The ancient Kahunas‘ hang out?

[oldmansurfer]

The upside down under the lip backside speed turn worked like this: I would see an oncoming steep section on a wave with about 10 to 15 foot face that I was going to backdoor it meaning the lip was going to pitch over right when I got there or before I got there, then I would do a hard projecting bottom turn and aim for right under the lip as it is pitching over. But this is a speed turn and not a power turn so no power is put into the turn instead I go upside down under the lip at full extension barely feeling any push on the lip and just guiding the board back down under me in a crouched stance but stay crouched till I can judge the room to stand back up. I found that I would be up high on the wave and dropping down which is what generated the speed and soon be able to stand. I have only done it at Horners and Kealia and at the time of my quitting surfing it was 100% successful. It's possible that during this turn I would be covered by the tube before completing it. I am facing the wave so not sure but could tell it was dark so in the shade at least and by the time I am crouched after completing the turn definitely in the tube. I am not sure if multiple fin boards can do this because the side fins hold the rail into the wave better but maybe?
The idea of a projecting turn is to unweight before the turn so crouching down into the turn , lean into the direction you want to move after the turn and extend your legs during the turn then as you leave the turn you unweight and bring your legs up under you crouching again and transition into the position for the next turn. Having a good projection bottom turn is key to being able to make fast waves. Dropping into a crouch as you enter the turn uses the momentum of your falling body to add power into the turn then extending your legs in the middle of the turn adds more power to the turn again by raising your body mass you push more into the board and the changing of direction of the turn puts more force into the board as well. Then since you are leaned into the direction you are going the energy stored up by the turn is released in that direction and your legs are extended so the board just comes right up under you and momentum in the direction you want to go is generated.

[oldmansurfer]

The next break I surfed along that direction was called Davison's named after a rich person who lived near there (I think). It was a break I found originally just cruising with a few friends looking for surf. It had surfable fun waves but I never surfed it while it was big maybe just around 6 to 8 foot faces. It broke left and was reminiscent of Horner's the break I surfed at he beach near me or more like a combination of Horner's and the middle of the bay break at Wailua. I went there a couple more times alone looking for surf. This break is about 45 minutes to an hour drive from my house so I didn't go there unless desperate for some surf LOL. The last time I went there it was a fun day and I was alone surfing there. Suddenly 2 carloads of guys drive up and I think "Oh no, instant crowd" but only one guy paddles out and he was a surfer I knew through my parents and his parents were friends. He was actually one of the best surfers on the island, I have seen him doing carving 360 turns at Shoulders break. Anyway he paddles over to me and say "hey you the guy?" Not to many haoles in those days and so I nodded and he turns around and yells "IT'S OKAY!" to all the surfers waiting on the shoreline. I asked "what was that about?" He said "They were going to flat all your cars tires." LOL he saved my bacon that day. It pays to be known as a good guy.

After that the road ends and there is a military base before that. In the housing area of the base was a break we called "Military housing" . To surf there you had to know the daughter of the General who lived there and she would give you permission to surf there. One of the guys I was with knew her and got permission, but the waves weren't very good that day. We tried another day but daughter wasn't home. Then at the end of the road we call it Polihale and I surfed there but never on a good day. I also surfed another break called Majors bay which is supposed to be a fast breaking right which is my specialty but never surfed it on a good day. All of these breaks were just taking a chance that something might be happening so we would leave unaware that anything is happening. In my own travels by myself I would check every break along the way from my house and just jump in the water to catch something if I get to Polihale. I guess there were occasions when a friend of mine had information about a break from being there the day before or having a friend who was there. No surf reports.

[oldmansurfer]

The island I live on has a road that goes around it but it stops at the spectacular Napali coastline which is a series of cliffs and valleys that so far has been impossible to build roads through. So either way you end up having to turn around and go back the other way. I would chose to go north or south looking for surf but once decided I kept the same direction. It usually worked as there are lots of breaks that I know and many that I don't know. Going in the other direction the next beak I surfed was Anahola, I am not sure of the break but it is where an old pier was and there are still parts of it in the water. I hear it is a pretty good break on the right swell but never saw that. Past that is another break that I don't know the name of that looked like it had potential but was probably a better longboarding wave the day I tried it.

