No Code

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

"The ocean is enticing and deadly, a cradle and a stranger, a place of lulling peace that, in the end, isn't our home." - Wanda Adams

Surfing isn't a spectator sport. The men and women on surfboards aren't interested in the opinions and approval of those content to sit above the beach and watch. Their concerns are narrow and focused: the size of the waves, their shape and speed, which wave to sit out and which to mount like an explorer trying to balance on the back of a running elephant. There is elegance and grace in their art, and danger, too. The very top of the wave is foam and air. They ride down a face of moving glass, speeding away from the curl of the wave that wants to slap them off their boards and bury them under tons of rolling water.

Hawaii's North Shore is home to some of the world's biggest and most dangerous waves and, therefore, attracts surfers from around the world. When red flags dot the beaches, warning swimmers to stay out of the water, Highway 83 is filled with people looking for waves to surf and others looking for places to watch the waves and surfers collide. From Hale'iwa, past Waimea and Turtle Beach, to Sunset Beach and beyond, cars line the roadside, fill the parking lots and cruise toward the action.

The most famous of the North Shore surfing spots is a section of beach known for the highest, most dangerous waves: the famed "Banzai Pipeline." The waves break across a coral reef in a way that makes the top of the wave curl into a pipe of water filled with air. The surfers try to "shoot the pipe": ride under the curl as it breaks and outrun the crashing wall behind them. Some make it all the way through; a lot don't. A few are able to ride the wave almost to its end, flip over the top without falling off and be ready to catch the next. Most of those who wipe out are dunked, tossed around and scraped up a little, but go back for more. There is always the danger, however, off being pounded into the sharp coral or knocked unconscious by one's own surfboard.

Drive around the North Shore and you're bound to see the bumper stickers proclaiming "Eddie Would Go." "Eddie" was Eddie Aikau, one of the best surfers ever known and one of the best lifeguards, too. "Aikau's prowess as a lifeguard became widely known," writes Burl Burlingame, "and a comforting presence on the beach. No one drowned on his watch, dozens were saved, at least the ones we know about, because Aikau rarely bothered to file reports on lifesaving.

"Mac Simpson, maritime historian said, 'Aikau was a legend on the North Shore, pulling people out of waves that no one else would dare to. That's where the saying came from -- Eddie would go, when no else would or could. Only Eddie dared.'" Eddie lost his life trying to save the lives of fellow crew members when their voyaging canoe Hokule'a capsized in heavy seas. His body was never found. His name became a North Shore legend that has spawned not only merchandise, but a book and a play and an attitude. "Eddie Would Go."

The ocean is surely enticing: primordial, fresh, raw energy filled with power and life and death. I go the water's edge to see, but also to smell the salt and moisture, to hear the sharp call of birds, the crystalline sounds of water washing over sand and to feel the bass vibrations of tons of ocean breaking onto the earth; crumbling and shattering into wavelets and foam and ions and oxygen-rich air. I can't surf. But I can marvel at the skill and watch in jealous awe as man and nature create a visual, harmonious poetry.
10:52:56 AM

Comments?()