He`e Nalu

Surfing. Capitalism has made surfing into big business. Corporations are selling a lifestyle. Part of that is telling you how you should dress, what music you should listen to, and what board you should ride. It's that last that always amazes me; not that some corporation would make a business of it, but that any surfer would fall for it.

'He`e Nalu' translates to 'Wave Sliding'. There's no mention of equipment. It's all about riding the wave. A waterman in Hawai`i is comfortable on a variety of equipment, choosing the board, if any, to fit the prevailing conditions or mood.

Put some surfers together in a house that has various water toys in the backyard and eventually they'll have ridden all of them. We've already been out on the surfboards and the boogie boards. Yesterday Bruce and Dan christened the two-person kayak. We watched them paddle out to Tonggs from the wall. They had a pretty good rhythm and were outside in pretty short order. They caught a couple of nice waves and Sue captured a part of one on video from shore.

This morning they decided to do it again, paddling out into slightly larger conditions on a slightly lower tide. Amazing what a difference those changes can make. They caught one wave and were paddling back out when a large set started to roll through. They cleared the first two, barely, and then, in what can only be described as a re-enactment of the Andrea Gail's final scene in The Perfect Storm, did an amazing back flip in 8 feet of whitewater. We watched from shore as the kayak, upside down and presumably unoccupied, caught three waves in a row. Eventually they managed to swim to their watercraft, right it, and paddle in. There were some cuts and scrapes and a broken paddle (we'll replace it, Amelia), but they were still smiling.

Maybe if we get a high surf advisory we'll finally get to take those inner tubes out. ;-)