Beyond that is a break that I surfed twice with a group of friends. There is supposed to be a right breaking wave there but instead we saw a left breaking over a shallow reef. You had to drive through pineapple fields to get there. We called it Braziers because it had 2 peaks that shifted across the reef. It needed to be a 6 foot face at least to keep it off the shallow reef but we hit it twice like that. It was a very different break. You could see the two peaks way up the reef and they would slide along the edge of the reef till they got to you and broke there. The first time was just fun but the second time I thought was extraordinarily fun. I was taking off behind the second peak as deep to the break as I possibly could and then getting tubed and around 4 out of 5 times making it out to cutout on the inside. It was just barely big enough to fit me in the tube backside and two of my friends there were goofy footers so I imagined they would be enjoying themselves too. But after a while they told me they were all going in. I was so shocked. Why weren't they having fun? I asked them and they said they weren't having fun and they could see I was so they were going to wait for me on the beach (because I was driving this time.)

It was very perplexing to me. They had all been surfing longer than me. I was the kook, the beginner. I started to notice a thing what I will call the casual surfer. They surf for an hour and spend 3 hours on the beach socializing. I could not do that. If there were waves I had to be surfing. It's like the waves were calling to me, "look at me, I am beautiful and empty, just waiting for you to join me in my travel to the shore." Anyway they were all what I would call casual surfers. I gradually started to surf without them more and more. I would see waves and think "That looks fun" and they would say "it's too gnarly". I progressed to surfing bigger waves and learned to love stormy surf. It's not as much fun surfing alone but better than letting the waves go unridden often there are other surfers out at the various breaks who enjoy bigger and more gnarly waves.

[oldmansurfer]

Heading further north there was a break we called "Rock Crushers" because there was a rock crusher there used to make gravel for the local roads and other construction uses. The road was really bad and if your car didn't have good clearance it would be bottoming out on the rough jeep trail to the beach. We would make consideration as to which cars we would drive down that road. It's another break that I have surfed a few times but never any days that were very good but some fun surfing anyway.

Just north from there is a break we called "Pokamoe". It's a right that breaks right in front of a cliff. In the days of no leash I would use my junk board as the probability of damage was high. I loved this break so on my journey of looking for surf I would stop here to check it out. If it was breaking but crowded I might continue on and keep it in mind if there wasn't a better break to surf and stop back there on my trip back. I guess probably I was lucky to catch it with no one out a few times although it didn't stay that way for long. I was familiar with this break a little from paipo boarding. Most of the paipo boarding I did was the break in the middle of the bay which has a nice sand beach.

I found that I had skills that were very good for riding this wave. For one thing I did a sideslipping takeoff where I turned at the top of the wave and the fin came out of the water and the board slipped down the face sideways till the fin contacted the water pushing it forward . I avoided a problem that many surfers had there where they dropped down the face and got cleaned out by the lip. The other skills were I was a good swimmer and could swim in to get my board before it went on the rocks. If it went on the rocks I was a nimble rock hopper and could quickly scramble along the rocks below the cliff and get my board between the waves and get back quickly to safety. It was dangerous to do that because if you get caught you will get pounded back and forth across the rocks by the waves.

The wave often was scary and playing it safe often meant that you won't catch any waves. The best place to takeoff is well in front of the cliff and if you try to takeoff at a safer spot it may be very difficult or impossible to takeoff. I surfed there one day and there was a surfer who lined up in the wrong place and he never caught a wave that I saw. I would wait for him to let a few waves go by then caught one . By the time I paddled back out he was still there and I would paddle past him and wait again to let him try to catch waves and he might paddle for one or two or not just letting them go by. I kept doing this and eventually he complained to me telling me I am not letting him catch any waves. I told him he was lined up in the wrong place and to come over by me and he refused. So I counted to him how many waves he missed and then caught another wave. Eventually I went in as I was tired and he never caught a wave while I was on the shore watching.

