The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

One of my favorite maneuvers I did with the 8 foot oldman board was what I call a delayed foam climb. I used to surf to the end of the wave every time because that was closer to the channel to paddle back out without taking waves on the head. A condition that occurred on the end of the wave was a section in the range of knee high to waist high where there was a steep wall one to three foot below whitewater where the wave had broken already. I would turn up onto the whitewater above the wall like I was going to do a small foam climb but instead of turning I just leave the board facing down the line parallel to the wave. The wave would break under and pull the board over the falls sideways resulting in sideslipping sideways till the fins grabbed and then the board swung back forward. I just really enjoyed the feeling of this maneuver. It may seem similar to the longboard maneuver I mentioned above but the longboard maneuver was in wave faces at least twice that of this maneuver and the longboard never sideslipped. In the longboard maneuver the board was under the water sometimes under the lip or back of the wave but mostly under whitewater with this maneuver the board stayed on top.

Another maneuver I did with the 8 foot board was something that just happened accidentally. On a right break (frontside) I would push the tail up onto the lip really strongly (6 to 8 foot faces). This resulted in the board rotating back in a pivoting motion to where the nose was facing the break. I was trying to slide the tail out and I guess that is what happened but what happened next was the unexpected and fun part. The board sideslipped down the face for a short bit then the fins grabbed and it swung back to normal position. I really enjoyed that feeling of sideslipping and the board reorienting itself.

[oldmansurfer]

There was a turn I did by accident initially but then tried unsuccessfully a couple other times to repeat. I was working on a powerful cutback and on one attempt with a shoulder to head high wave I turned back but lost my balance and by the time I regained it I was pointed up the wave and it was about to pitch over on me. I did something like a frontside off the lip turn only in doing so the wave broke over the top of me but the wave wasn't too powerful and I emerged from the whitewater still up and riding the board and it only took a little bottom turn to get back in front of the breaking part of the wave. I am so certain that if anyone saw that they would have thought I was so much of a better surfer than I actually was. But the turn felt good. It wasn't difficult or anything it was kind of automatic because the wave assisted my 180 degree turn pushing my board back to facing the beach. I wondered if I could do that again.

Then I had a couple opportunities with the 7'6" board. It was very fast when surfing tubing waves, I could get well in front of the break. The first time was a mistake as I made a cutback in the wrong place and instead of hitting the whitewater there was a tubing wave with about an 8 foot face coming at me. That turn flashed through my mind so I attempted it and failed. The next time I had it in my mind to try to repeat that turn and failed again. I think it needs to be at the end of the tubing section or the lip is too powerful.

[oldmansurfer]

What I enjoy to do also is floaters. I surf the middle section as often as it looks like the best bet which is less than 50 percent of the time. In that part it's all sand bars and unless the sand has been groomed by the prior weather conditions there are lots of closeouts. So what I would do is to take off make a hard bottom turn to get back up quickly then do a floater. Then I would bottom turn hard and try to get around the breaking section if possible. Sometimes I can so it's not a closeout (for me). In the bottom turn I have often put my hand down only to feel the sand as it has gotten really shallow in that area. So it's deeper all around that part but for whatever reason a sand bar built up there. Anyway I eventually examined my fins and they looked extremely worn and had to make a choice not to do a floaters on the inside area where it might be extremely shallow.

I love to do floaters because it seems to me to be something that shouldn't be possible. The first time I did one I had no idea it was possible nor what to call it. I was trying to connect an outside break to an inside break by generating speed in the fast breaking section. I think most surfers surfed the inside or the outside but not both. I didn't see why you shouldn't be able to connect them. So I was speeding along making huge top to bottom turns on a wave with about an 8 foot face. A section pitched over in front of me so I turned up to kick out and caught a bit of the lip which changed the trajectory of my board and sent me up over the back of the wave. There was still lots of speed and I continued along the top unsure what to do. I went over the falls and by the time I reached the bottom of the wave my board had reached the edge of the lip before it touched down. I am fairly sure my board went off the leading edge of the lip and onto the unbroken face with about a foot of air between them. I was into the inside section and so shocked that I didn't get some horrendous pounding that I didn't do anything initially and hurried after I realized I needed to do something so didn't get tubed on that inside hollow section.

