Your Best,Wave, Surf, Story do tell us sharing!

[pandarturo]

Yeah I took off on a 6 footer, probably the scariest drop I've ever taken. I'm six foot but when I looked up and looked at the lip just curling it was surreal. But I was screaming down that wave abd all I could hope was for it to not close out. But it did lol and I got worked but the drop was worth it lol

[oldmansurfer]

I get a thrill from 6 foot waves now too. Did you get tubed before the pounding?

[pandarturo]

Nope looked like it was going to throw them the lip just smacked me in the ear lol. No bueno.

[oldmansurfer]

Too bad...the pounding is less if you wipe out in the tube (usually.)

[pandarturo]

Yeah if you can manage to pop out the back lol

[oldmansurfer]

Actually when you are in the tube and wipe out it keeps the full force of the lip from hitting you. I just kick my board forward and stay flat to the bottom. Of course if you can cut out through the back that would be good too. but in your case it was a direct hit so that is the worst it will usually be barring interaction with the bottom or the board.

[carl_09]

Nice post !

[pandarturo]

Yeah

[oldmansurfer]

I am sure you all know some characters from surfing. I used to know this guy who was so used to doing nothing about his injuries because he would catch heck from his parents if they found out. He had broken his foot and let it heal well sort of heal since it didn't really heal. In high school he would wiggle his toes and this made a crunching sound which made the teacher wander around the class room wondering where the sound was coming from. Everyone who knew him tried to keep from cracking up because they knew it was him. Anyway one day I was at the beach just in from a surf session and he comes up to me smoking a cigarette and he says "I think I broke my ear drum. Got hit by my board on the side of my head. I feel dizzy." Then he takes a drag on his cigarette holds his nose and smoke comes out of his ear. I answer "Yeah I am sure you broke you ear drum." He take another drag on his cigarette and smoke comes out his ear again and asks "How can you be so sure?" I was pretty sure he was just kidding me about not knowing his eardrum was ruptured. I told him "I think you need to go see a doctor unless you want to go deaf." He answers "What?" and holds his hand cupped to his ear as if he is having trouble hearing. Crazy guy.

[oldmansurfer]

So I was totally into surfing but decided I needed to got to college so I left my board behind because I was staying in a dorm and didn't know if there was a place to keep boards or how to transport it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I went hiking up a trail along the edge of the valley that University of Hawaii was in. One day I was way up and looked out over the ocean and there were sets coming in at Waikiki. I ran down the mountain and hopped on the bus and went to Waikiki. It was breaking with about 10 to 12 foot faces and no one was out. I went to one of the board rental places and asked how much it was to rent a board and the beachboy said "We're closed. The waves are too big." I answered "But look how perfect it is." He asked me " Are you a surfer?" I said "Yeah" He said "Ok then just take a board and bring it back when you are done." The only boards they had were these huge heavy longboards and I had only surfed a long board on just a couple of small waves before. Other than that it was strictly shortboards for me. I paddled out and took off and dropped down tried to turn and fell over sideways. Had to swim in and get the board and paddle back out take off again and again fall down sideways. As I swam in to get the board, the beachboy came up to me and said "You never surfed a long board before." I answered "I guess it shows." (Big grin) He said "If you want to turn the long board you need to use your ankles first to angle the board then once it grabs you lean into it" I thanked him and went back out. That worked a lot better and soon enough I was riding the waves and even making cutbacks and stuff. Had a blast but wished I had my own board. I asked around the dorm and everyone said just bring the board and keep it in your dorm room. No one will care. So my next trip home I brought my board back with me although I never saw Waikiki like that again.