One day I was paddling out there and the guys (who I knew them all) were paddling in and telling me there was a big shark out there. I kept paddling out and had the place to myself which was a joy. I kept my eyes open for a shark though and never saw anything till I had been surfing for 2 hours straight. Basically just one wave after another with little break. I was looking out and saw a huge (about 4 foot tall) long skinny black fin sticking out of the water. I thought oh my gosh that is a huge shark and I was pretty tired already so after a few more waves because I couldn't resist because I was still alone out there, I paddled in. I went to my fathers house because this shark had a fin I have never seen before. My father had books about sharks so I figured I could just look through them and figure it out but there were no sharks in his books with fins like that. So I decided to wait for him to come home from work as it was close to that time. I sat down on the sofa and picked up a Time Magazine and was flipping through it and suddenly saw that same fin. It was an Orca. When my father came home he told me there were Orcas in Hawaii although they were rare.

This break was difficult for me to get tubed and I can recall one good deep tube ride I had there on a wave with about a 10 to 12 foot face. I dropped down and sideslipped and it just broke over the top of me and I was very deeply tubed although moving very fast and came quickly out of the tube.

One day when I was paipo boarding there with friends we went out and had fun and on the way in I came across one of my high school classmates and friend swimming in. I had fins on and easily left him there after saying hi and chatting a little still swimming while I quickly got to the shore. We were sitting on the beach watching what everyone else was up to and one of the friends I came there with tells me "Your friend is still swimming in the same place. You should go help him." I realized he was right so I went out there and asked him if he was okay and he said he was so I went back in. In a little while my friend came back and said "he's still there." I told him "I know but he said he was doing okay and didn't want my help." A little while later my friend comes back and asks me "Do you want to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation?" I agreed I needed to just go do something so I went back out and told him I was going to help him in to the beach. He pleaded with me to not do it in an obvious way so what I did was to go under water and stand on the bottom and push his feet forward, then come up to get a breath next to him and shove him a little more forward with my hand completely under water so no one could see it. Then repeat that over and over till we got him to where he could stand. There was a slight rip current going out right there which apparently was more than he could handle. I was glad I didn't need to do mouth to mouth resuscitation on him. He was glad to get to the beach without "making shame" (what we would call having an embarrassing incident.) I wonder how many people drown because they don't want to be embarrassed by asking someone for help?

[oldmansurfer]

More north is a break I have surfed called Hideaways. It's right before Hanalei and you need to walk down a steep trail to the beach to get to it. I first paipo boarded that wave with my surfing friends who used to take me along with them. It is a left breaking wave over a reef, not too shallow but inside of it is shallow. There however is a channel that you can paddle out to it avoiding the waves and reef. I went there a few times paipo boarding. The second time with the same group of friends who took me there first I beat them down the trail partly because I was in better shape than them and partly because I didn't have a longer board, they all had 6 to 7 foot boards and I had a 4 foot board. I jumped in the water and started to paddle out to the break. Suddenly in front of me maybe 10 yards away I saw something. First what looked like a one and half or 2 foot fin sticking out of the water. Then a wave came in and I could see the shark underneath the fin. It was around 3 foot wide WOW! I had to think fast. To the left of me was a shallow reef with lots of long spined sea urchins (wana in Hawaiian) to the back of me was the shoreline like maybe 20 yards in and to the right of me a bay with no waves. I quickly turned right and kicked strongly but not frantically with minimal splash. I had heard that if you get out of the way of a shark coming to investigate you on the first pass they might forget that you were there. No clue if it forgot but I never saw it again. My friends showed up and yelled at me "Break is over there" pointing at the break. I pointed back "Big shark over there". They just kind of laughed at me. I came in and told them there was a big shark over there when I paddled out. They all just acted like I was making it up. Now I used to be this guy who was constantly pranking everyone but not so much at that age. So I can understand why they didn't believe me. LOL I watched them go out and looked for the shark. Nothing. I counted how many surfers there were one, two, three, four , five, and did that a few times and there were still five so I went out with them and kept inside of them so they could run interference for the shark if it came back. It never did.

The next time I went out there it was surfing. It's a fun wave. I have only surfed it in the head high to overhead size. It can get bigger but I guess if it's bigger elsewhere is bigger as well. I don't recall any specific waves from there, only that it was fun. I did run into a guy who had his arm bit off by a shark at that break while boogie boarding. He fixed my computer.

[jaffa1949]

Just a thought OMS, you are submitting so much of a historical set of surfing experiences and obscure beaches , from one who know ; maybe putting them all together and editing them in the long form may be the start of an OMS book the forum’s very own scribe producing his own journey !

Would be a good read!

[oldmansurfer]

Are you working on a book Jaffa?

