You From The Islands? So You Surf?

Living in the intermountain west, it's hard to find a descent beach without driving out of state some 10 - 12 hours to the west coast.  Just like the commercial "Got milk?"  So goes the yearning for the sun, sand, and warm ocean waves, "Got beach?'  Maybe this is just a reaction to the recent Corona (sp) beer commercial where people are sitting on the beach chairs staring out into the ocean waves while sucking down their beer, or it could be a non-alchoholic beverage or whatever.  But it's the soft rumble of the ocean waves breaking in the distance that is enchanting.

Back to surfing.  Back in the day, surfing was not an a common sport, especially since where I lived, we didn't have sandy beaches with waves breaking between 4 - 6 feet in height.  Heck, the only logical place nearby where there were any waves of any consequence was Honoli River, where the river emptied in the ocean.  On the shore, there was only rocks, rounded ones, little pebble ones and bigger shotput size and larger.  If you wiped out, and your board was being carried to shore, definite bust, dings, etc.

The reason I describe the scene is to let you know, I never surfed as a youngster.  We didn't have surfboards or skateboards, or skimming boards, or even boogie boards.  That stuff didn't arrive till I was well on my way out of the islands.  Besides that, it was expensive to buy a surfboard, and those that had boards, walked around with knobby knees or kneecaps.  Yeah, checkem out!  I guess it's from the perpetual kneeling on the board.  I knew people who had boards but that group was small in number. 

People outside of the islands had this impression that anyone or everyone must be a surfer or they were poor swimmers.  Hey bruddah, yes I'm from the islands and yes, I can swim.  I learned how to swim from hanging out with my friends at Kanaka pond or Pake pond or Buesta pond.  These were fresh water river swimming holes where we kids would wild away our summer days. There was no swimming pool in our community, so we went to the rivers.  We learned to swim, dive, and do cannon balls or jack knive jumps.  You just had to know where was it safe enough to dive or jump in that was deep so you wouldn't get a "puka" head (hole in the head.)  Came close, but never got one.  That would ruin your day, and your parents would ground you from swimming there again.

The most popular times were in the summer, lots of sunshine, warm weather, and you could pick wild fruit near the swimming ponds, like banana, guava (both sweet and sour varieties) wyvee, mountain apple, rosie apple, lilikoi, poha, and avocados.  Yeah, we could have a blast swimming and enjoying all the fruits available there. 

The ocean beaches for the east side of the island were really rocky.  Contrast that with the sandy beaches on the west side.  So, growing up, our forms of entertainment or sport at the beach was swimming, diving, or throwing rotten guavas at each other.  If we were at the beach, we would fish, using a fishing pole and bait.  We would also scour the large rocks along the coast line to pick opihi and other shell delicasies.  In the rivers, we would catch river shrimp and river shell delicasies. 

Of course we would go diving with eye masks and a barbed spear to look for fish.  My parents would always lecture us about how dangerous spear fishing was.  So alot of the time, we relagated to just taking a fishing pole and bait.  If we caught anything, my parents would clean and prepare it for dinner. 

I lived in an area that provided excellent environment for learning skills of living off the land and taking care of the land.  It was bountiful in its offerings. 

So, going back to the question do I surf?  The answer is no, but I enjoy boogie boarding, snorkling, and making castles in the sand.  And yes, I am from the islands. 

On a side note, I have a son-inlaw who surfs and skateboards.  So do many other family relatives and so on.