The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

So another day I did some memorable turns was the next biggest day I have surfed. This happened between my two outings to Makaiwa above. Hanalei was big but my only clue was the current going out alongside the whitewater coming in. It was very strong the strongest I have ever seen there so I had a clue it was going to be big. It's like maybe 0.7 mile paddle out on a day like that. As I got out ot the break it was ginormous and there were 6 surfers sitting on the edge of the break checking out the waves. I asked them if they had caught any waves and no they hadn't. I asked them how big it was I guessed 17 feet because I had been in 15 foot surf there and this was clearly bigger and they said yeah it could be around there. Watching the waves it looked perfect big huge tubing waves. I was itching to give it a try knowing it could be my last day on earth but as you know I didn't want to regret not trying to catch waves for the rest of my life. I paddled into the lineup by myself and tried to catch a wave and couldn't so I paddled deeper and tried and couldn't so I paddled deeper and eventually I caught a wave. It was huge already and the wave stood up higher before it broke. On most of the drops I dropped down about 15 feet then started going back up the wave due to the water sucking up the face of the wave as the peak pitched up. Usually I would get released and then take a really insanely steep drop where I could feel the board teetering back and forth beneath my feet which of course meant the board was not firmly in the water. Time slowed down and I could see little droplets of water floating in the air past me from the nose of my board. As I got closer to the bottom I could feel the board start to press up into my feet and I would start my bottom turn and look up at the massive wall. It was such a frightening thing I just cranked the board for as much speed as I could and shot right back up to the top of the wave then dropped down and repeated in these giant rollercoaster ride turns. I am pretty sure that on the drop my fin was out of the water. The wave was so steep and it felt like my fin free turn at the top where as I approached the bottom 30 plus feet below I could feel the fin engage but it wasn't as much of a difference as it was on smaller waves just a little boost. Dropping down he wave felt reminiscent of riding an elevator going down. The first wave I came off the end and was overcome by a euphoric feeling. It was really remarkable. I don't exactly know how to describe it other than I felt like I was not alive before that moment. That first wave I was probably 50 yards in front of the breaking portion of the wave when I cut out which is a measure of how much it scared me. The 6 guys were still sitting there probably not impressed with my ride as I was such a chicken but they apparently decided not to catch any waves and went in. Some of the waves I caught I would drop down 15 feet then start coming back up and instead of dropping down I came over the back of the wave and was standing there futilely as the wave passed me by and I was all pumped with adrenalin for the drop. It was so depressing to miss a wave like that.

After several waves and no tube ride I decided to try to slow down. On some of the waves the shadow of the lip came over me so I knew I was close to getting tubed but no clear tube ride. So on the bottom turn I didn't jam it and did a slower bottom turn and that was a mistake as a huge section broke in front of me and I was at the bottom and it was too far up to the top to make it before that part broke and I had to straighten out. The wave broke behind me then came up and blasted me off my board and engulfed me. I was bounced around a little and then was pulled by my leash. It was pulling so hard I was afraid it would rip my leg off and I thought about someone finding my leg attached to my board and thinking a shark ate me but after a little while the pressure let up I guess as my speed matched the wave. I attempted to reach down and remove the leash but could not reach it due to water pressure however the velcro on the leash gave up and it came off. I was bounced around some more and then it let up. I came up to the surface and there was about 2 to 3 feet of stable foam on the surface of the water like the head on a beer. No board so I had no way to get my head above the foam to breath. Another wave came by and I had never seen that before so was thinking it would dissipate but when I came up after the next wave it was still there so I tried swishing the foam above my head with my arm and I was able to make a cone of air above me. When the next wave came in I blew out all my air and swished a cone in the foam and proceeded to suck in a bunch of foam. I had saltwater in my lungs and wanted to cough but I learned long ago that if you cough under water you reflexively suck water back in after the cough and can drown like that. So I resisted the urge to cough and concentrated on not coughing. I kind of drifted off into my head like meditation and was brought back to reality by something rubbing my back. I opened my eyes and saw I was in about 15 feet of water and it was the reef rubbing my back. I had no air so sunk to the bottom. I realized I was drowning. Everything was kind of brown and dark but I was relaxed and not feeling too bad having overcome the urge to cough. I thought this isn't so bad. I thought drowning would be this horrendous thing sucking in water and coughing and sucking more in but it was peaceful. Suddenly I noticed a dark spot on the surface of the water which meant there was no foam and I could get a breath so I got up off the reef and swam for that spot everything disappeared except for the dark spot it was like the a black tunnel to the black spot. I was so tired I wanted to stop and go to sleep but forced myself to keep swimming. I got there and got a breath and was hit by another wave. All the darkness disappeared as I was bounced around and it became all white and bright and I knew I wasn't going to die that day. I got another breath and thought about going for two breaths before the next wave but the wave hit me right then. I laughed at myself thinking don't get too greedy. After a while I was not in need of air once again and started the task of getting 0.7 miles back to the shore. At first I would swim and then let the wave catch me and push me more in but gradually a wave started to reform under the whitewater. Eventually I caught and bodysurfed that reforming wave and that is what really saved me. I bodysurfed half the way back to the beach. Having been a bodysurfer was an important thing as i knew where to be to get the best ride. I would ride each one as far as I could then catch another. When I got all the ways to the beach about 50 feet from the shore there was my board. I was so happy as it could have gotten caught in the current out and there was no way I was going back out there. The surfers who were out there were still on the beach and came running up to me and said they thought I drowned and they were happy to see I hadn't. I asked if they saw what happened but they said no they just saw my board come in without me. LOL there was no way to see the break from the beach. I told them it was a close one and I was happy to be back on the beach.