[jaffa1949]

Oms No not at the moment, my wife has has two knee replacement and a hip replacement, as well as other stuff.
A lot of my time is house doctor in charge of rehabilitation…….. do a little river surfing and write some childrens books to be illustrated by my very talented Scottish niece.

I have quite a lot of self healing to do too after cancer and type 2 diabetes, However all is good

[oldmansurfer]

I remember another wave from Wailua the beach closest to my house. I was out at Horners with a small crowd and among them one of the guys I used to surf with by accident long ago. He was doing surf lessons there at Horners, probably intermediate to advanced lessons. I was working on my backside turns so even though the wave was tubing I wasn't trying to get tubed even though I hadn't had a good backside tube ride since I restarted surfing. The wave was a left slightly more than head high and I took off on a steep section then eyed up the lip and cranked a bottom turn to get me to the lip and I slammed a almost fins free turn off the lip. I could hear my friend say "Well that's why." I think it was directed to me in response to me saying I wasn't getting tubed backside. It was a great feeling turn, I really smacked it.

[oldmansurfer]

Further up along he coastline is Hanalei bay. There are numerous breaks within that bay On the nearside I surfed the breaks Impossibles and the Hanalei Bowl. I have also surfed a break before Impossibles which I never heard a name for. These days there is certainly many named breaks within that one reef area. There is a pier on that side of the bay and a huge sandy beach that stretches along the entire bay to the far side where it is a rocky coastline at the end of the bay with a break we called Waikokos. Between the Hanalei bowl and Waikoko there are numerous breaks along the beach 2 of which we called Pine trees because there is a group of pine trees on the shoreline in that area and Pavilions because there is a pavilion in that area. Also in the middle of the bay is a break we called Middle of the bay (so creative LOL)


Before I surfed my surfer friends used to tell me they wished I surfed so I could accompany them to Hanalei and they wouldn't have to surf alone there. These days it's likely that the only time you could surf there alone would be at night. Initially I bodysurfed and paipo boarded there. The first time paipo boarding was after I graduated from high school. My paipo boarding friend and I were sitting around trying to figure out where we were going to paipo board and my friend says "I hear Hanalei is up. Why don't we do try there?" We had been going out in increasingly bigger and bigger waves and by myself even bigger. I agreed and we headed out to Hanalei. I was driving and went to Pine trees because I had body boarded there before and knew it could be good and uncrowded. There were perfect looking waves. Nice even tubing waves that looked like it would be fun. We had no idea how big it was because neither of us was familiar with the break and how far outside it was from the shore. We both had wooden paipo boards which meant that we could fairly easily paddle out there. If there was whitewater coming we would just dive down to the bottom and the wave would pass over us then we would surface and paddle more out. Turns out it was huge with wave faces about 12 to 16 feet with occasional 20 foot faces. The 20 foot face waves were essentially cleanup waves they broke further outside of the main break and only occurred every 15 to 20 minutes but there were always 2 waves. Those set waves weren't very good but we would just go under them because that was our only choice. Neither of use felt comfortable in these huge steep tubing waves and we both kind of chickened out and decided to go catch a smaller 12 foot faced wave in to the shore. After going back home I regretted this and you may see my signature for this forum indicating that I decided that choosing to not surf that day was something I would regret for the rest of my life. I was young and not afraid of dying so the next day when my friend suggested we go back to Hanalei and go for it I agreed with great relief. Hopefully I wouldn't regret it for the rest of my life because I would redeem myself today for being a chicken yesterday.

So we go out and ride these huge waves. It was essentially exactly the same and I remember the first wave I caught thinking I was going to airdrop but instead turned at the top and had the best wave of my life at that point. Better waves were to come on this very day. I caught these huge waves and got so deeply tubed and made it out of maybe 4 out of 5 of them. I can recall one wave that I was so far back in the tube that I was thinking you could put an entire school bus in front of me in the tube. As I made it to the opening of the tube the wave collapsed on me but tossed me up in the air like 10 feet above the whitewater. As I came down I arranged my board to land on the whitewater so that I could maybe continue on and I landed and rode over the top of the whitewater onto the open face of the wave where I did a spinner just spinning around flat on the water. Wow! that was the best wave of my life at that point. On the waves where I made the wave often I would hit the flat water in the slower part of the wave and start skipping like a flat stone thrown across the water. I had encountered this situation before bodysurfing and had a solution which I tried . That was to stick my arm closest to the wave face down while in the air. This resulted in me spinning in a 270 degree arc when my hand and arm contacted the water. This would place me in position to take off again and if it looked good I would.