That was a little different from the floaters I did later. Typical floater for me is up on the lip as it is tossing over and then down the backside of the lip then having to navigate a bit if whitewater to get to the bottom. Or less often where I hit the lip and drop back down with the lip.

[oldmansurfer]

The 7'6" board had very little rocker, less in both the nose and tail than my 9'6" longboard. It is a great board, very fast and capable of getting some speed in gutless small waves but a real blast in fast waves with 6 to 8 foot faces. I don't know how pro surfers do it but when I surf a board with a different design than the one I have been using I tend to still act as if I am using the old board. Consequently when I switch boards I use the same board for a couple months which is how long it seems to take me to get used to a new board. So I used this board on everything and I wasn't picky. I just go to the beach and surf whatever there is. While I just had my shaper make this board to give him business because I loved my 8 foot board he made it was a pretty awesome board. It didn't catch waves as well as the 8 footer but just a little bit less. You had to be more in exactly the right place paddling it to get maximum speed, I guess due to the lack of rocker. The nose would go under water sometimes while I was paddling for waves which bothered me at first but it would just pop back out so whatever. But if you are just a little too far back it becomes much more difficult to paddle. Once I figured that out it was great. I loved that board. Then one day I surfed Horners with 12 foot faces. It seemed to take drop a little later than the 8 foot board but it was faster down the face than the 8 foot board so that made up for the later drops. When I got to the bottom of the first wave I felt the board get skittery. It had come out of the wave and was scarily easy to turn. I decided to not turn and let the board slow down till I could feel the traction on the wave. I don't really know how I figured that out in that situation but I could actually feel it sink back down into the wave and then I could turn it as a normal board. Still that board was lots of fun on waves with 10 foot faces or less. I was amazed at this other great oldman board that my shaper came up with. So still just from the love of the 8 foot board, I asked my shaper to make me another oldman board for tube riding and he made the 7 foot board.

I rode the 7 foot board on waves of every size as well and it did pretty good on all sizes up to around 18 foot faces where it started to feel too small to me. I felt like I was riding a toothpick on the wave. This board was narrower in the tail than my other boards but wide in the nose. What that does is give you lift as you paddle for the wave but the tail is thin so sinks into the wave for better control on steep waves once you are up and riding it. It has a continuous rocker makes it easier to control but makes it feel shorter than a board with less rocker and makes it slower slightly. The bigger waves I caught with this 7 foot board were in the middle sandbar part of the bay. At Horners the steep tubing waves, it was really difficult to catch waves in the above 12 foot face range at Horners. It was difficult but much more likely to catch waves in the 10 foot face waves at Horners. I didn't get a lot of chances to use that board but it led to some amazing waves.

One wave in particular that I can recall was a 8 to 10 foot face day at Horners. There were a bunch of guys out including one of my old time friends who was giving a surf lesson out there. Not really the place for a surf lesson but must have been an advanced student. I went over to the next peak over because there were too many guys at the bowl. I had trouble catching any waves there. I finally paddled and stood up and found the wave had broken under me and I was riding the backside of the lip in a kind of floater from popup. I just stood there concentrating on everything. I could feel the board under me and I was aware of the bottom of the wave getting closer and the orientation of my board to the bottom. I don't recall if I adjusted it a little but probably. I landed at the bottom of the wave and rode out in front of it with great speed. I had planned on doing a hard bottom turn to get back up the face but when I looked up there was this double lipped monstrosity looking back at me and I didn't want to go there but I had turned my board already and it wanted to go there so I kept that trajectory and smacked the top lip , probably both lips and turned back down riding whitewater to get in front of the wave but that was all the wave had. That mutant double lipped thing was the end section of that wave and I cut out. I can recall someone saying "Well sometimes you just have to go for it." LOL from my perspective on that wave it wasn't going for it but surviving. I was just trying to keep myself safe. Maybe though yeah, I wasn't catching any waves so maybe I pushed it a bit. Probably you could chalk it all up to inexperience with that board.

