The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

Another old story. One morning I went surfing early in the morning. I hadn't tried this before (early morning surfing) but a friend talked me into it the day before. We were in the water before 7 am. There was absolutely no wind and the waves were small (3 to 4 feet) but easily overhead breaking top to bottom tubing out. They were great waves and we both got tubed on every single wave. I took off and got deeply tubed on every wave and then either came out of the end of the wave or it collapsed on me. When it collapsed on me I usually managed to stay on my board and either continue on or cut out because the waves were so thin lipped they had little power.

My friend told me to look at the shore while in the tube and I did. The lips were so thin and clean I could clearly see the shoreline from in the tube. It was just like looking through a window. My friend wanted to know if you could see a surfer through the lip so he went to the beach for a wave or two to watch me. He came back out and said he could and told me to go check it out. I looked at the perfect waves coming in and thought about not riding them. My friend said " The waves not going anywhere. Going still be breaking when you come back out." So reluctantly I paddled in ran up on the beach and watched. On the first wave my friend wiped out and I started getting nervous watching all those beautiful tubes coming in unridden. I was thinking "I could be on that wave.....or that one....or that one!!!!" My friend wiped out again and again I saw the unridden perfection coming in. I yelled to him "Catch a wave already." He wiped out again. I yelled to him "that's it, I'm going back out." He yelled back "I going catch the next one....Promise!!" So I waited and was driven nearly crazy by the thought of all those waves going unridden. Finally he caught and rode a wave and it was amazing how well you could see him through the wave. However I couldn't stand it anymore so I scrambled back into the perfection. I asked my friend later and he said he was trying to drop his shorts and moon me through the wave and that's why he was falling. On the first wave he had undone his tie and his shorts went right to his feet when he tried to stand and then he almost lost them. The next time he tried to untie them and wiped out and after that he was worried about wiping out and so he did. Crazy guy LOL

After numerous waves it was the same thing over and over so I tried different things. The waves were so weak that I figured maybe I could do some things I had never done before. First I tried sticking my hand out through the lip and that was easily accomplished although I couldn't hold it there for long because my arms weren't strong enough. I probably got about 10 to 15 yards before the wave pushed my arm down and it came back inside the tube. I figured that probably I could punch through the lip or go from in the tube through the lip to outside of the wave. The first couple attempts I fell but only after getting out of the wave. I figured it was from the wave hitting my board after I went through the lip so I made a stronger turn to the outside so I cleared the lip and was successful. Then I tried to go back into the wave. I fell again but after a few attempts I did it, Went from being tubed to punching through the tube to the outside and then punching back into the tube through the lip. I did that a few times and then tried to ride with the lip hitting me on the head so that I was half way in and half way out. When you are on a wave and the lip hits you constantly if you get even slightly off balance the constant force of the wave pushes you more and more out of balance till you fall. I kept trying till I made a wave for the whole distance with the lip hitting me on the head. I hoped to get one eye in the tube and one out but the lip was just a little to thick for that or I just couldn't adjust my head right.



I never saw conditions like that again. You always hear surfers talk about how glassy the waves were but these were the epitome of glassy. They were actually clear as glass.

[oldmansurfer]

This is about the beach I grew up on. When I was learning to surf the beach closest to me almost always had waves but the quality of the average wave maybe not be so good. It was a bay with reef breaks on the two sides and sand in the middle. When I was learning to surf I preferred to go to a beach about 8 miles north just a short drive from the beach that I could walk to from my house. However I grew up there walking to the beach as often as I wanted to sand slide and bodysurf and fish. The break in the sand part depends on the grooming of the sand bars. If there is a big rain the river that enters the bay on the right side will push out the sand making a left breaking wave and when there is big surf the water from the waves is forced from the left side over to the right and this goes out in a rip current at an angle from the beach heading out across the bay to the right. This creates a right break which I really like and often has long breaking waves if you chose the right ones. Anyway I surfed there when it was more convenient or when it looked nice or when it was better than the break 8 miles north. Today when I surf I am often the only surfer out and the beach that I used to go to 8 miles north is packed with surfers when I used to be the only one out there frequently. There is almost always a wind swell because the trade winds come from the northeast and this is the east side. It also catches a swell when there is a north swell or northeast swell and also a south swell. The waves wrap around and break smaller on the east side. When it is really big there is a nearby storm to the west, northwest or southwest of the beach.

The outside break on the left side is called Makaiwa and it is about 0.75 miles out from the beach. It was known by the Hawaiians for it's great surf but for most surfers it is a bit far of a paddle. I have heard though surfers will take a boat out there or a jet ski to surf it. I have on two occasions paddled out by myself to ride perfect waves with 40 foot faces. Both times I rode a wave in all the way to the beach which is a very long wave starting at 40 foot faces then ending at 6 to 8 foot faces.