On that first day (second one actually) a bunch of surfers showed up and tried to surf with us. The set waves would come in and they would all get swept into the shore and it took them about 15 minutes to get back out again only to be swept in by the 10 foot set waves that came in. One of the surfers paddled over to me and said "I didn't know you could do that paipo boarding." I had heard this before from friends of mine and my response was the same "Do what?" and he responded the same way my friends did "You know. What you are doing." LOL I think it was getting awesomely tubed but for whatever reasons they couldn't say that. Then he said he wanted to trade boards with me. I didn't know how to surf on a surfboard at that point so that was a big "NO".

We went back there a few times as well as the other breaks. I went out paipo boarding at Impossibles but it was a far paddle and there were a bunch of surfer out (like 10 LOL). I didn't want to get in their way but managed to catch a few unridden waves. I wasn't too impressed with that break but probably if I go to know the surfers there they would have let me catch waves deeper in the lineup. Still it's about a half mile paddle when it's not so big and three quarters of a mile when it is big.

The next break over that we paipo boarded was Pavilions. I recall one day there were these beautiful A frame waves breaking there so we decided to go out there instead of pine trees It wasn't as great as pine trees but we had fun and came in and were talking on the beach about the waves we had when two gorgeous bikini clad women started walking over to us. I told my friend "We are going to score. Look at what is coming our way." Just kind of joking because we were the kind of guys women wanted. He said "Nope. They are going to ask us if we are George Greenough. " I responded "NOOOOOO." I knew he was right. For whatever reason when we paipo boarded bigger waves in Hanalei someone would come up to us and ask if we were George Greenough. It happened that first day and nearly every time, so much so we had a dialog that we did. One of us would start "I was him yesterday it's your turn to be him today. " the other would respond "NO I was him yesterday, you were him the day before yesterday and it's your turn to be him." Then we would both turn to them and say "NO. We aren't George Greenough." But it wasn't 2 absolutely beautiful women so when they asked if one of us was George Greenough, I responded " No but I can be him if you want." They just laughed and went back to where they came from. I think it was because there were a lot of transients at Hanalei. They just come for the surf and the locals everywhere else went to school with me so knew I wasn't George Greenough.

[oldmansurfer]

I meant to say I bodysurfed at pine trees before

[oldmansurfer]

I also meant to say we were not he kind of guys that women wanted, just a couple of derelicts

[oldmansurfer]

I went back paipo boarding at Pine trees on a smaller day by myself. I was the only one out and Pine trees is a right breaking wave on the days we surfed it but at the end of it is a left breaking wave. On this day the left looked better so I went over to that break and was catching some really great tubes on waves with about 8 to 10 foot faces. I caught one wave and got tubed as in completely covered by the wave and came out 5 times at the end the wave was about 3 to 4 foot face size and I kept going milking the wave to see if I could get another tube. There was a guy on the beach jumping up and down screaming "I got the whole thing! I got it all!!" I screamed back "What?" because I had no clue what he was talking about. He screamed back "I got your whole wave on my video camera" That was like the early days of video cameras and he had a compact video camera in his hand. I screamed back "That's great. Send me a copy." He screamed back "Okay" LOL I have no idea who that was and he probably thought I was George Greenough.

[oldmansurfer]

The first time I surfed Hanalei on a surfboard, I went with friends and we went out at Impossibles and the bowl. It wasn't much of a day maybe 6 to 8 foot faces and I can only recall how long the wall stands up at Impossibles. It has one heck of a long wall and if you don't keep up it will break in front of you. Those days making the wave were high on my list of things I wanted to do on a wave so I probably rode well in front of breaking part o f the waves till I got used to seeing that wall.