[oldmansurfer]

Inexperience with the board and a survival instinct that helps me in these critical situations and maybe Luck? I don't know but I am so certain those who saw me thought I was a much better surfer than I was. It's not like I did any of that intentionally. It was all one big oopsie but somehow pulled it off. Just like the first time I surfed with others. I had been learning on my own for a couple months and the guys I knew who surfed, knew I was learning and dropped by to invite me to surf. We went to a the same beach I was learning at 8 miles north and I checked out the surf when we got there and it looked bigger than anything I had surfed yet with about 8 foot faces. Prior to that I had surfed only waves up to 6 foot faces. Now just a disclosure I had bodysurfed waves with 20 foot faces and regularly paipo boarded waves with 14 to 16 foot faces. I told them it was too big and they asked if I was afraid of the waves as they all knew I charged much bigger surf. I said no so we went out. The first wave I caught I was going so fast that I overturned the board and went straight back up the face and I was like OH NO! and turned back down off balance to find I had overturned back down the wave and I turned back up once again overturning and off balance. I kept that up for several turns and got to a smaller part of the wave where I gained control of the board and cut out. I put my head down and paddled back out hoping no one saw me so out of control on that wave. One of the guys paddled up to me and said " I thought you said you didn't know how to surf?" I said "Did you see me on that last wave? I was out of control." He said "Yeah man. You were out of control... totally!" Like it was a compliment. I didn't fall down but I was not in control on that wave. Everything I did was not my intention except the cutout at the end. Same as the above wave. I was just trying to survive. The difference with the two is I wasn't off balance at all on the floater from takeoff but that first wave with my pals I was off balance for the entire wave.

[oldmansurfer]

There is a maneuver that is similar to the floater from takeoff that I used to do fairly regularly that I called a foam climb from takeoff because the majority of waves I did it on were crumbly waves not tubing out like the above instance. I found that sometimes I am paddling for a wave usually out of place but still trying to catch it and the wave crumbles underneath the board and I used to think oh well I missed the wave but I could feel the pull just like I caught it so one day I just popped up and rode the foam to the bottom of the wave on a wave with about a 6 foot face. I had enough speed from taking the drop to make a decent bottom turn and get back in front of the breaking portion of the wave. There have been a couple waves where I rode the back of the wave a little until I hit the bucking whitewater and bounced a bit then get in front of the whitewater usually with enough speed to get back in front of the wave. But if I had time to think about it I would have never tried to do that on a wave with a 10 foot face that was tubing out. I was unaware that the lip had pitched over underneath me till after I popped up. It was too late to change my mind just like the bottom turn I was unaware that there was this mutant double lip thing till after I committed to a turn. I could have jumped off the board but most likely trying to change trajectory wasn't going to work.

[oldmansurfer]

I have been surfing alone for most of my life. When I first started I did so alone for two reasons. I didn't want to be in the way of anyone and no one that I knew wanted to surf as much as I did. I was 18 years old living on my own and all the guys I knew who surfed had surfed for several years already and they had jobs so getting together was only possible irregularly. Those guys used to take along with them surfing when I was still paipo boarding. It's better to surf with others to a point. I don't like crowds If it's too crowded I look for another break. Eventually I came to know lots of surfers who mostly I knew from high school. The regulars where I surfed all knew each other but I was the odd man often as I did things differently. But they were a great bunch of guys and a few of them really good surfers which I hoped to be as good as them eventually but we never surfed together intentionally. I enjoyed surfing with them. Life was good if it was only them and me out and because we were driven to surf we met accidentally at the various beaches of Kauai randomly due to the surf being up.

