeah. I swam out to help him and got a cramp in my leg." I screamed "Why didn't you tell me?" Then calmed down and said "I have to leave you and go help that other guy. Just hang on to the board and I will come back and get you once I help the other guy." He was screaming at me that he didn't want to die and that he was going to drown. I pointed out that he had the board and He could float till someone else came for him if I drowned.



I swam out to the other guy who was a big Hawaiian guy. He seemed OK and because he was big he floated well so I asked him if he was in real trouble or just tired. He said he was tired so I told him I would take him in through the surf. I asked if he could hold his breath and he said he could so I told him that we were going to get hit by waves but if he could hold his breath it would be OK. He agreed so I proceeded to tow him into the breaking surf. The waves were only about 2 to 3 feet (4 to 6 foot faces) in that area and not big enough to pound us too hard but would help us get in. I watched and when a wave was coming I would tell him to take a deep breath and then as it hit I would push him up as high as I could and the wave would push him in then I would go get him and make sure he was OK then repeat this till we were well inside the break. By then my friend who had seen me go down the beach came down to find out what was up and paddled out to me. I told him what the problem was and he offered to take the big local guy in on the board he had (my board) so I swam back to my first victim and helped him get the rest of the way in. Actually I reached him at the same time he reached the beach on his own.



The guy who had swam out to help the Hawaiian guy disappeared without saying a word once we got to the beach. I went to the big local guy and asked if he was OK and offered to go call an ambulance or anyone else if he needed. He said he didn't need anything else and that he was so thankful that I helped him, he wanted to give me money for it. I told him not to worry and that if I was in trouble and he could help me I am sure he would have so don't worry about it. He kept saying "Thank you , thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you....etc." I decided to leave before he got his breath and tried to force me to take money so I asked if he was OK again and he said he was and endless thank yous after that and I got my board back from my friend and we went back to the surf.

[oldmansurfer]

I know some of you might not think a board can catch fire from a hot mix of resin but I have witnessed it with my own eyes. The same guy as above before he did that marijuana leaf thing was patching a board with a huge deck delamination. It was a free board given to him because he couldn't afford a new board. I was helping him because he knew nothing about resin. However he was also hard headed and a slow learner. He wanted to be able to surf on the board later in the day and it was late morning so he dumped like a whole bottle of catalyst into the mix despite my advising him to not do that and left the board sitting in the sun at the edge of his garage. We went out to buy some cigarettes and came back 30 minutes later to see his board in flames. We saw the smoke from a distance and kind of rushed back to see his burning board. It was too late for that board as the fire got down into the foam. After that he did it again which was typical for this guy. That's just the kind of guy he was.

His parents left Kauai after he was released from the bad boys camp but he didn't want to go with them so he chose to be a homeless guy on Kauai living in his car. I tried to get him jobs and arranged 3 different jobs for him but the first one he quit after 2 minutes the second after 2 hours and the third after 2 days. I told him he was on his own after that. While homeless and jobless I assume he was doing some crime but he did learn to scavenge for food in a convenience store dumpster on Saturdays. That was when they threw out the outdated stuff. While he was picking through the trash one day the convenience store owners daughter saw him doing that. She worked on Saturdays and she felt sorry for him and offered to give him the outdated stuff if he would clean up outside the store. He did this for a while and then was offered a job to get paid cleaning up. Eventually they opened a pizza sub shop and minigolf course and he became the manager for that. He ended up marrying the store owners daughter and moving out to the mainland. All of this happened while I was in college. I found out about this on a short break from University of Hawaii with a group of students. My roommate in college belonged to a family that owned a small hotel/motel near the pizza sub shop minigolf course. We bought a pizza there and he came and served me and when I gave him the money he gave me back change for the $20 bill I had given him (he did not take money for the pizza). The next night I ordered over the phone so we could pick it up without waiting and he said " Hi. Funny thing just happened. We had someone order a pizza and didn't pick it up so if you want it it's free". It had double extra everything like the night before. Anyway That was how I found out about things from him.

Next I heard for him was a long time after that maybe 10 or 20 years and he called me on the phone wanting to sell me some pot or find someone to buy from him. I told him there was no way I could get involved in any drug related anything. But we talked and I found out he had gotten divorced and had a new wife? He had a facebook page and we kept in touch sort of that way. Not sure if married or just living together and she wanted to kick him out because he was growing pot on her property and the state they lived in was still illegal to grow pot although a nearby state was legal. I heard form him again when he had been arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a minor (three of them actually). His friend was getting married and he bought the booze for the wedding reception. There were 3 young girls who were there along with their parents and even though they condoned the booze consumption one of the other people there did not and reported him. He was very upset about it and said he wasn't going to go back to jail again.

I had no idea what that meant but the next I heard on his facebook page that he had blown his brains out with a shotgun. What a hard life. He did it his way I guess.