In those days I considered 10 people a big crowd and most of the time I surfed there it was close to or over that amount. One day in particular I can recall surfing by myself but there were 10 or 12 guys out and I knew most of them if not all of them. It was breaking about 3 to 4 foot at Impossibles (6 to 8 foot faces) and in-between Impossibles and the bowl section there was a 30 foot long slack section where the wave was about waist to shoulder high. I saw a guy speed pump between them and thought "Hey! I can do that." So I did and the bowl section was pretty nice as well growing in size as you passed the slack section. I had some brief tube rides but no clue as to the incredible tubes I was missing out on till one of the guys paddled over to me. He said one of the enforcers was watching and if you wanted to keep surfing you had to backdoor the bowl section. I had heard that word before backdoor but not sure what it meant so I asked him to explain it and he said it was entering the tube after or at the same time as the lip touching the bottom of the wave. I misinterpreted that as entering the tube after it is tubing already but the challenge was the best thing ever.

Pumping through to the bowl section was easy but then you had to time the break and stay in a position that allowed you to drop down at the same time as the lip and bottom turn to get into the wave before it was too late. This challenge led me to getting several of the most spectacular tubes I had surfing at that point in time. So you go to the bowl section and stall waiting for the wave to break. Stall too much and you are off the wave. Stall too little and you are moving along the wave before it breaks. You have to turn hard, a very powerful bottom turn or you won't make the wave. If you stalled enough there was no such thing as too powerful of a bottom turn. In order to do the bottom turn needed you had to drop down the face so you had to time your placement so you were at the top of the wave in time to drop down and make a powerful bottom turn at the same time as the lip is pitching over. If your timing is good and you don't generate enough speed you still get a spectacular tube ride but you won't make it out of the tube. By my current understanding of backdoor, I had a lot of backdoor waves but by my understanding at the time only one wave. But the ones that I didn't consider backdooring because the lip hadn't touched down before I got into the section were spectacularly beautiful waves. The bowl section increases in size and the tube was kind of oblong in cross section so not a steep wall but kind of sloping up and a huge dome of a tube over the top of it. The lip was thin and so there was a lot of light in the tube and it brought out the colors of the water and sky. Just awesome beauty. However not so on the wave I did enter after the lip touched down and made it . That wave was darker, less beauty and there were what looked like small 1 inch wide waterfall coming from the top of the tube down that I surfed through. On the end of the wave I could see it was going to collapse so I did a speed pump and the wave closed anyway but I pushed through the whitewater and came out. Pretty sure if they were watching that wave from the shore they thought I had wiped out until I popped out of the whitewater and cut out.

So it turns out this was thing the locals did to keep the crowd down. You had to do this or you would be forced to go in. There was cliff from which the enforcers were probably watching with binoculars and keeping track of what the various surfers were doing. I think also this helped them to plan their surf session by seeing what others were doing where.

[oldmansurfer]

When I graduated from high school I bought a VW camper van. It was a great surf car because I could easily keep a surfboard and wax and surf shorts in the van at all times. There was netting above the backseat/bed that neatly fit my boards. I would just change out in the back of the van and head to look for surf after work. I worked immediately across the street from Wailua the beach closest to my childhood home. I would try to surf for a couple hours or till dark.

This reminds me of a day surfing after work at Horners. It was so good I didn't want to go in. A bunch of us decided to try night surf it. It was fun but a little dangerous because it was so dark you couldn't see the other surfers. Me and one other guy went out to the peak and were catching waves before they broke. This was tricky because you couldn't see the waves till they were right there. Just enough time to whip around and catch the wave or duck dive under it. The waves had about 8 foot faces so not to hairy. I learned to listen to the wave. You could hear the sound being blocked out by the wave before it was visible. So a sudden quiet meant the wave was right there so be prepared. It was fun except the other majority of surfers chose to wait till the wave had broken to catch it. That way it was much more easily heard and much more visible than the peak we were taking off at. But we couldn't see them till we were right on top of them and they apparently couldn't see us. A couple of collisions and we decided to give up and go in even though the waves were awesome.

The story I wanted to tell you about was at Hanalei. I wanted to be the first one out there so I camped in my van along with my girlfriend and her daughter. When I paddled out it was dark and I couldn't see the ocean although you could hear the waves breaking. As I got out to the break I heard voices. There were 6 guys out. The waves were only waist to shoulder high. Talking to them one guy paddles out at 4:30 but the rest of them at 6 am nearly every day. I surfed with them till the morning crowd showed up a couple hours later.