The guys who used to go surf with me intentionally mostly seemed to be what I call "casual surfers". They surf for an hour and spend two or more hours on beach socializing. I couldn't do that. Looking at the waves created this incredible urge for me to paddle out and I could not stay at the beach and not surf. In about a year of surfing I had progressed beyond most of their skill levels and I would look at big consequential surf and they would say "No way! I am not going out there!" So I went by myself. Even on smaller surf I would be having a blast and they would not be.

Originally I surfed at the beach 8 miles north, I have been saying 8 miles but I think that is the 8 mile marker from Lihue actually about 5 miles north from where I lived. The reason is there was often no one out whereas for whatever reason the beach closer to me was the surfers hangout. These days it is quite the opposite. The beach 5 miles north of me is crowded and the beach nearest me isn't usually.

Since I restarted surfing I haven't ever gone on a trip with others due to busy schedule working and now caregiving for my wife and I don't know many surfers anymore. I still ran into some of them surfing. Not the causal surfers as they no longer surfed or have moved out to other places or died. There are regular surfers who I sort of go to know. One guy who I surfed with the most was a longboarder. He had a ten foot longboard he surfed and I think he had been surfing since he was a kid. I never asked him but think he tried to surf my schedule because he enjoyed the company. I enjoyed his company as well. We had some really great conditions to ourselves a few times. At some point I quit seeing him and heard he had Lou Gehrig's disease and moved to surf an easier break called Oldmans. Yeah they named a break after me, just kidding it was named that before I became on old man. I heard he passed away. I miss him, he was fun guy to surf with. I think he always checked to see if I made the waves I surfed because I took off deeper than he wanted to.

If I go surf again it will be alone.

[oldmansurfer]

I had that one group of surfers who I surfed with regularly but mostly i surfed with the regulars at the beach I learned to surf at. 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. Once he was 18 he was in and out of jail. But then he seemed to get his stuff together. He got a job that he stuck too for more than 2 weeks and in fact married the business owners daughter. Anyway one particularly funny thing that happened was a drunk surfing episode. Now I associated with all kinds of criminals when I was a kid and was a criminal but changed my ways. We were still friends through all his trials and tribulations. Anyway he had graduated from his youth camp and got a high school diploma and we were drinking beer and fairly well along. 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. 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 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.

[oldmansurfer]

The closest beach to my house is where I first rode a surfboard and got my first tube ride. When I was a kid there was a beachboy named Percy who worked at the Kauai Surf hotel (now called the Marriot I think). I approached him several times to see if he would teach me to surf. I only asked when he didn't seem busy but the answer was always the same. He was working and when he wasn't working he could teach me. One day I was at the beach closest to me and he was there with his surfboard about to go out so I asked if he could teach me now and he reluctantly agreed. He took his surfboard out through the surf and I swam out. He then was explaining that I should lay down and then after the wave gets going stand up and ride as far as I could. I thought that seemed unnecessarily complicated so I asked if I could just stand and he push me into the wave and he agreed to give that a try. So with me standing on the board he pushed me into two waves which I rode all the way to the beach and jumped off on the sand. I didn't really see what was so great about it at that point in time. Bodysurfing seemed so much more exciting.

Then without surfing on a surfboard at all since then my brother offered to let me use his potato chip surfboard. It was very short for the time, about 5'2" and really wide and thick. It was big for me since I was used to a 4 foot paipo board. I was surfing inside Horners and it was about 4 to 5 foot faces. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out where I should be in the lineup. But the very first wave I caught I popped up but stayed crouched because the wave was going to tube and if I stood all the way up the lip would have taken me out. I was covered up and it felt like I was in the tube but it was so wet with whitewater in my face I couldn't tell how deep I was or if I was actually covered up just due to lack of familiarity with riding a surfboard. I came out and rode over the back of the wave and saw another surfer paddling out grinning. I asked him if I got tubed and he said I did. I asked if it was all ways or just partially covered and he said I disappeared so about as tubed as you can get. After a few more waves I realized this was a fluke and that getting tubed wasn't that easy. But it was paipo boarding so back to the paipo boards.