This is why I went in after a few waves at Makaiwa because I didn't want to push my luck as I did on that day. Lesson learned. Just be happy to have survived and cut your losses and go in before you get too tired or greedy.

[oldmansurfer]

When I was younger without knowing it I seemed to be training to surf big waves. As a child I would attempt to punish my parents by holding my breath so I ended up being a little interested in seeing how long I could hold my breath. It was over a minute back then. I was a body surfer and learned to handle getting pounded in bigger waves. At a young age I learned yoga on my own from a book. Doing yoga I learned to hold my breath even longer by relaxing. I was a problem for my parent to handle so they put me in swimming classes partly because I almost drowned once and partly to get me out of their hair for a couple hours regularly. As a result I got on the swim team and on the swim team we did one training where we swam across the length of the pool 25 yards without taking a breath. Initially I thought that would be difficult but it wasn't too bad. That got me wondering how far I could swim without a breath and instead of on the surface underwater. So during my time at the pool when I wasn't training I would sometimes work on long distance underwater swimming and breath holding underwater. I got up to 100 yards underwater in one breath. All of this without me knowing was preparing me to surf big waves. I was just at the doctors office and he check my apple watch to see what my heart has been doing and noticed my resting heartrate was at some point 46 beats per minute. I know I can lower my heart rate to around 50 by relaxing but I hadn't been checking lately and I guess I exceeded that. Anyway a slower heartrate might result in less oxygen required as well. Plus due to my childhood breath holding I guess I have huge lungs. Anyway Just to point out that I survived because of these things and I don't advise others to follow my somewhat reckless behavior as in the same situation I assume most people would have died. I am only here to tell this story because I accidentally trained for riding big waves

[BoMan]

My dad liked to body surf White Sands Beach in Kona. He called the waves "back breakers" and he was right. I tried to keep up with him but always got out after suffering bloody noses. And to think he paid good money for the family to fly Pan Am 4 engine props from San Francisco just so we could get smashed in the shore break!

[oldmansurfer]

There are bodysurfing beaches that are known for causing back injuries and some for causing arm/shoulder injuries and some for neck injuries. I think it partly relates to the style of bodysurfing done at that particular beach. I have seen a bunch of wrist injuries due to people bodysurfing with one arm outstretched in front of them and then the wave dumps them and they keep their arm outstretched and the wave drives it into the bottom. The end of the lower arm breaks right above the wrist or maybe right at the wrist. But the beach I was at was known for causing neck injuries

[oldmansurfer]