Inside of that break is a series of breaks along the reef. The ones I have heard names for is to the far left a left breaking wave called Crabs because Buster Crab (TV star who played Tarzan) had a house on the beach there. Then there were 2 left breaks that I always called Horners. I think the Horner family had a house there at the beach. There is a bowl break that is what most consider Horners proper but very close to that , further out, is another peak that sometimes is better than the bowl. I have had an incredible number of great waves there including my first backside tube ride in big surf (more than double overhead)

To the right of Horners in certain conditions there is a right breaking wave which I have heard called Big Rights because it is usually bigger when it breaks. I had one of my most memorable tube rides there.

Inside of Horners there are other breaks I always called them Inside Horners and Middle Horners. The middle part is usually a left but it can break right as well (as can Horners). The inside is a right that breaks over a shallow reef (but can break left as well). Most of the rest of Horners is relatively deeper reef break but there are spots in Horners and middle Horners that are shallow. Surfing the outside and middle breaks I have only touched the reef once and that was to push off the bottom on a wipeout that drove me down. The inside has sections shallow enough to damage your fins if not careful but touching the reef there is guaranteed not to mention dinging your board. Maybe not guaranteed on every session as I have escaped any contact on occasion but mostly you and your board will contact the reef. I paipo boarded there as kid so was already familiar with the break.

There is a pile of rocks we called Horners Rock to the left side of the middle break looking from the beach. It is approximately where Horners breaks to if you get a long wave so it is a concern at a the size where it does that (same for Big Rights). I have had contact with the rock once surfing Big Rights but a lot of close calls at Horners.

In the middle of the bay is a variety of sandbar breaks, which can be great or closeouts. When I was learning to surf and didn't go to the beach 8 miles north I used to prefer the middle sand part because it seemed safer. One of the things I did back then was to tuck into a closeout tube or ride into a tube breaking from the other side and try to cut out through the lip. This is on waves with 4 to 6 foot faces. But I would get covered by the wave then turn out away from the beach and stand up through the lip. If you don't lean into the lip it just pushes you over but after a few hundred attempts I started having (infrequent) success and managed to come out of the back of the wave standing up and just lay back down on my board.

On the right side there are a variety of reef breaks interspersed with sand in some areas. All the way out on the right side maybe 600 or 700 yards out is a break called Black Rock. I not familiar with how that name came about but think it's due to the rocks inside of the break and have heard no designation for any of the inside breaks till close to the beach. Closest to the beach is just called Rivermouth and just out from there is called Crookeds. I have heard how it came to that name but no longer recall what that is LOL. The river mouth area is where surf lessons often happen. It's actually a little tricky sometimes because there is a current from the river going out so if you just sit there you will get swept out of the lineup and have to paddle back in. So usually the instructors take them to one side or the other where the current is less. In addition to the right of Black rock is a series of other breaks a couple of which I have surfed.

That's where I grew up. It took me about 20 minutes to walk to the beach, 15 minutes if I took all the shortcuts through peoples yards. Much quicker by bicycle. But I never surfed with a regular surfboard till I was 18 years old. I sand slid, bodysurfed and rode tire inner tubes, then started paipo boarding which became quickly my favorite thing. Bodysurfing you can get tubed but it's often difficult to come back out of the tube. With the right paipo board you can get in the tube and back out all the time. Many of the surfers were jealous of me because I got tubed over and over again. I eventually went to bigger and bigger surf and learned that while paipo boards have some advantages on the bigger waves not much. Standing on a surfboard allows you to do a projection turn where you propel yourself and the surfboard forward by compressing on the bottom turn followed by releasing up the wave. This allows you to generate speed that is not possible laying down or even kneeling. So even before my 18th birthday when my parents bought me a surfboard I was thinking about taking up surfing.

[oldmansurfer]

This is about a wave I caught at Big Rights at my home break. Both Horners and Big Rights were breaking pretty nice and they both ended around the rock pile. So what I was doing is catching a left and then paddling out to the right and catch a right and then paddle to the left. The right had waves that looked awesome but I wasn't able to get tubed even stalling as much as I could. It is likely that in those days I hadn't gotten stalling down very well. I worked on speed first. The Big Right was a fairly long breaking beautiful wave that was tubing out at about 6 to 8 feet (12 to 16 foot faces). I think my problem all along was (besides not knowing how to effectively stall) not taking off at the peak. As I paddled out, there were these absolutely beautiful waves coming unridden, one after another. At some point I would just loose my patients and take off inside of the peak. But after a few I tried going all the ways out to the peak. I took off and didn't even stand before the lip threw over me. I popped up and was immediately tubed. Now this can be bad thing because the wave may just race ahead if you don't have the right line but in this case I had a beautiful huge tube ride. For the size of the face it was a huge open tube and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it. Cruising along there was no concern for wiping out. I felt as though I was exactly where I should be and staying right there for a very long tube ride.