[oldmansurfer]

I used to surf a lot as you all can tell but quit due to my job for 11 or so years. Then I missed it so much I made up my mind to start again. For about 3 to 4 months I just did shoulder exercises and then I looked in the paper for a used board. I found a woman selling 2 boards a 7' fun board kind of a short long board and a 9'6" big wave gun. I almost bought them both but then thought maybe I would just give it a try with just the gun and see what happens. It didn't take long for me to catch a wave but boy it wasn't anywhere as easy as I thought it would be. I told lots of people that I was going to start surfing and one of them offered me his 7' board to try and I thought perfect till I took it out. I tried to lay on it and fell off repeatedly. It was so much less stable than the gun. I even had trouble just sitting on it and catching a wave forget it. I imagine now with my current conditioning I would do better but back then it was frustrating because I knew I would be riding lots of waves with the longer board. Eventually I gave up and went back to the gun. It was good in all sizes of waves but then I couldn't really turn it much anyway.

Then I ran into the wife of the shaper I used to have and mentioned that I was looking for a board. She said her husband wasn't shaping anymore due to health problems but she knew the perfect board for me. It was a used longboard her husband designed. So I said sounds good. I mean every single board he made for me was great. So I bought this 9'6" longboard and it was even easier to get into waves with than the gun but I had to be more careful with keeping it from not pearling. I surfed that board for couple years and then realized I was getting about to the stage where I needed a better board. I am not a long boarder so trying to throw this long board around has been a chore that I was mastering however I wanted a board easier to turn and even though it was heavier and thus more difficult to turn it also made squirrely tail sliding turns something I only now am getting used to but I bought bigger fins to try to get it to hold better (and it did.) I heard through guys who knew my shaper friend that he would likely shape me a board if I asked him. But I was kind of not wanting to bother him since he wasn't in the best health. He ended up dying before I ever asked him to make me a new board.

Through work I met a guy who made surfboards and just by accident my neighbor offered to let me use his fish made by the same guy. I liked it a lot but it was stable in the foam. I met the shaper again and told him I wanted a board and he made me an 8 foot fun gun kind of a short board design but 8 feet long and thick for extra floatation. I called it my oldmanoverweightoutofshape board. I just recently started to learn what this board can do. I recently tried to do a sharp turn off the top of a small wave (head high) and pushed my rear foot and it did this tail sliding radical turn but I lost my balance and in regaining balance I continued in the turn till the board was point back up the wave. I then turned it back down as the lip crashed over me. I ended up not falling down and moving forward on the wave again and made some more turns on the same wave. I bet that turn looked awesome from the shore and it felt really good although I was off balance a bit. (luck is better than skill) I also tried a couple times on bigger waves to do a hard cutback and ended up with the board popping out of the water and skittering around the turn while my butt sat in the water in the middle of the radius of the turn. I just kept going around till the board was underneath me and I could stand back up. I bet that one looked good too except I didn't try to do that. (Lucky again) I took off on another wave on the left side of the peak wanting to go right and the peak kind of crumbled leaving me a 10 yard section of foam and I just turned on it like I would have normally and accidentally pushed the tail up over the top. Don't know how I did that but it felt good so I did it again and again and then some other turns and tried to do a floater on the end but stuck the nose in the water (pearled). I bet people watching thought "that old man knows how to surf" but it was all by accident.

Now I am waiting for some bigger swells to come in so I can try hard cutbacks again. I can do a hard bottom turn so I figure I should be able to figure out how to do the cutback but need to get some bigger waves to try to figure it out. I also haven't really gotten a stand up tube ride yet and need some bigger waves for that too. I'll try to think of some other stories for you all

[oldmansurfer]

Oh yeah I also did an air drop on takeoff and stuck the landing. It was on a wave that was well overhead and I stood up when it felt like I was on the wave but the bottom dropped out and the wave became concave below me and I fell with the board and landed still on the board. As I fell I kind of bent my knees and before I hit the water I extended them and it worked (just luck too)

[oldmansurfer]