While I did see a couple people with neck injuries at my bodysurfing beach I saw a handful of arm wrist injuries. The neck injuries were notable because they had an ambulance but the broken arms/wrists usually did not have an ambulance. I guess that one other thing that also made me prepared for bigger waves was taking judo as a kid. In judo for the first few months you just learn how to fall and not get hurt. This helped me not get hurt as well since I wasn't ever seriously injured surfing or bodysurfing. The worst injury I had body surfing was on one of the biggest days I bodysurfed there. I didn't check out the surf before going out and swam out because I was hot from hitchhiking there and looked up to see a wave with a 10 to 12 foot face about to break and I ducked down to the bottom which was maybe 3 to 4 feet deep there. The lip landed directly on me pinning me into the bottom. It popped all the vertebrae in my back felt something like a zipper running up my back and pushed all the air out of my lungs. I came up with a mouthful of water and no air in my lungs to spit it out but I had heard from another bodysurfer that in this situation you should swallow the water to clear it from your mouth then take a breath so that's what I did. I was shocked but no worse for wear and stayed in the ocean and caught a bunch of the waves with 20 foot faces. What landed on me was the shorebreak or smaller waves that came through and broke inside. After going home I discovered the injury which was sand imbedded in my skin over my hip bones which I had to dig out with a pin maybe like 10 grains on each side. This was before the movie North Shore so I wasn't taught that when the waves do this don't be there but I learned it anyway.

[oldmansurfer]

I forgot about an equally bad injury from bodysurfing. I was bodysurfing at a spot I hadn't ever tried before. It was a wave that broke along one side of a huge reef and it broke for along distance but on the inside was very shallow reef. On the wave in I decided to ride it in as far as I could because while on the wave it kept me off the reef. However I didn't anticipate a big coral head sticking up. I grazed it and got some scrapes on my belly. The sand injury only bled after I dug the grains out but it was an injury of a similar size and depth

[BoMan]

In the family my Dad was famous for body surfing waves all the way onto the beach. I don't know why it did it because every time I tried I ended up with load of sand in my trunks!

[oldmansurfer]

In my case I bodysurfed all the way to the beach over a shallow reef because if not I had to go over a little bit into deeper water for the last 100 feet and swim in which was my original plan. However as I rode in I realized the way the wave was breaking it held me up off the reef. I just forgot about the coral heads closer to the beach. When I was learning to bodysurf long ago I used to just ride whitewater to the beach and one day another guy at the beach said you can go along with the wave. And I was like HUH? I went on the shoreline to watch him and he rode in front of where the wave was breaking. That was it. I vowed to never ride whitewater again. Which I kept up with except for coming in.

[TeeBee89]

When I was learning to bodysurf long ago I used to just ride whitewater to the beach and one day another guy at the beach said you can go along with the wave. And I was like HUH?

This was exactly my reaction too upon being told this
You're right about judo too, I'd never made that connection. Who would have thought hoofing each other in the shins as kids and chucking each other into the floor had some practical application
Do you bother with the reef boots btw? I've been lucky so far with reefs, but not so much with rocks. Thinking I should finally convert to boots before I find the urchin spine with my foot's name on it.

[oldmansurfer]

This was exactly my reaction too upon being told this
You're right about judo too, I'd never made that connection. Who would have thought hoofing each other in the shins as kids and chucking each other into the floor had some practical application
Do you bother with the reef boots btw? I've been lucky so far with reefs, but not so much with rocks. Thinking I should finally convert to boots before I find the urchin spine with my foot's name on it.

In the Judo class I took the first 2 months was entirely made up of slapping the matts. Th slapping helps to break your fall or lessen the impact. I used to practice falling off a chair to show off my judo skills. I could fall off from standing on a chair in any direction without harm. We also learned the shoulder roll that was to somersault over one shoulder or the other. I learned to fall so well it became second nature for me. When ever I fell, I automatically did either a slap or a roll to land without harm. Looking back on this I wonder if my parents put me in this class specifically to help me to be safer. As a very young child I was watching a movie on TV and saw the stuntman fall down the stairs. I saw how he positioned himself to safely make it down so I immediately went out and tried it and to my surprise it worked well. So I showed off my new skill to my mother and she was aghast even though I assured her I was okay and explained how I fell to make it okay she made me stop doing it. LOL Maybe she thought if he's going to fall I'll get someone to teach him how to fall.