I was thinking it's so huge I bet I couldn't touch the wave or the lip holding my hands out. I did just that sticking my hands straight out sideways like a cross and I couldn't touch on either side of me. But there I was standing fully up hands out to the sides cursing along without a care in the world. But it kept going and going and I realized the pile of rocks was coming up ahead and I couldn't see out of the tube to see where it was and my whole mode changed from one of ecstasy to one of hypervigilance. The longer I went the more I knew I was going to have to take evasive action at the rock pile. I started seeing the edge of the lip and the outside and just as I emerged there was the rock right Infront of me. I quickly turned up to the top of the wave but the lip caught my board and I fell over the top of the lip while the board stayed right there. The force of the wave carried me and my board over the top of the rock. I flattened out my body in what I have heard was called the starfish mode. I was face down head out of the water but using my hands to push my body up out of the water as much as possible. I felt a little rake as I went over but nothing serious. After the wave let up I had a red line across my belly and chest and a similar scratch on the surface of my board. I decided to go in because while that was one of the best waves I ever caught it was also a close call and I was getting tired which would make a similar situation more risky.

[oldmansurfer]

A few years ago I surfed Big Rights at probably the biggest I ever surfed it. It was around 9 foot (about 18 foot faces). The waves were really good so there was a huge crowd out , maybe 50 surfers spread out over the breaks in the bay. The big right looked like the least crowded so I went out there. I was trying to go left since it seemed to have a longer ride going left and I know you might wonder Big Rights goes left? I think it was that break and it had a big right just a short ride. After a while of not being able to catch a left due to the crowd there I went right. The first wave I tried to catch right was so steep I drove the nose under pearling after a radical steep drop, so I planned on the next wave to turn my board at the top so it will not pearl. One of the guys who was hoggin the wave paddled over to me. He was on a standup foil board. He praised me for taking that drop and surviving the wipeout (which was nothing particularly worrisome for me). It was a bigger wave for me but the pounding was typical of smaller waves and nothing horrifying or whatever. Turns out we knew each other, he was an ex-employee of mine LOL. Anyway he said he would let me catch some waves and that he wasn't getting into the lefts either most of the time because him and his friend on a standup foil also were somewhat scared of the waves because they were new to foil SUP. The next wave I turned the board sideways at the top so the rail was in the water on the drop and easily made the wave. When you do that the nose of the board pushes itself back out when it starts to pearl. I made my bottom turn but it was obvious there wasn't much to do after that I did a top turn and dropped back down then cut out. I caught another wave but it was even less of a wall. Getting tired so I went in.

[oldmansurfer]

When I first started surfing larger waves at the left breaking Horners, I was afraid of these huge backside walls and used to pump my way to safety. The only way I got tubed was to take off well behind the peak (which I did). My friends would belittle me for not staying closer to the breaking portion of the wave but I had only been surfing for a year or two at the time. So one of my most memorable tube rides was the first big left that I got tubed by slowing down. It was a big slow breaking hollow tubing wave with about a 15 to 18 foot face.

It was so perfect and so slow breaking I thought this was my chance to try stalling backside. I took off behind the peak on about an 8 foot wave (16 foot face) but did not get tubed however this was a hollow slow breaking wave and I easily got in front of the break so I attempted to do a kickstall. I actually succeeded in stalling, but stopped completely dead in the water. I was standing on my board and slowly going up the face of the wave with my board was just hanging there as the wave sucked it up the face. I crouched as I got near the top to avoid my head hitting the approaching lip and decided to try pushing the outer edge of my board down with my hands to break free of the wave. That worked and I started down the face and got totally tubed. The lip hit the bottom of the wave in front of where my board came down but I coasted out of the tube because it was so slow breaking and figured why not try it again? So I stalled again and again I completely stopped but this time I had a plan and as I went up the face I pushed the outer edge of my board down and came out of the tube again this time reaching the bottom at nearly the same time as the lip. So I figure don't fix it if it ain't broke and did the same maneuver again but this time exited before the lip hit the bottom of the wave and the tube was getting much narrower. I could see a walling up section in front and realized I had to speed up so I did a hard bottom turn and a turn under the throwing out lip of the section came down got tubed but this time a moist chaotic tube that I couldn't see out of it and then the wave collapsed and spit blowing me almost off my board. I managed to balance on my front foot with my back foot off the board and leg in the air behind me and guided the board over the top of the wave on to the back to cutout standing up on the one leg.

One of the guys who used to make fun of me saw me ride that wave and paddled over to tell me he liked it. Those guys all surfed from when they were much younger. Me I was still learning. He said "Hey man I didn't know you could surf like that. I answered "Me neither".

[oldmansurfer]

When I was very young maybe 5 or so I got into water almost over my head and panicked. Funny thing happens when you panic. You take a scary situation and make it worse. My mother worried about me after that. She got me into Red Cross swimming classes. I took the beginning class twice and the intermediate class twice and the advanced class twice and then I took Junior Lifesaving. I was on the swim team and for a Boy Scout merit badge I swam a mile , although I did that in swim practice every day. Somewhere along the way my parents quit worrying so much about me in the water.