So when I quit surfing I found ways to go to the beach and one of them was a Scupper Ocean kayak. I didn't own a surfboard at this time having given it to my nephew after it took some hurricane damage and I felt sorry for it getting dinged (in the hurricane) sitting in a shed without getting wet. The Kayak was 14 feet long hollow cold rolled polyurethane (tough stuff) self bailing and sealed so it was not going to fill up with water and sink (very quickly). Now I didn't buy it to ride waves but you know once a surfer it's not a question I was going to ride waves with it some day. Really though I bought it for fishing. I would take a 5 foot pole and small spinning reel with 10 pound test and tie it to the grommet that was between my legs when I paddles. This way if I wiped out the reel would not be lost. It also turned out to be good in that I paddled with the pole resting on my shoulder trolling along and when fish hit the lure I could feel it immediately on my shoulder, then paddle faster or stop and work the lure in or fight the fish if it was on. I found that fish often bit when I rode waves in over reef but mostly I trolled along the outside of the break.

One day the surf was too big for my normal beach so I went to look for another place and checked out where the small boats launch a couple miles from that beach. There was an outer fringing reef and a channel in the reef out of there so it created a small safe area inside that looked safe to fish in. SO out I go and I catch a couple fish and then I catch this fish called a Lai(leatherback) and it was jumping out of the water and fighting like a little marlin so I was having a blast fighting it and not noticing where I was till it ran around to the front of my kayak and I saw a huge wave easily as tall as my kayak getting ready to break. I had somehow drifting into the lineup and quickly dropped the fishing pole (it was tied on) and paddled like crazy for the wave. As I go up the face I see the lip is pitching out and figure I am going to get pounded but the kayak punched through the back of the wave and I came up still on my kayak as the water drained off me. I was so surprised, I sat there stunned a little just amazed I was still sitting on the kayak then I thought is there another wave? No there wasn't Is my fish on? No it wasn't Anyway I decide that is enough excitement for the day so I catch a wave in. This was probably head high where I caught it and it slowly got smaller. I was able to ride this wave for a couple hundred yards and right along the break in about the position a surfer would due to it was breaking along the edge of a channel that was dredged in the reef to launch boats. As I got inside it got shallower and shallower and I could see dry reef coming up but there was not much I could do and ended up running the kayak nose first into the reef. I was launched over the dry reef an into and area with a little more water. Kayak made of polyurethane was totally unharmed (maybe a scratch or two).

[oldmansurfer]

I developed some skills riding waves with my kayak although it was entirely related to trolling (fishing) toward shore. I learned to angle my board slightly and if the wave was right I could continue on for a good deal of time but eventually my kayak would end up turning sideways and being pushed shoreward sideways by the wave. I learned to tilt the kayak on it's side and reach way out with my paddle and use it as a stabilizer. Since I was going sideways if I reach out and try to dig the paddle in water pushed back up on my paddle making it a stable configuration. I could do that till the wave let up and then push up with the paddle to get upright and paddle back out. If the waves were big then I had to hold my breath because tilted sideways my head would be in the whitewater but it was easy enough to do since it took little energy to hold that configuration. I just hoped I didn't get a big strike (catch a fish) during that time and I never did for some reason.

One day I went out at my usual spot which at the time involved timing the break to get into in a channel between two reefs. I did this often but this day the waves were particularly big. I did my usual cruise outside of the break and got a huge strike. The fish drained my reel to the knot and towed me around quite a bit. It did that three times and then I managed to get it close enough to see it and I saw it was an ulua (giant trevally), maybe about 25 or 30 pounds and within about 10 feet of my kayak. Just behind it was a huge wave. I was like "OH NO! Not again!" I loosened the drag before I dropped the pole and paddled like crazy for this wave that was bigger than my kayak. Once again as I reached the wave the lip threw out over the top of me and kayak and I punched through the back of the wave. As the water fell off me I looked , was there another wave? No. Was the fish still on? Yes! But not for long, it came loose after a couple pulls. My treble hook had bent straight so I went back to the shore and got a double hook which was stronger and paddled like crazy trying to get another strike (which I never did)