When I was a kid I went everywhere barefoot and I had heavily calloused feet so could walk on the reef without any problems except for sea urchins. So I would only walk on the reef where I could see if there were any sea urchins. Otherwise I avoided shallow reefs and would swim around them. In surfing this is a consideration before I go out to surf, I look for area to avoid. In the days before leashes I used to surf a reef break that had a very long wave that broke over the reef. If you lose your board you have to go over the reef to get it. So I would swim in to where it was shallow then walk to my board then flip the board over with fins pointing up so they didn't drag on the reef then paddle back out into deeper water with the board like the and flip it back once there. It was a break where Gerry Lopez used to surf and I heard he would take out slippers tied to hi waist to use on the reef but my feet were good enough for that reef.

[TeeBee89]

When I was a kid I went everywhere barefoot and I had heavily calloused feet so could walk on the reef without any problems except for sea urchins. So I would only walk on the reef where I could see if there were any sea urchins. Otherwise I avoided shallow reefs and would swim around them. In surfing this is a consideration before I go out to surf, I look for area to avoid.

Ah, so my walking barefoot whenever possible and avoidance strategy actually makes sense. I thought I was nuts
I was just worried I was holding myself back. Though the particular spot I've long meant to visit is notorious for rocks and sea urchins. Likely obvious to everyone here too, but until a decade ago I also had no idea just how sharp lava rock is
The falling makes sense. I still instinctively roll and I've found the overall philosophy strangely helpful for rag dolling in larger surf, not panicking, etc.

[oldmansurfer]

I wouldn't trust boots to keep my feet safe from the sea urchins we have here. So if navigating sea urchins seemed likely I would avoid that break. Once I was paipo boarding at a break on the north shore of Kauai and saw a huge tiger shark. Huge like a yard wide head and one and a half feet of fin sticking out of the water coming right at me. I had a choice of picking which way to swim or to stay in place. I figured staying in place or swimming toward the shark was out of the question turning around and swimming to shore seemed like not a good bet too so it was either to the left over a shallow reef with lots of vana (sea urchins) or to the right into a kind of bay but away from the shore. I had heard that sharks will come in to investigate and if they miss hitting you on their first approach they will forget what they came to do and I really did not want to deal with the vana. So I swam to the right being careful to make strong powerful kicks not fluttering frightened frantic kicks and the shark got me anyway... just kidding I never saw the shark again. But if you look at my choices I decided to risk the shark coming after me into the middle of the bay rather than having to deal with the vana. LOL

[oldmansurfer]

Portuguese Man-o-war are often thought of as jellyfish and although closely related they are not jellyfish but a colony of genetically identical organisms that float around in the ocean and have long stinging tentacles. I have had a lot of run ins with them over my years. Here's some things I figured out about them on my own. The calluses on my fingers or feet are thick enough that they can't sting me. So I can pick them up between my fingers and not get stung or step on them and not get stung although if they touch anywhere other than calluses they can inflict a painful sting. The severity of the sting seems to be related to the proximity of lymph nodes so the more painful stings are if they are on the side of you neck below your jaw or in your armpits or in your groin area. Also it seems I am apparently less affected by them than others are. That may be in part due to the way I deal with them. What I do is to first grab the visible tentacles and pull them off then scrub the area with sand to remove stinging cells that aren't visible. It seems obvious that some people react by rubbing the area with their hand which causes the release of stingers while rubbing with sand seems to scrape them off the skin. However it's likely I am also just resistant to their poison.

Here is a story about why I think that. Back before I surfed I used to paipo board and my friend and I went out at one of our usual spots. We both swam out into a flotilla of Portuguese Man-o-wars. They were hundreds of them all around us and on us. We swam back in to the beach and proceeded to peel the tentacles off of our chests and arms and legs, then took turns peeling the tentacles off each others backs. We both rubbed sand on our affected areas and in an hour I was okay with reddish lines all over but my friend looked like he had been whipped with raised welts all over and he was in extreme pain but for me the next day I was completely recovered but my friend was still welted and in pain.