[oldmansurfer]

I forgot to mention that on the day we did the night surf at Horners the waves were extremely nice friendly waves and I managed to do a couple of no paddle takeoffs that day and one more at night. It wasn't that I intended to do them. It was because the waves were friendly and I was in the right place at the right time. It was just the thing to do in that situation. There was no point in paddling, it would have messed it up.

[oldmansurfer]

There were two other times I went night surfing but they weren't as exciting because we did them just for the novelty of night surfing and not because the waves were so good we wanted to keep surfing for as long as we could. Once was by a hotel near Wailua beach where the lights shone out on the water so you could surf if you wanted to. This would have been much better if there were good waves and if I was more familiar with the break since it is a shallow reef break. The other time was at Kealia beach and we lined up our cars and shone the lights out into the surf. That would have been better if the waves were good enough to make it worth while. That day and night at Horners was a swell that was exceptional in the sense of steep waves but not powerful and slow moving, easy to ride very forgiving waves. It was quite a difference from the usual waves at Horners. That day it was easy to catch and ride . It was probably from a far away storm so had slowed down and mellowed out compared to the usual wind swell which is generated from winds nearby.

[oldmansurfer]

Some other thoughts about night surfing. Horners is really a good place because there are lights there on the shoreline on 2 sides and beyond that you can lineup really well where you are supposed to be. So one set of lights to lineup the peak and the other to tell you how far out you have to be. The other thing I recall is that when the wave comes the first thing I noticed was a change in the ambient nose level. I have thought perhaps that was due to echoes from the wave. Blind people can hear walls because the sound bounces off them but I think now it was a blocking of the sounds from the open ocean. With no light, no moon, visually you can see the wave because it blocks out the stars when it is right there so just enough time to spin and go. So I would hear a change in the sound and then scrutinize the horizon. Very dark night. the other places had lights so you could more easily see the waves. On that dark night at Horners the other guys were letting the wave break first so they could hear the wave breaking and see the whitewater. I think I had problems seeing the others when the one surfer with me out side apparently did not was most likely due to him being goofy foot surfer so front side which might have allowed for better visualization. However it's also possible he was just a better surfer and could turn more quickly to avoid the other surfers or maybe he had wasn't cranking some hard turns like I was..

[oldmansurfer]

This was like 50 years ago or so at a break on the north shore of Kauai. I hadn't been surfing there in a while but heard the swell was up. Paddling out I had no idea how many surfers were already out. You couldn't see how many very well from the shore in larger surf. When I got out there were about 60 surfers! Yeah not much for some of you but way too many for me. I would have a hard time competing for waves with that many. Thirty surfers is the most I went out there with and less than that at every other break I ever surfed at. I sat there and tried to figure out which side of the crowd to hang out on because I would have a better chance to ride some waves if I hung on one side or the other. On the inside (the Bowl) I could catch the leftovers or the waves where people wipe out since every single wave will have someone riding it. On the outside (Impossibles) I may be able to get the wave before the others have a chance. After catching a couple shorter and smaller leftover waves I decided to try outside and paddled over. It was real difficult there too since a few others had already pushed out into that area. I knew all the guys in that area. They were all guys I surfed with often so I begged them to let me catch a wave. One of them told me "NO! You have to beat us paddling for the waves." I tried but they were better paddlers than me.

Then I noticed waves breaking over about 75 yards from everyone which only broke about every 15 minutes or so but no one there. The waves looked fast but ridable and with no one there if I caught a wave every 15 minutes that would be one more wave every 15 minutes than what I was catching where I was. So I paddled over there. The first wave that came in after I got there I took off on and immediately got covered up by the wave. I barely stood up and found myself covered in whitewater. I was in the tube but completely covered in white water and figured I would be lunching it soon. But suddenly my head popped out of the whitewater. I could see down the wave and I was so far back in the tube I could not see where the wave was breaking. The wave made a gradual turn toward the shore and I could not see the breaking part of the wave as it was hidden by the bend in the wave which was 30 yards or so ahead. I was at least 30 yards deep in the tube which is the furthest back that I had ever been. Gradually my body and board emerged from the whitewater and I could see light at the end of the tube but no sky because the wave curved a bit. I came closer and closer to the breaking lip and started thinking I was going to make it and sure enough I emerged from the tube to see 5 guys paddling to catch the wave I was riding. I figured maybe they didn't see me and yelled "WHOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO" Partly to warn them and partly because I was so stoked I just had to yell at the top of my lungs.