During the summer we would go to the beach quite often. Initially we used to ride inner tubes in the waves and sand surf. I also learned to body surf (without fins). Riding the inner tubes was blast. We would get a big inner tube from a big trucks tire and have one of our parents drive us and it to the beach. We would swim it out and into the surf then have a game of seeing who could hold onto it the longest when the waves slammed it and us in toward the beach. You had to watch out for the valve stem as it would injure you if you weren't careful. We needed to get a ride to bring that huge inner tube to the beach, so we started doing other things and learned to body surf and sand slide.

We would body surf till we were tired then sand slide. Or if the waves weren't good we would just sand slide. Wailua beach always had tourists. We used to call them the overfed (rich), newly wed (on a honeymoon) and nearly dead (old farts) since that was the majority of who came to visit. That changed to families and people of all ages and income brackets. One of the things that happened to girls in the ocean was losing parts of their bikinis. We were always there so we got asked to help out. If we couldn't find it we would find something they could wear to get back to the Coco Palms hotel. This of course offered us many opportunities to tease the girls. We would stand on the beach and say "Here it is I found it." They would usually beg us to bring it into the water and we would tease them to come get it. On one occasion the young woman actually did come and take it from me on the beach which totally stunned me.

This lead to a game we played when we were body surfing. We would see if we could accidentally dislodge bikinis from the girls who played in the surf in front of us. It was 2 points for a top and 3 for the bottom and double if you get them both. I once managed to rip off a top and a bottom in one move. It was entirely by accident although I intended to do that I couldn't see her and it just happened. My arm went down her top causing it to come off and down one side of her bottom causing me to be closely associated with her butt. I stood up after the wave and the bottom came off. I was so red faced. She just laughed and asked me to help find her bikini. I had her bikini bottom in my hand but since she didn't know it I pretended to look for it. Then I gave it to her and then found the top too and she gave me a kiss for being such a good kid. I probably turned bright red from that as well.

Since we were always at the beach and there was no lifeguard we were sometimes asked to help someone come into shore. They would usually give us a reward of a dollar or two or more. So one of our activities was to patrol the beach and if there were lots of old folks and waves we would hang out because sooner or later one of them was going to need some help (and they would give us money for helping). One old lady saw us help another man and offered us a dollar to bring her husband back to the shore. He was having a lot of trouble so we went out and grabbed him and tried to help him in but he struggled and swore at us and told us to leave him alone. We dropped him back in the water and went back in and the women comes up and says "what are you doing? You were supposed to bring him in." We told her he didn't want to come in. She said he was just a stubborn old man and she offered us $5 to bring him in. We rushed back out and brought the swearing kicking screaming old geezer in and dropped him on the beach and collected our money.

Eventually we tried riding our sand slide boards and thus learned to paipo board. Sand slide boards don't make good paipo boards but it was a slight improvement over bodysurfing.

We also would bring a fishing pole sometimes and catch our lunch. Whatever you catch that is lunch. Make a fire and cook the fish and we usually brought salt and pepper, bread or crackers and a soda to wash it all down with. The other way we got lunch is from the lifeguard for hire job we did. There was a restaurant right on the beach called the Sea Shell restaurant. If we earned enough everyone got a burger and a soda.

[oldmansurfer]

Another surfing story from the break nearest my house. This was when I was older and relearning to surf after not surfing for almost 12 years. I was surfing the river mouth break and there were a few others also learning. One of them was an attractive much younger Korean woman. She came over to me a couple of times and said in a strong Korean accent "You very good surfer." After the third time I was wondering what made her think that so I said "I think you mean that guy over there" and pointed to a surfer who was more skilled than me. She said "NO! You very good surfer." I said " I used to be a very good surfer but I am not one anymore." She said "No. You very good. You no fall down." It is something I think that people who don't understand surfing think of when they think of a good surfer. It is perhaps my measured approach to surfing. I try to do things where I don't fall down very often. If I was wanting to learn something more difficult I might fall down but I don't push myself that much most of the time. I have several other stories about not falling down where others have said I was a good surfer for not falling down but not at this break near my home.

[oldmansurfer]

One day long ago I was surfing in a window of time which wasn't common for me back then. I had to fit a surf session between 2 things I needed to do. The waves were really great at the beach near my house so I went out there. It was breaking about 5 foot so 10 foot faces. The guys I knew were all lined up by a tubing right so I paddled out next to them but they seemed to be all lined up in the wrong place, the peak was about 10 yards over from them so after watching that part of the wave tube out for a few waves, I paddled over there where it seemed like it was the best place to take off. The wave with the right shape came in and I took off and got deeply tubed however somebody dropped in on me. When someone drops in on you on a tubing wave it alters the wave often making it break sooner than it would so I didn't want to follow behind someone and turned sharply away from the beach punching through the lip and paddled back to my lineup. I was waiting for another wave with the right shape but one of the other surfers paddled up to me and asked me what happened. I told him "Somebody dropped in on me so I punched through the lip." He said "OH! You mean like turned and went through the lip out the back of the wave?" I don't think he understood you could do that. Then he said " I saw you deep in the tube there, I haven't seen anyone that deep today yet." I answered "Yeah they're all lined up in the wrong place." He wasn't one of the guys I usually surf with, although I knew him, and I think they all told him to go apologize for dropping in on me but he never quite did that. I never saw another good wave in the time I had left so I had to just catch a wave in.