[oldmansurfer]

I recall an incident at the beach closest to me created by my lingering single fin instincts to turn at the top of the wave and sideslip down the face. I turned at the top of a steep wave and realized it was a mistake and straightened out but got caught by the lip, my entire back was in the wave and I was stopped dead in the water going to wipeout. My feet were still on the board but I was kind of suspended above it and I had some time to think and knew my neighbors son was right in front of me and my board was pointed that direction so I pulled the board around and faced it the other direction and pushed it away in that direction before I took my pounding. I really didn't want to hurt that boy. I think he probably thought I was a crazy old man because I messed up so much. In reality 99 percent of the poundings I took were nothing much.

[oldmansurfer]

I remember another wave at what I would call Middle Horners but it may be there are other designations for that break within a 20 minute walk from my house. There was a group of surfers at the main peak for this left breaking wave however there was another peak deeper to that one. I had been able to connect the two peaks before so I thought I would catch that peak and when it seemed possible try to connect the two. I had a nice wave with a 6 to 8 foot face that looked promising for the connection and took off making a hard backside bottom turn that went to a series of top to bottom turns to get speed and just as it looked like I was going to the section by the other surfers tossed over and I ended up doing a lip line floater where I hit the edge of the lip and came down with it sort of turning off the edge on the way down. Unsuccessful but fun. A body boarder paddled up to me smiling and said "You did everything possible to make that wave but sometimes it's just not possible." Another surfer later told me she took off on that wave and hoped I didn't mind. I didn't see her at all so really not a problem, nice of her to sort of apologize about it. She was one of the regulars at that Middle Horners spot and I had surfed a lot with her prior to that. Not possible ...hmmm.... that went through my mind. I think maybe if I did a full over the top floater and traveled some distance over the top of the wave I could have made the connection. However there was a group of surfers there and I might have dropped off the top of the wave onto them so it's just as well I didn't do that. I believe you don't know what is possible and quite often it seems to be matter of doing the right thing in the right place and instead of a closeout you have a fantastic ride. I often surf a break and try to figure out how to get the most from what it is offering at that particular time. Long ago I would spend maybe 2 hours figuring out the break and then 2 hours surfing the break. The first 2 hours is trying a variety of things till I find what works for me. My surf session are always less than 2 hours these days but I still try.

[oldmansurfer]

That reminds me of a wave I didn't catch at Horners. I was surfing by myself and my neighbor who was out there on his own asks how it is going? I said "you have to be in the right place at the right time and do the right thing." Then comes this wave maybe a 12 foot face and I am exactly in the right place and paddle for it but can't get down the face. This place can be quite difficult but years ago when I was much younger I did much better at catching the waves. Anyway neighbor paddles over to me and says "You were in the right place at the right time. What happened?" I answered "I didn't do the right thing." Not sure why I still remember this but maybe because I had just said that LOL

[oldmansurfer]

I remember one day there was a storm that had been hanging offshore a few hundred miles away generating waves for about 3 weeks. I decided to start surfing 2 days a week then from my usual one day a week. I got off work early or actually on time which hardly ever happens and had enough time to go home get my board and head down to the beach 1 mile from my house. When I go there two other surfers were going out. It was kind of stormy but I knew this break and it seemed okay to me. I only caught one good wave in the 30 minute session I had but it was fun. I recall after the drop there was this huge chop or ridge that I had to go over. Not too long before that I had attempted to do another chop like that and fell but this one I did fine maybe because the prior experience prepared me. My board was airborne for a short time after surfing over this one foot chop but landed it and kept going to have a bunch of off the lips and fun turns on the rest of the wave. We all came back in at the same time and the two younger guys were having a discussion. One of them was saying "That was harder than work" and the other one was saying "You couldn't pay me to do that." I said "It was good exercise and I did catch a nice wave." It was just another day at the beach for me, except it was rare for me to paddle out with anyone.