On another day I went out at a different area by the river mouth and it was a huge day but at the river mouth it was a matter of making through shorebreak that was about 6 foot faces. I got pounded a bit going out but made it out. Out side at the break called blackrock it was breaking with about 12 to 18 foot faces and huge walls that stood up just begging the surfer in me to ride them. They were like a blank canvas. I could just see the off the lips, cutbacks and tube rides. Such beautiful waves and not one surfer or anyone there except me. I eventually realized I had to ride a wave in since I would get pounded more trying to exit without riding one. I hoped that my turning sideways and digging the paddle in method would work with these waves. I reeled in my line and took the lure off and stored it all in the hold of my kayak since I didn't want any hindrance. I caught a wave and rode it for quite a long distance and was so happy because I had visions of wiping out right on the drop. The wave would gain on me and then I gained on it and back and forth till finally I got turned sideways. I dug my paddle in and hoped I could hold my breath long enough but it wasn't really hard to do. On the beach I made up my mind I was going to go back surfing.

[oldmansurfer]

My kayak was set up with a bungee cord tied to my kayak in the back and around my paddle so If I could hang on to the paddle I would get my kayak back and if I couldn't I just needed to find the kayak and the paddle would be with it (sort of like a surf leash.)

[oldmansurfer]

Ok so my story for the day
The first time I body boarded was when I was a kid at Wailua beach. We all had sand slide boards and some of my friends would use them as a body board so I tried it. Then I tried a commercially produced wooden paipo board and finally I tried a board made by my friend Jeff. It was based on a parabolic design tapering from the front to the back but rapidly tapering at the front and less so at the back. The rails were turned up leaving the top edge rather sharp which resulted in the edge of the board acting like a fin and holding the water in turns. It was so much better than other boards that I made one myself. Over the years I made several with a similar basic design with added bottom contouring and glass reinforcement and a rope handle. Using that board was a whole other step up from bodysrufing.



I started at Wailua beach and since I was already used to fairly large waves bodysurfing I went right to riding progressively larger and larger waves. I remember one day at Wailua beach I was paipo boarding at Honers and riding fairly large waves and my surfer friend Mark paddled over to me and said "I didn't know you could do that with a paipo board." I said "Do what?" He said " you know like what you are doing." I thought that was cool since he was one of the better surfers.



After I graduated from high school I was sitting around at home with a friend of mine Mike who also paipo boarded. He said "what are we going to do today?" I said " I don't know. I heard the surf is up on the North shore. Maybe we could go out there?" He said "It's huge over there. we are going to die." I said "yeah maybe we better not go." The next day we were sitting around and I said "So what are we going to do today?" Mike said " I hear the surf is still up on the North shore." I said "We may die." Mike said " yeah we might or we might not. What else are we going to do?" So I agreed and we headed out to Hanalei. I drove to Pine Trees a break that I had body surfed fairly large before. The waves looked great and no one was out. It was hard to tell how big they were from the shore but they were definitely big. We paddled out and it was rough but because we had paipo boards we could go under the waves and avoid a pounding. We got out and it was so huge we were scared. We stayed out a while trying to work up the guts to catch a wave. Finally we

agreed to wait for some of the smaller waves and go in.



The next day we were sitting around and I say "So what are we going to do today?" Mike says " I hear it's still up on the north shore. I don't know about you but I want to just go for it. If I die then I die. I don't have anything else that I want to do." I thought about it and decided I would hate to think I did not try to ride those beautiful waves so back to Pine Trees we went. It was even a little larger but we were determined so we went out. The first wave I caught had about a 15 foot face. I turned at the top and got so tubed and made it out on the end of the wave. It seems that paipo boards allow you to ride very high on the wave right where the power of the wave is and you end up going very fast. There is a power pocket in most tubing waves where the waves picks you up and throws you along the face. It's usually fairly high up and with a paipo board it is always reachable. It's an odd sensation and it happens surfing too when you are tubed and up higher on the wave and you start going sideways really fast but the nose of your board is pointing down the wave. I's such an odd sensation, I know if any of you ride a lot of tubes you know it too. We stayed out there and I got one incredible tube after another. I got so far back in the tube and made it out on these huge tubes. My friend however started letting me catch all the waves and I asked him why and he said he was getting pounded on each wave and he needed to rest. He had been dropping down to the bottom of the wave.