[oldmansurfer]

That wasn't the first time I took off over from the regular guys as I mentioned previously Horners has a break that is 10 or more yards deeper in the lineup. Also I didn't have stalling down at the time and I had a fast board so in order to get tubed I had to take off deeper. My idea learning to surf was to learn to ga faster at first because that would result in a better outcome in many cases and you can always learn to slow down later. One particular day I remember because I took of on a couple of waves in the next peak over and made the second of them. I was thinking this was going to be great as I got deeply tubed and came out on the second wave. I recall taking off turning at the top to face down the line and letting the board sideslip down the face then just surfing like I usually did to get speed. At a later point I learned to do a backside under the lip speed turn which might have helped me here but not yet. I proceeded to catch maybe 4 more waves and wiped out in the tube unable to keep up with the wave. One of the regular surfers paddled over to me and asked if I was making any of the waves and I said like one out five so far and he said "Oh! That's good as long as you are making some we'll let you try. If you weren't we were going to drop in on you." I caught a couple more waves and didn't make any of them so I paddled back out to the lineup and took my turn through the rotation and went in. I was so tiered from the multiple wipeouts there drained me. That break is a powerful wave and it really pounds you at that size which was 6 to 8 feet Hawaiian. That surfer who dropped in on me did it again which I will write about next.

[oldmansurfer]

One day I went for a short surf at the beach near my house. I was going to do something and had a couple friends who didn't want to surf but were waiting in the car for me to get back in. I was out surfing in the middle part and was having a good time then this same guy dropped in on me. To be honest I didn't know there was a current Hawaiian rights movement where the Hawaiians by blood were trying to take over the surf. And this guy was adopted by Japanese parents and I always thought he was Japanese. Anyway during this time I ran into surfers who claimed to own the surf. By virtue of them being Hawaiian they had the right to catch whatever wave they wanted. I usually let them have whatever they wanted but this guy wasn't a very good surfer for one thing and he wasn't Hawaiian as far as I knew. So he drops in on me and I am still on the wave riding behind him and he is going fairly slow barely keeping up with the wave not doing any turns or anything so I bottom turn and stick by board under his butt and step on the tail which causes him to receive a slight poke in the butt. He keeps surfing now aware I am on the wave so I do it again and again, Finally I go around him and cut out and paddle back out. He is quite pissed and was probably trying to get to me but I kept catching waves so we never met up. Then I went in and he came up to me at my car as I was drying off and started threatening me. I just told him we should get this done now because I have people waiting for me and we need to get going. He backed off and changed to smiling face and tried to act like my friend again which I hope he was. I knew my place in the lineup and it was above him for sure.

[oldmansurfer]

The windiest day I ever surfed was at the beach near my home. It was maybe 10 years ago and I was just doing my usual surf which is to just go to the beach and find a peak to surf at. The wind was blowing so hard that I had to place my board so that it was blowing it into me to walk down the beach. It was blowing so hard that I didn't need to hold my board as along as I keep it between the wind and me. Also the wind was whipping up the sand so I had to walk where the sand was wet or it was torture like getting sand blasted on my legs. The wind was nearly straight onshore and counterintuitive to what people think about onshore winds there were nice tubing waves. The only other person at the beach was an older man (slightly older than me) and he warned me to be careful because the waves were big but they weren't big they were about 6 to 8 foot faces.

Paddling out was difficult as each time I went over the top of a wave salt spray whipped into my face causing some discomfort in my eyes. I learned to try not to look and hold my head down. Paddling for a wave was easy as there was a wind assist. The waves were really fun long steep walled waves and I managed to barely get tubed but couldn't figure out how to slow my board down enough to go slower than the wave for very long. I think the power of the wave was great and I was being blown forward by the wind as well. I had to be very careful to not fall off my board downwind as it would immediately get blown right back at me. I tried to be sure to lay back down on my board after each wave if possible. When I got home my eyes were so red my wife freaked out. She thought I had been smoking weed.