I can remember some other incidents from that swell. On one day there was a section that was tubing out. Obviously the sand had accumulated in that spot and made this hollow section. I tried taking off at the peak and wasn't able to if I was inside of the peak I could take off but the hollow section was done already. I tried outside of the peak and could catch the wave but the hollow section would pitch over before I could turn up. So I tried way down the line and did a series of speed turns. The hollow section still pitched over before I could reach there but I had the speed to go around it. Being that I wasn't going to spend all day there I decided to go more out and catch some bigger waves. Maybe if I was in better shape and had more time I could have figured out how to get tubed there. I was making progress toward that goal but didn't want to waste the rest of my time attempting to get tubed there since I would start to get tired and have to go in without checking out the rest of the breaking waves.

During the same swell I paddled out and 2 surfers recognized me but I didn't recognize them because I wasn't wearing my glasses. There were trying to figure out how to catch a wave and it was difficult to catch waves that day but the first wave I saw I paddled for and caught and when I came back out they were saying. "We were trying to figure out how to catch a wave. Maybe we should use the paddle like crazy method. We haven't tried that method yet" I think they were referring my paddling as paddle like crazy. To be fair I had an 8 foot fungun and they had shortboards. Love that 8 foot board.

[oldmansurfer]

I remember a big day in the middle (sandbar) portion of the bay that I surf at. It was breaking close to 20 foot faces and many of the waves would lurch up and go concave below me as I dropped down the wave. Because of my usual current method of taking a steep drop I have the board angled and then I go airborne for a few feet. When the board reengages with the water it does a little squiggle, a sideways shake because the board isn't going straight down and the fins want to make it go straight down. This makes me fall at the top of the wave. Now you might think that is a pretty serious pounding I got but not really. I would get off balance and realize I was going to fall the jump off the board to the bottom of the wave and get some penetration down which pulls the board down and the pounding was minimal. It wasn't every wave but I probably fell like 3 times till I finally went straight down and turned on the face after doing an airdrop or if none then when I am sure there will be no airdrop. Funny, these were huge waves for an old man such as myself but I felt comfortable there. The conditions were good for me and my board. I was so happy to have the waves to myself because there was one after another, very consistent waves and a channel to paddle back out in with a rip in the channel assisting the paddle. My kind of day, getting the most out of my short time in the water.

[oldmansurfer]

I remember one day when I was surfing middle Horners and on part of the wave I turned on the top and it kind of held me there for a while then dropped me and I felt a squiggle similar to the airdrop squiggle but not as severe. It happened several times and the first one I fell but on the following waves I was aware it was going to happen and was able to stay on. Not sure what that was but suspect the back part of the board behind the fins was still engaged with the wave but the fins came out of the water so the squiggle wasn't so powerful, or maybe just because the waves were smaller.

[oldmansurfer]

I remember a wave I was surfing at the beach closest to me on my 8 foot funboard. The wave had an 8 to 10 foot face and I was doing a series of turns then on the inside a huge section (15 feet long) crumbled in front of me and I was already turned to go up to the top of the wave so I just did this humongous foam climb and made it past the section. It felt much like surfing on an unbroken wave but without a doubt the biggest foam climb I ever did.

[BoMan]

A few months ago I played "red light green light" with my 7 year old grandson and his buddies. I know not to play flag football, basketball or soccer with my nephews but I thought "what's the harm in playing with the little guys? Well....10 minutes into the game while running too fast on the green light I pulled my hamstring. It took me 3 weeks to recover.

Fast forward to present day. The 2nd grade crew begged me to join their game of tag. " We need one more for the game" said my grandson. "It'll be fine, Papa." Well ... 10 minutes into the game I found myself with lots of time to post on this forum!

[oldmansurfer]

I am working to fend off the advances of old age problems. So far age is winning but I am able to slow it down a bit.

While trying to recall other waves at the beach closest to me, I thought maybe I could mention the wildlife encountered while there. Number one most often encounter is sharks. Let's face it it's their home so they are always around and I have cut short a few surf sessions because they approached to close to me and other times I see them in the distance and am aware. I recall once seeing an approximately two foot long shark while surfing the break on the far left in front of a hotel over there. I was all by myself and it seemed sharky to me so I was on alert and saw a shark within a couple feet of me but I was going to be going in soon and it was cruising slowly so I decided to catch a few more waves then head in. For a while when I paddled from Horners to the middle of the bay lineup I would often see a shark fin paralleling me maybe 50 yards out. It used to bother me at first but never led to a closer encounter so not sure what that meant.