When you get going fast on a wave paipo boarding and the drop into the flats at the bottom of a big wave you will skip like a stone. The bigger the wave the higher the skip and these waves it was about 4 to 5 feet up off the water. When I did that I would either stick one hand down (as I used to do when I bodysurfed and had the same problem) and when that hand caught the water my body would rotate around the arm and then I would paddle and take off again... kind of a stall maneuver. Or if it was going to close out then I would dive with the paipo board into the water and get under the wave and swim like heck to try to keep from getting sucked back over the falls.



I started wearing a wet suit to protect me from being bashed around with the wood board (so did Mike). We started going out at Pokamoi and Waikoko and went around looking for places to body board bigger waves. When ever we went out at Hanalei almost invariably someone would come up to us and ask us if one of us was George Greenough. George Greenough was a guy who body boarded and knee boarded big waves and did other crazy things. I hear he invented the modern board fin. A cool guy. We used to have a dialog that went something like :

Stranger: "Are one of you George Greenough?"

Me "Not today but my friend here was him yesterday"

Mike "No you were him yesterday"

Me "Naw. I was him before that. You were him yesterday."

Mike "Whatever. I'm not him today. How about you?"

Me "Nope . I'm not him either."

Both of us "Sorry but we aren't him."

Once we were standing on the beach winding down from a great session of paipo boarding by the break near the Hanalei pavilion, cleaning the sand off our gear and getting ready to head to the car, talking about the waves we caught and the poundings we had. Mike says "Check it out man there are a couple babes coming our way." I look back toward the shore and there were 2 beautiful bikini clad young sexy women walking our way. I looked around and there was no one else anywhere near us so I say "They are coming to flirt with us." Mike thinks a bit then says "Naw. They are just going to ask if we are George Greenough." So they come up and sure enough they ask "Is one of you George Greenough?" We both kind of sigh and say "No." So then we try to flirt a bit with them but they respond "We just wanted to know if one of you was George Greenough." As they walked off Mike yells out to them "I can pretend to be him." I yell "Me too". They just laughed and kept on walking.



Later on I started regular surfing. One day I was out at Kealia beach and was talking to a girl who was boogie boarding. Boogie boards had just come out and were getting popular. She heard that I used to paipo board and asked me if I knew the guys who used to go paipo boarding at Hanalei on big days. I said " Yeah I sure do. Those two guys were me and my friend Mike." She immediately put me down, basically accusing me of lying to her. What could I do? No time machine to show her. I should have asked if she was one of the girls who asked if we were George Greenough. LOL

[jwoz]

Lol you should have told her If you dont believe me go ask the legendary George Greenough about me and Mike.

[oldmansurfer]

I was out paipo boarding at Hanalei one day and caught about a 4 foot wave (8 foot face) where I got tubed 5 times on the same wave and milking the inside to see if it would wall up and allow a 6th time and some guy on the shore jumps up and down yelling "I got it. I got it." I yell back "What?" He yells to me "I got the whole thing. I got the whole wave on my camera." An he held up what was probably an early video camera. I yell back "Send me a copy." He yells back "OK". I suppose George Greenough got a copy of me riding that wave LOL cause I didn't know who the guy was and pretty sure he didn't know me and I never got my copy ....

[jwoz]

George strikes again.

[oldmansurfer]

LOL yeah George was a well known guy back then. On the east side everyone knew me but on the north shore there was an influx of new people, surfers/hippies, and most of them didn't know me. I went to school with the local surfers so they knew me but these newly transplanted people thought I might be George