[oldmansurfer]

When I first started relearning to surf after not surfing for about 12 years, I bought a 9'6" gun board that was very narrow and thin. It was probably made to surf bigger waves and yet be duckdivable. I could duck dive it. Since my relearning to surf I have only surfed at the beach closest to my home. Partly because it was convenient and took less time out of my busy life and also because it frequently had no one out yet there were waves. Before I surfed I would walk the beach and look at the waves coming in and figure out where my best bet would be to try catching some waves. If it was in the middle part I would look for landmarks on the shoreline to allow me to find the approximate place to lineup when I got out there. I often would find more than one potential peak to try, maybe up to five spots. So for me it was similar to learning to surf all over again except unlike the first time I knew pretty much what to expect. But unlike the first time I was to in prime shape. The 9'6" gun was a decent board for me to relearn on. I didn't have too much trouble catching waves and it worked in a variety of sizes. I think I rode waves from 2 foot faces to 20 foot faces with it.

Then I met the wife of my shaper who made all my boards before I quit surfing. He had some health problems and quit making boards and in fact passed away a short time later. But she said she knew the perfect board for me which was a 9'6" longboard her husband made for someone else but they no longer wanted it. So that became my board and I finally surfed a longboard after years of surfing only shortboards It was even better for learning to surf since it caught waves a little better or should I say in a wider range of the lineup so that I could be more outside of the ideal lineup to catch waves. This was great for me as I was often alone so had no one keeping track of the lineup other than me and also I could poach a smaller wave from the position in the lineup for catching bigger waves. It had more glide, as in how far the board would go without paddling after you get it going with paddling. I have a bunch of stories to tell about the longboard at the beach near my home (the only break I have surfed in recent times)

[oldmansurfer]

I learned to surf on a 6'8"x 18" x 2.75" board what we used to call a shortboard so I never surfed a longboard until I relearned to surf. But this was a great board to relearn on. I never learned cross stepping or rather never bothered trying to learn it. Maybe I could do it sometimes by mistake but mostly what I would do is to unweight or kind of jump up a little then use my toes to move the board more forward or more backward quickly so instead of moving my body up and down the board I stayed in place and moved the board. Something I carried on to my funboards. But this 9'6" longboard was a wave hog. It just loved to catch waves which is good for learning how to surf.

Most of the time I surfed it like a shortboard and a longboard works similar if you stand on the tail and ride a fast wave. It's just that there is a weight to the length of board in front of you that needs to be swung around for turns. Initially this didn't bother me as I could do whatever I wanted to anyway but eventually became part of the reason I switched to a shorter board.

One day I was surfing along a fast breaking wave in the middle of the bay and came to a slow section I had turned up to the top of the wave as I was doing to stay ahead of the break but found I didn't need to anymore so I just let the board sit there on top of the lip with the nose pointed down the line. The board cruised along for a while slowly then the lip started to break under the board and the nose fell off the top of the wave and I started a downward trajectory. The board was covered in whitewater at one point but then it popped out in front of the whitewater at the bottom of the wave. I thought "Wow! That's a cool maneuver. It's automatic not requiring anything other than the setup." So I looked for a place to do that maneuver and it became one of the things I did surfing on that longboard. One day I did that maneuver when another surfer was nearby and he approached me and asked if I was okay? I said just fine and he said he thought I was going to wipeout. I told him I did not and that was intentional and he looked at me like I was crazy. I have wondered what to call that maneuver but nothing seems to describe it well.

I had the best tube ride since I restarted surfing on that longboard. It was a stormy day but there were waves and only the kite surfers and me out. There was a log jam in the lineup but it was just to the right (looking from the shore) of the tubing right breaking 6 to 8 foot wave so I figured it would be okay. I caught a few waves but none of them were like the one I saw from the shore. Then I caught a steep one and I was standing on the tail of the longboard and had shoved the inside rail into the wave which makes the nose push itself back out on a steep drop and this was steep like around 12 to 16 feet and I had so much speed when I hit the bottom that the front of the board went way up when I hit a chop at the bottom of the wave. This caused the board to turn straight back up the wave so I tried to do an off the lip turn but instead stalled at the top as the wave got steeper below me for a second or two then dropped back down using the same technique from before to avoid pearling and it worked like a charm. I actually saw the nose dig into the bottom of the wave and come right back out. No chops this time so I look up at the massive wall that has gotten even more massive and it looks like it is going to tube so I pulled up on the face and pointed the nose down the line doing nothing special. I didn't stall or try to get speed I just did a normal turn. The lip covered me and I was tubed in a huge open tube standing up fully and cruising along. I could see the nose of the board was in front of where the lip was landing so from the shore you might be able to see the tip of the board sticking out of the tube. As it went on I got deeper to where the nose was behind the lip and I could see the wave was getting narrower ahead and the tube was going to end. I was looking for an exit and there it was up ahead a notch in the lip so I aimed for the notch and came out ducking to try to avoid getting clobbered by the lip and it actually touched my head as I exited but I was free and made the tube ride. I cut out and thought "OH Boy I am going to do that again" then realized it was time to go in so I went in.

[oldmansurfer]

You might wonder how i knew to do the turn I did on that last wave I wrote about. I am not sure I can tell you but it was a feeling not a thought. It undoubtedly has to do with wave knowledge, I had a good idea what that wave was going to do but in the heat of the moment you don't have time to figure things out, you have to react immediately. Plus from a philosophical point of view if I didn't do the right turn I would have a different story to tell you.