There are often whales during the season visible from the lineup. Usually you can see their spouts if you are looking out for the next wave as I usually am. They haven't ever come close while I was in the water. I have seen some dolphins but much less often for whatever reasons.

I saw stingrays a couple times, the most spectacular time was while I was SUPing and could paddle right up to it. In that case it was maybe 6 feet across, a big one most likely weighing over 200 pounds. The other time I saw something splashing and looked closely (from a distance LOL) and figured out it was a stingray flipping it's wingtips up out of the water. Manta rays can look like sharks because their wing tips are pointed like a sharks fin and they can cruise along on the surface with their wing tips out for whatever reason but I don't recall seeing any there.

On a couple of occasions I have seen schools of fish noticed because they were jumping out of the water. When the school is moving in my direction I get out of the water which I have done once. My thinking is they are jumping because predators are going after them and in the fray they may mistake me for a fish. Individual fish I have seen a few times in the wave as it approaches me.

I saw turtles on a lot of occasions. The most worrisome was a huge turtle right where the waves were breaking. I don't see them in the lineup often and suspect it might be for a reason such as hiding from a predator. I had my shark senses on high alert but never saw a shark and the worst thing was it pooped creating a foul smell of rotting seaweed.

The creepiest thing was a bunch of miniscule crabs that crawled on to me while I was surfing one day. I had heard about huge spawns of crabs in other areas (not Hawaii) due to climate change and figured this was what was happening here as well.

[oldmansurfer]

I can't believe I forgot to mention the biggest day I ever surfed in my life was at the beach closest to me.

I went surfing at Horner's at Wailua beach. The waves were breaking about 8 feet (16 foot face)and looked nice (stormy) and no one was out so I paddled out. When I got out I noticed that way outside (called Makaiwas) was a really nice wave that was tubing spectacularly. It was breaking in such perfect tubes that they didn't seem to be moving. I thought what the heck? I should go check it out.... so I paddled out which was a long paddle (0.75 miles from where I was) but I was in good shape. When I got outside the waves were mammoths....so huge it was like I was in a different world. They were so huge that I just couldn't fathom it. The closer I got the bigger the waves got. These massive walls of water were rolling in and breaking beautifully and they were so massive and so beautiful and no one was out. I was alone in the middle of this incredible force and it was such a beautiful sight I had goose bumps. It was noisy and loud and yet silent at the same time. Incredibly fast and yet in slow motion. Massively powerful yet just water. Between waves was like a valley in the mountains of water. I screamed out of pure excitement and heard echoes (probably in my head) in the canyon between the mountainous waves. I just watched for a while thinking I needed to be careful or this would be my last day surfing. The waves were very consistent so I paddled over to the spot that seemed my best bet to take off and not die yet get to try these monsters out. That was right where the waves started to get smaller yet it was still massively huge but slowed down a bit at that point. I wasn't able to take off and paddled deeper. Prior experience had taught me that it was a matter of finding the right place, where the wave would allow me to take off. Eventually I go into the area where it was still tubing and took off The drop was so long even longer to me because of the adrenalin making everything slow down. It wasn't as steep as a slightly smaller day at Hanalei but still a long drop and as I got to the bottom and started my backside turn I found I couldn't handle the G-force of the drop backside and my legs buckled so I was squatting down with my heels pressed into my butt. That was ok as I just waited till I got all the way down the face of the wave and then stood up and completed my bottom turn although the white water was dangerously close to me and I could feel splatters of it hitting me. On the next wave I again could not handle the G-force of the drop and actually fell backwards onto the wave but I guess I was going so fast the water reacted as if it was hard and I bounced right back up onto the board. It was like my back just hit the water and the water just pushed me right back up. I have never before or since then experienced that. It was great to be back on the board because I was sure it was death for me. I decided right then to go in as I might die if I wiped out there on the takeoff.