The first 4 guys backed off when they saw me but the fifth guy dropped in on me. He made the wave break where he took off which obstructed my view and made me decide to straighten out. I got pounded by the wave and towed for a while till my leash came off my foot. Then I had to swim in to get my board. I was a little disappointed because I would have gotten tubed again if not for that one guy. Still it was the best tube ride of my life so hard to feel very bad about it. By the time I got my board and paddled back out one of the local guys had punched the guy who dropped in on me in the face and was telling him to get out of the water. I don't know if he dropped in on someone else or what but I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. I just paddled back to that spot again but never caught another incredible tube ride like that one again.

I suffered probably the worst pounding of my life trying to repeat that wave. I got caught inside twice after the fantastic wave. The first time I wiped out on a wave and larger waves came in. I got so pounded and knocked back to the inside then paddling back out and almost there I got caught again. There were 5 or 6 wave sets so 5 or 6 waves then a break. During the break I paddle like crazy to try to get out before the next set. Repeat this three times then finally I get out again. I remember during the second set of waves on the head I was so out of breath I thought I was going to drown. During the third set of waves on the head I knew I wasn't drowning, but thought this was worse than drowning and I am doing this voluntarily. After resting and catching a couple waves eventually I wiped out again and got caught inside again but not wanting to take another pounding especially without catching anything even close to the fantastic first wave I caught I went in. At Impossibles you can try to go to the side and get out between Impossibles and the Bowl or if you are too inside just go around the bowl and back out but from this place there was no easy solution for me.

[oldmansurfer]

This is about a new maneuver I came up with by trying to do another new maneuver I came up with on a frontside wave when I came up with it for riding backside waves. I told you about my backside under the lip turn and it worked so well I wondered if I could do something like it frontside. So One day I was out at Impossibles Hanalei and it was 8 to 10 foot faces and I figured this would be a good place to try it because the waves were slowly tubing. I figured I would first try it just at the point where the lip was pitching over and if it worked then try deeper. The first attempt resulted in me getting hit by the lip on my chest. The result was water sprayed everywhere and the wave pushed me back down the face to keep surfing. I didn't try it again on that first wave and thought okay maybe I need to turn harder to get my body vertical and upside down. I tried again and again smacked by the lip and did not get knocked off and kept surfing. One more attempt to get upside down and the same result. This seemed like a fun maneuver so I gave up trying to get vertical upside down. but kept smacking the lip with my chest. I recall seeing the other surfers over the top of the wave watching me as I made the water spray everywhere. I knew they were wondering what the heck was I doing and maybe thought the spray was coming from my turn LOL.

I did that turn a bunch of times. It was enjoyable smacking the wave like that. Then one wave I contacted the lip a little in front of where it was pitching over and it just held me and my board dropped away from under my feet. There I was hanging and my surfboard somewhere below me. I thought about Gerry Lopez falling onto his fin and getting a serious injury and hoped that didn't happen to me. The wave finally let go and I fell back first landing squarely on my board with my feet over the nose. The board was moving along the wave . I was surfing laying on my back on the board. I could see the wave was going to tube and the only thing I could think was I needed a higher line so I grabbed the outside rail and pulled it up to get me higher on the wall. I was deeply tubed with the lip coming down a couple feet in front of my board. There was nothing to do but keep going and I figure I was probably going to wipeout but until then enjoy the ride. Looking up at the top of the tube was an awesome experience. It's quite different and the colors were beautiful as the sky and clouds could barely be seen through the wave. Unexpectedly I came out of the tube and I could see the next section was going to tube too so I thought I would stand up and ride that one standing and that would make this even more awesome but I fell trying to stand.

I gathered my board and started paddling out and a nearby surfer came over to me and said "That's some fancy surfing. What do you call that?" I said "Falling down." He says "No before that. That thing on your back what do you call it? Oh yeah the coffin! That's it the coffin." I explained to him how I accidentally came about to do that coffin maneuver, I was more impressed by the lip smacking thing I was doing since I intended to do that. But he says " Yeah It doesn't matter, if it was me I wouldn't have made the tube and just wiped out." So I have been very lucky surfing. It's good to be lucky but it still doesn't make me a good surfer.