I have gotten stung in a lot of places but on the side of my neck right over my lymph node was painful and in my armpit was painful as well but the worst one was in my groin. I was paddling out through the surf and one of the ways I go through the surf when whitewater was coming in that was smaller than the distance between my outstretched arms and the board, I would push up off the board and allow the whitewater to go between me and the board. This worked better than duck diving in that situation. If I paddled out next to a surfer who duck dived those waves I would be further out than they were when the wave passed by. Anyway I did that and a Man-o-war was caught by the wave and went right down my surf shorts into my groin. The pain was intense. I ended up under water feeling like I was paralyzed. I couldn't move my legs at all but fortunately I had a leash and it floated past my face and I thought if I can just grab that leash I could pull myself up to the surface. I managed to grab it and pull myself up then took my shorts off and pulled the offender out of there and quickly rode whitewater to the beach where I ripped my shorts of again and removed any remaining tentacles out of the area then rubbed sand all over my private parts. I recalled thinking I didn't care what whoever might watching thought about my behavior LOL I was okay by the next day.

[oldmansurfer]

When I was a kid I went everywhere barefoot and I had heavily calloused feet so could walk on the reef without any problems except for sea urchins. So I would only walk on the reef where I could see if there were any sea urchins. Otherwise I avoided shallow reefs and would swim around them. In surfing this is a consideration before I go out to surf, I look for area to avoid.

Ah, so my walking barefoot whenever possible and avoidance strategy actually makes sense. I thought I was nuts
I was just worried I was holding myself back. Though the particular spot I've long meant to visit is notorious for rocks and sea urchins. Likely obvious to everyone here too, but until a decade ago I also had no idea just how sharp lava rock is
The falling makes sense. I still instinctively roll and I've found the overall philosophy strangely helpful for rag dolling in larger surf, not panicking, etc.

I was searching the internet for something that might protect your feet from urchin spines and found they have kevlar booties. They are made for using inside swim fins. That might work but back when I surfed a lot the booties available did not stop urchin spines from injuring you although maybe slowed them down a little. What do other surfers do at the place you want to surf?

[TeeBee89]

This is a really good point and come to think of it, why I didn't bother with them over a decade ago: the rubber sole wouldn't stop a spine. Thanks though, kevlar is a good idea, but heavy? At the spot in question, I think those who use them do so because of the rocks. As someone who grew up around rocky Great Lake and Pacific shores, it isn't the end of the world. It isn't fun while carrying a board, but it is manageable if you take your time. Booties do nothing to prevent rolled ankles as well. I should just hit that spot next time I'm in town

I've never heard of this regarding Man 'o war. Always figured they were in the Hawaiian islands since sea turtles eat them. I was stung by something that looked like and was frankly no bigger than pipe cleaner in Korea a decade ago, just above the knee. I was partially paralyzed with the pain and had to drag myself out of the rock lagoon. As uncomfortable as voit duck feet are, even one leg kicks generate good thrust. Left a scar for years. Definitely not immune

Meant to ask about body surfing and since you have some awesome paipo stories, did you try surf matting? Along with the duck feet, I recently dug out a 4th gear flyer mat in the closest I completely forgot I had. Long forgetting the basics of it, I was digging for tips and found this really interesting history of Al Santos and bag surfing in Hawaii:
https://www.matsurfers.com/hawaiian-bag-surfing

[oldmansurfer]

I have heard about people sand sliding on their belly with or without a bag but have not heard of the bag surfing or if I did I forgot LOL. It would just be for riding whitewater. What I did as a kid that might be similar was riding car or truck innertubes. One of my favorite summer pastimes ws getting a fairly large innertube for those who don't know car or truck tires required an inner tube of rubber to hold air and these could be patched and placed back in the tire. Anyway we would get one with about a 4 to 6 foot diameter from large trucks such as the sugarcane trucks. and take them to the beach. There was a gas station right near the beach so we could inflate it there or one of the guys would have a parent or older relative truck us down to the beach. We would paddle the tube out through a channel and over into the lineup. Then the game was to have 4 or 5 guys all try to hang onto the tube and ride it in when the waves hit it. Whoever rode it the furthest was the winner. We would often be out in waves that were 4 or 5 foot faces or bigger and it was a wild ride usually at the end with only one or two guys hanging on still (or none sometimes). Then repeat the process. It's interesting about the end of paipo boarding contests. I guess that no one was into paipo board design as it is clear to me that paipo boards can be made to be far better at riding steep waves than a boogie board but boogie boards are a little safer. I have ridden matts but they are inferior to paipo boards as there is no rail and you can't turn them very well or get high enough to get more speed from the wave. If you know what your doing they can go very fast but my paipo boards were faster. Boogie boards as well are limited due to their rails. One of the old man surfers who used to go to the beach where I live and surf used to go out on a matt about once a month and he did well but I'm not sure why he did that other than nostalgia. I have used kevlar dive gloves and they don't seem to be much heavier.