I drove home and thought about things a bit and decided to work on my leg strength. I started by climbing up the mango tree in the back yard and jumping out from a height of about four feet. I kept that up daily till I could easily land in a crouched position as I would do surfing. Then I went a little higher in the tree. Eventually I was jumping from a height of about twelve feet and landing in a crouched position. I also changed my stance to a more powerful stance with my back foot at 90 degrees to the stringer and back over the fin. This helped my surfing in general also. I kept this training up and kept my eyes open for another break like the one I experienced. About a year later I went out at Horners and again it was breaking about 8 feet and the outside was breaking in huge tubes. The waves look funny when they are that big. It looks like a still photo or something because the break was so far out and the waves were so perfect and huge. I paddled out there and again I was alone in the majestic powerful beauty. This time I could judge the height with a year more experience including almost drowning at Hanalei on a huge day. The waves this day had around 40 foot faces. Again it was very consistent and again I decided to take off at the spot where the wave slowed down and gradually edge deeper. This time I was able to handle the force at the bottom of the wave and make the turn without my knees buckling. On one wave I turned on the bottom and shot up to the top and turned back down to find my fin popped out and I was sliding sideways at an incredible speed. There was this flat area in front of the lip or maybe it was the lip and I had so much speed I just kept sliding and sliding. In my imagination the wave was pushing me along, perhaps it was. The first time I didn't know hat to do and kept sliding until I went over the back of the wave and wiped out. The next time I accidentally did that I dug my hand into the water and pulled myself over the ledge back onto the massive face of the wave as scary as it was to take a huge drop again, it wasn't steep by that part. On one wave I did a cutback and was still in the top one third of the wave only to see this massive whitewater approaching. Afraid of getting too close (still more than 10 yards away) I turned out and back down the line and then realized I was going so fast there was nothing to worry about and turned back. So I did this huge Shaped cutback on the face of this massive wave and got a lot closer to the whitewater which definitely wasn't traveling anywhere near as fast as my board. I caught a bunch of waves and decided not to push my luck and call it a day and on my way in on the last wave I rode it all the ways to Horners break and felt like cutting out when I go to Horners since the waves seemed so small. Normally 8 foot waves would bring a feeling of respect for the power of the ocean but on this day it was so inconsequential as to almost not be worthy of surfing.







There just aren't words to describe the feeling of being in waves that huge. I can only imagine what the tow in surfers feel with the even bigger waves they surf. What can you say? Massive? Huge? Monsters? Majestic? Magical? Power? Force? Beauty? Nature? Wondrous? None of it seems to do justice. I'm afraid my upbringing on Kauai did not equip me to describe such things. Although the waves I caught that day in Hanalei were scarier these waves were bigger. The drop was different from Hanalei as my board was always firmly in the water. On each wave I would paddle and start to drop and then I stopped going down the wave as the wave pitched up and I got fairly vertical but the board never fluttered beneath my feet like a Hanalei drop. The adrenalin pump was still quite similar and it seemed like it took minutes to drop down but because I was backside at Horners I did not usually look up at the wave above me and even if I did it was a rapidly tapering wall of water compared to Hanalei and less scary. It seemed quiet for whatever reason and I could hear a zipping noise from my board on the water that I haven't heard before or since.



I never saw it break like that again but have heard that people tow in there.

[oldmansurfer]

There's a guy called Furcat who I heard has a video of people surfing that place (Makaiwa) at massive size. I tried to get a copy of it from him but was unsuccessful. He passed away recently. He also wrote a book "30 minutes til death: a true story about medical tourist industry and kidney failure " Steve Wolshin is his real name. He had kidney damage related to surfing at Kalihiwai ,( a spot I surfed many times) and ended up getting a kidney transplant in a foreign country because it was way cheaper. It's not quite a surf book but I read it and enjoyed it.