I was surfing with the longboard for a while (maybe 2 to 3 years of surfing 30 minutes once or twice a week) and didn't feel I had a good frontside bottom turn but backside was another story. I was surfing Horners maybe 6 months after I restarted surfing. It's a left so backside for me and it was a steep fast slightly overhead wave but I had some speed to match it so I just did a bunch of off the lips. It wasn't so much that I intended to but when I turned it was the only turn I could do at that speed with that board for whatever reason. I did like 4 in a row backside off the lips and the last one the lip whacked it back and spray went all over me and the surrounding area. I am sure that someone watching that would have thought I was a much better surfer than I was at that time period. I couldn't do the same thing frontside because my bottom turn wasn't good enough (and wouldn't be for another 2 or 3 years) and I couldn't do less of a turn because I wasn't a good enough surfer at that point in time. Somehow backside just seemed easier to me this second time on the learning curve.

[oldmansurfer]

As I was learning to use the longboard I reached a point where I was starting to make nice turns, good bottom turns and cutbacks and frontside off the lips. Around the same time I started to hear a thumping sound intermittently as I surfed. At first I thought I was hitting some small pieces of driftwood as there was often driftwood in the water. One day the thumping got so loud and consistent it concerned me. When I went in I closely examined the board and found that the screw that hold the fin in place had fallen out. I was so disappointed as it seemed likely the loose fin was giving me some benefit. Took me about a month to find a screw to replace it partly because of my busy schedule and not having time to drive to the various surf shops. I put the screw in and it made no apparent difference LOL, so I was happy to know I had progressed.

I mentioned that I rode the 9'6" gun in 2 to 20 foot faces and I did the same with the longboard. Sometimes there is a big swell that comes in and the waves in the sandy area break way outside. On a few occasions there have been waves in the range of 15 to 20 foot faces. Now I was still not really ready for the power of real 10 foot waves but in this situation the waves don't break top to bottom and instead leave the bottom 5 or 6 foot portion open. So even if the wave breaks ahead of you, you can continue surfing unaffected in that part at the bottom. So really the breaking part of the wave was a maximum of 15 feet which is a whole order safer than 20 foot faces.

One incident that made me want to try a shorter board was when I was surfing at one of the unnamed as far as I know inside of Black rock breaks and outside of Crookeds. There was a hollow part and I still recall one of the surfers was using a SUP to surf like a regular board (no paddle). I took off on a wave that walled up about an 8 foot face and was going to tube so I pulled up on the wall and stalled as best I could but the longboard being so long came off the wall . It seemed the weight of the nose part pulled it down so instead of going slowly sideways that I wanted to do I had to make a bottom turn and it sped up going down which put out me to far in front of the tubing part to get tubed. The guy with the SUP paddled over and said "Hey man I thought you were going to get tubed." I answered "Me too." Anyway I ended up getting an 8 foot board but it wasn't much better at hanging on a wall.

[oldmansurfer]

I was looking for a new board and my neighbor who was a fairly big guy said I could try his board made by a shaper named Topper. It was a 7'6" fish really wide and thick and epoxy so it wasn't too heavy. I found that transition from the longboard to that fish was easy. I had no problems using it well other than it seemed to be unstable in whitewater. So I was put in touch with Topper who later I found out that he was a fairly renowned shaper before he came to Kauai. He told me he specialized in boards for old men. I told him I liked the fish he made but it was difficult to ride in whitewater and I often got bucked off. So he made me an 8 foot funboard that I now call my oldmanoverweightoutofshape board which is where my forum name comes from. I was so excited to try a new board and went surfing as soon as I could. It was a disappointing experience. The board was so unstable compared to the longboard I would fall off sideways as I paddled. I immediately called him and ordered a 9'6" funboard. However before it was made I had learned to use the 8 foot board and after trying the 9'6" a few times stuck with the 8 foot board. It turned out to be exactly what I needed...well sort of since it still didn't hang on a wall as well as I had hoped but I didn't care anymore since it was a fantastic board. It had 5 fin boxes so could be used as a single fin, twin fin, thruster or a quad. The fins that came with it were quads.

