Big Sunday
Guest Author: Ross Jones
A couple of days ago a very laid back local said that the surf was building and by Sunday would be overhead. Having experienced Waimea Bay as a tranquil snorkelers’ paradise it was hard to fathom that in such a short space of time it could turn into behemoth waves too big for many of the locals to surf. There is a noticeable buzz in the air now that the surf is up. The Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa was full of stories of close calls on the reef and getting caught inside. On the way we saw fire rescue and surf rescue sirens blazing and they were going all day pulling people out of the treacherous conditions.
We awoke to the pounding of massive surf against the reef about 100m off our back door (and actually breaking into the backyard). A man has to know his limitations and my limitations in the surf were about 10 feet less than what was in front of me. As many men before me have done when faced with such raw energy, I ran. Not out of fear, but because it was too big for me to go out in and it was the first overcast day we have had that made for good jogging conditions. So I set out before the others woke up. I ran the few kms along the coast to Waimea and was astounded by the size of the legendary waves, but also the size of the shore break. There were a few people out, but the thing that amazed me was the plethora of hugely skilled skim-boarders heading straight for the shore-break before peeling off a very solid cut-back and hooking into what looked like a 5-foot barrel breaking onto dry sand. This was just an illusion because everyone knows that skim-boarders need at least 1cm of water to ply their trade, and at the Waimea shore-break, 1cm is about all they had – AMAZING.
I pressed on for the rest of my run looking forward to the return trip past Waimea and thinking of what a buzz the rest of the kids (and adults) would get from seeing the awesomeness of God’s creation. When I crawled through the door, most were awake but to my gasps of disbelief (and fatigue) plans were afoot to go to a shopping mall for the day. That’s right, travel half way across the Pacific to the famous big wave surfing mecca and when the waves arrive they choose to go to the mall. Not any mall either. The retail therapy site is on the other side of the island. Shocked by this almost unholy turn of events I make a stand and refused to partake in the promotion of further capitalist materialism. My passionate oration sees some comrades come out in support, while the materialist bourgeoisie chose shopping over substance. I’m not sure if Adam, Toby, Chelsea, Georgia and Maisy were just shopped-out or whether they bought into my argument. I think the former because after Adam had generously volunteered to drive the capitalists to the mall, the others were more interested in playing in the sand on our private beach than exploring the different breaks on the North Shore.
Sometimes might is right, so I ordered the kids into the car and we headed off to find some big waves. It didn’t take long for the kids to change their longing for sandcastles. We rounded the bend about 1km up the road from our house to open up the view over the now angry, churning, heaving Waimea Bay. The kids were amazed. We headed around the bend past the previously tranquil Shark Cove which was now the home to massive walls of water. We headed further east to Sunset Beach and pulled in on the western end. It was amazing. One guy was out and while I don’t know who he was, I will respect him for the rest of my life. I was speaking with one of the lifeguards about the different breaks and asked him how big he would say the waves were. He said that he always referred to the face of the wave rather than the back like we do in Australia. He estimated the face was 20-22 feet. He gave me a quick geography lesson of Sunset Beach and he told me how far along the beach the kids and I had to go to get to Pipeline. With that knowledge now in hand we set off for the legendary break. Our trek was interspersed with locals stopping me and very seriously warning me to keep an eye on the kids as the conditions were really dangerous.
As we watched the 5 or 6 people out at Pipeline, I asked the kids what they thought of the waves. Toby (12), Chelsea (12) and Georgia (9) were all pretty pumped, saying the surf was amazing. Toby was probably the most animated. Maisy seemed unfazed, so I pushed the questioning a bit more with her. She responded with, “Yeah Dad, the surf’s OK. I’ve seen this sort of stuff before. It doesn’t really interest me.” The only solace I could take was that if the surf didn’t interest her, maybe she had chosen to stay with me rather than go shopping because she wanted to hang out with her Dad. Well that’s my story anyway.
After a quick afternoon tea, we returned to the house where poor Adam had returned from an horrific 1.5hr trip back from dropping the bourgeoisie off to the mall due to road works. It was now time to go and pick them up from their day of shopping. Adam offered to go back and get them but that would have been too much for one man to bear so I volunteered. Adam suggested I go the east coast road to avoid the road works. He was very understated about this route, but as I soon discovered, it was absolutely spectacular. Almost vertical cliffs rising some 3,000 feet from sea level with the road perched at the cliff base between the ocean and the vertical ascent. The vista all along the coast was a mix of scenes from Avatar and Jurassic Park. We will be going that way again simply for photo opportunities. One of the great things about our GPS is that it gives tourist information as you drive. One of the things that it taught me was that the “hang loose” hand signal with the thumb and pinky extended while the middle three fingers are folded down was started on the east coast of Oahu by a popular local who worked in the local sugarmill. Unfortunately, he was more popular than competent and severed his 3 middle fingers in a work accident. From then on, when he waved to people he could only produce what looks like the current “hang loose” action. It was picked up by others and spread across the island and now has spread across the world.
I eventually found the bourgeoisie at the mall and took them back along the coast road to try to give them a wider cultural experience than Sears. While they were amazed, the sunset beat us to most of the memorable sites, necessitating a follow-up visit. They did say that they had been on a mission to experience Cinnabons, a delicacy recommended by Dave Everingham. As the name would suggest, this is not a uniquely Hawaiian treat. The overall sentiment was that it was worth the quest. Cinnabons are “Da Bomb”!! The bargain hunters were suitably satisfied with loads of bargains to speak of, including t-shirts for $2.50 amongst other “must-haves”. Ebony and Keryn were able to lend a hand to an Australian man struggling in translation when the shop assistant, not realising he was speaking English, had resorted to hand actions. Keryn insists she will need a follow up trip to the mall later in the week to bag some more bargains. Arriving home at a bit after 7pm, we were pleasantly surprised to find that Adam had prepared a Masterchef worthy Mexican feast. We viewed the bargains found by the bourgeoisie and set up for another round of Emperor/Scum as I sat down to type this up, while listening to the crash of invisible behemoths breaking on the reef outside our place.
While some of the above is written in jest, I seriously feel unbelievably privileged and humbled to have seen some of the natural wonders that I witnessed today. It was awesome, in the true sense of the word.