[jaffa1949]

Some thoughts come through, mats and paipos were early surf craft in Australia, many surfers like Tom Carroll started on high inflation rubberised like car tyres ( surfoplanes) which had been part of the surf landscape since 1923. Paipos or body boards were around often with cupboard handles as handle waterproof plywood.
Many of our older and sore kneed are de evolving to mats, paipos kneeboards and specific designed shorter but highly functional prone boards : Paulownia wood and balsa is reappearing and specific shape to accommodate the needs of the elderly.
And hey are still taking on the heavier stuff.
Mats there are heap of brands often silicon non slip coating is applied,
I use my two mats as stealth weapons as I can roll them up and carry them in a back pack.
Since I now ride a kneeboard on my missions to the Atlantic I am looking to make a Paulownia Paipo as an added thing to surf.

[TeeBee89]

Thanks all!!
From the write up and photos, it looks like Al Santos took those bags out in fairly heavy surf sometimes. I just had.. so many questions How'd he get the bag out there (he looks fit!)? Does it spin out a lot like it sounds like the inner tubes OMS describes did? So many questions..
Exactly Jaffa! One of the reasons I bought it, was easier to lug to the beach as a secret weapon. Very hard to learn even the basics, which could also make it fun sometimes. Example, squeezing one side to harden up a "rail" as OMS pointed out, while learning to use your fins too. They're insanely fast and fun when you hit that fourth gear.
Is it getting easier to find kneeboards now btw Jaffa? I met an Aussie kneeboarder in 2017 who surfed Ulu and just about everything on one. I remember Ryan Lovelace used to shape flex spoons too, not sure if he still does. Paipos sound fun, just never sure what becomes of this stuff like finless alaias a decade ago for example.

[oldmansurfer]

I think the way the bag worked is you deflated it to get through the surf then inflated it outside. However it is possible to try to sneak out between sets or to find a channel to go out in. You know the Hawaiians had 3 kinds of boards. The big ones are called olo the medium size are alaia and the smaller ones are paipo. I think paipos fell out of favor because they were hard compared to boogie boards and could injure you if you try some of the maneuvers they do with boogie boards but they are faster in my opinion. One other advantage of paipo boards is that you can duck dive them all the ways to the bottom without effort and therefore escape poundings better and save effort. I used to paipo at a spot that surfers liked but at the size I liked it at it was difficult for surfers to paddle out so it might take them 15 minutes to get out between the sets and then there would be a huge set come in and they would all get swept back to the shore. No boogie boards in those days but I could go completely under the force of the set waves by swimming to the bottom maybe 15 to 20 feet down then come back up to find no surfers left in the lineup.

[TeeBee89]

I'll never forget the first time I tried to paddle out with a mat. They are a handful Got more manageable when you figured out how to turtle-wrap them through sets I thought, as deflated stuffed into a cold wetsuit isn't for everyone

Thanks for this OMS, that makes a lot of sense. I read something similar about surfmats and boogie boards. They were perceived as being more durable vs. a mat and apparently just displaced them, despite advancements in mat construction and other advantages they have. I've never been on any of those Hawaiian craft, but I remember the alaia craze from a decade ago along with finless surfing. I wondered what happened to them, as they were essentially longer boogie boards aping alaias? Did the soft tops just displace them too? Shame, I've always wanted to try one and a paipo. My duck dive is horrific, need all the help I can get.
https://www.andersonsurfboards.com/surf ... ide-glide/