Prior to my quitting surfing I had only surfed single fin boards but since I restarted had only surfed multiple fin boards. The gun was a thruster and the longboard was a 2 plus 1 and this board came as a quad. It had taken me nearly all this time of surfing multiple fin boards to where I was comfortable using them. I had no desire to unlearn that which had taken me so long so while I tired a variety of fin configurations I enjoyed quads the most. In fact eventually I got bigger quad fins because they provided more push in the turns. My ingrained instincts for riding a single fin led to some exciting mistakes. But I learned to love this board. It was truly an amazing board and decent in a variety of surf conditions from big to small steep to mushy. Since I loved that board so much I wanted to help out the shaper and bought 3 more boards from him. He made me a 7'6" wide thick board with minimal rocker for mushy smaller waves. This board was fun and I found that in steep fast waves it was lightning fast but as the waves got to the double overhead size it became difficult to use as it went so fast it rose out of the water and became extremely squirely. Just the littlest turn and it would shoot in an overexaggerated turn in that direction. I learned to not try to turn until it settled down into the wave. The next board was a board for riding tubes, a 7 foot board with a continuous rocker. This board was a little more difficult to catch waves but handled well. At Horners above 6 foot this board was hard to get into a wave but overall it seemed to have the required design for tube riding. I unfortunately quit surfing again before getting many tubes. The last board a 9'2" big wave gun but again I ended up quitting again before I could try this out in big waves..

[oldmansurfer]

One of the things I did with my single fin boards was to turn down the line at the top of the wave on steep waves. The single fin would pop out of the water and the board would side slip down the face then when I got to the bottom the fins engaged and the board shot forward. This eliminated any chance of getting smacked by the lip trying to make a bottom turn although that rarely happened to me in all of my years surfing. In certain instances I would be at the top of a steep wave and turn down the line, only the multiple fin boards hold pretty well and don't slip down the face. Realizing it I turned down the face usually resulting in a steep drop followed by a hard bottom turn. It kind of forced me to slow down a bit and made for a better more exciting wave. However one time I turned back but it was too late and the wave (with about an 8 foot face) had gone concave below me and the board was pointing straight out flat to the bottom of the ocean. Too late to do anything else I just took the drop through the air. In free fall I pulled my legs up a bit and when approaching the bottom extended my legs to sort of push the board back into the water. This worked like a charm. I was so happy and jammed a bottom turn and kept going on the wave riding the rest of it in a normal fashion. No idea how I managed to pull that off. I have never thought about that situation before and no clue why I did what I did but it worked. I am like a passenger on the board in those kind of situations. Just watching what the wave does and what I do. Most likely I do well because I am not thinking much and hyper focused on the entire situation. Everything else is blocked out of my mind other than what I am doing and what the wave is doing. I often notice things like how the board feels to the bottom of my feet, which I don't notice often in regular surfing very often. That was the oldmanoverweightoutofshape board that did that maneuver. I love that board.

[oldmansurfer]

I may actually do something similar but instead of completely side slipping it sideslips only a little. I have the inside rail into the wave and angled somewhere between the bottom and down the line. The board drops and goes forward but i don't do that from the top of the wave. I take a little drop first then do it. It feels like I am dropping rapidly but still going down the line slightly

[oldmansurfer]

That 8 foot oldmanoverweightoutofshape board was a wave hog, maybe even better than the longboard. Sometimes I would lineup inside the SUP surfers but outside of the longboarders and poach the waves missed by the SUP guys. This was of course on those rare instances when there were other surfers out there. Usually it was just me and the kite surfers or more recently the foilers. When I first used the board I would stand with my back foot right in front of the fins. As I improved I wanted to try to do turns like I used to do where I out everything into the turn and carving into the wave. The first time I tried that the rail came out of the wave and the board went flat on the surface of the water. My body was laying down for the turn which would have been a front side cutback. Somehow my feet stayed on the board and I guided the board to come down the face of the wave and back underneath me at the bottom and I stood back up. I tried that a few more time and each time the same result. My neighbor who was a kite surfer asked me what I called that turn LOL. It was not the turn I was trying to do but I think I told him the I lost my wallet turn because it's similar to the drop wallet turn except they stay engaged with the board with that turn.

I finally figured I needed to get my back foot a little more back. Waikikichan had been saying that to others on this forum for a while but I figured if it ain't broke don't fix it. Then one day on a chest high wave I did a cutback on the end of the wave and I turned so hard I bruised my heel and put a pressure ding over the fins. I am certain I sent water spraying all over the place like I used to when I was a young guy. The pressure ding was the proof I had my back foot over the fins. That turn was a bit concerning as the pressure on my old body was intense but the board dug into the wave like I wanted to. That was probably the most powerful frontside turn I have done in recent times. It was way more power than I had experienced recently. I think being overweight assisted this power. But the oldmanoverweightoutofshape board again proved to be a great board.

[oldmansurfer]

I didn't explain that "I lost my wallet turn" very well so here is a better explanation. I wanted to do a hard powerful frontside cutback and started to make the turn I was turning hard enough my body was just inches away from the water. But the rail disengaged with the wave and the board just fell flat onto the surface of the wave. However because I had already started the turn there was momentum to continue so even though I was touching the water and my butt was completely underwater I still had me feet on the board and the momentum of the turn carried through and then gravity took over. I guided the board down the wave then brought the board underneath me at the bottom of the wave. Then it was very similar to standing up from sitting in a chair. I just stood up on the board and once again I was riding the board instead of laying on the water guiding it with my feet. From there I went back to my normal surfing.