Waikiki. The primordial soup of modern surfing. Photo: AussieActive//Unsplash
My friends and I are seasoned layover day trippers. Whether it’s eight hours in London, or a day in the islands, we tend to schedule flights so that we can break up the long travel schedule, and enjoy a day somewhere along the way.
A few months ago on a work trip to the Pacific island chain we had a day layover in Waikiki. What ensued was an unlikely, epic day that saw us nearly miss the connecting flight.
The four of us arrived in Oahu around five in the morning and took an Uber to Ala Moana. A buddy of ours from California knew a charter fisherman that would take us out for a few hours to fish. As the sun rose and cleared the fog from the sky, rainbows danced and we marveled in the magic of nature that is Hawaii.
My favorite part of fishing with a local charter is the precise technique (and lures) they use to target a given fish at a given depth. Our guide Kaipo had a jigging formula: once on bottom reel 10 times as fast as you can, then three slow reels with a pull/jiggle motion, and repeat about 5-7 times. If nothing bites by then, you just rip ‘er up to surface to try again.
My buddy got a big bite that put up a hell of a fight. The fish tired our inexperienced forearms out as we all took turns on the reel. Eventually Kaipo — excited about the fish — hopped on the rod and finished the job. Out of the depths appeared an 80-pound giant trevally. Since we couldn’t keep the fish we gave it to our charter, shared a few beers, and continued on with the day.
With the sun high in the sky, we laid our eyes on the surf, which was clean and fun sized. In the midst of the hotels of Waikiki is Quality Surfboards Hawaii, the most excellent surf shop for travelers.
The shop is run by young surfers, who will gladly pull up Surfline and shoot the breeze about which part of the South Shore is looking good. And after verifying you’re not going to destroy their boards, they open up their quiver. The shop has everything from a Matt Album 5’3″ twinnie, to my personal favorite Lost Not Found 6′ 9 ” single fin.
With an entire quiver of local and brand-name boards of every size and shape necessary, all four of us found a board we liked and trotted off to Rockpiles.
Surfing in Hawaii is always a treat, but it’s even better when your buddy is making his maiden voyage on a surfboard. He smiled ear to ear as we embarked on the long paddle out of the inlet, around the rock wall, and out to the lineup. We pushed him into his first wave and he popped up to his feet, and rode her for a good 20 seconds. He was so stoked that it was hard to get him out of the water. We surfed for hours until our arms were tired, paddled in, returned the boards, and went to a bar for a beer.
At this point in our journey, the sun was beginning its fall into the horizon, and a few of the guys started talking about just chilling at the bar before heading back to the airport. One friend suggested we head to a cliff jumping spot called the Spitting Cave. We had enough time, but we’d be cutting it close. So we got in the Uber and pushed on.
When we took the hike down the cliff towards the Spitting Cave, we realized that the wind had picked up dramatically, along with the sea state. It looked sketchy, and the cave was actually spitting like a barrel. But we’d come too far to back out. One by one we jumped off the cliff and into the ocean, swam to the rocks, and scrambled back up them. We looked at the time, and booked it back to the airport.
Thankfully, traffic was on our side and we made it to our gate just as the last group started boarding. It was a close call, but would anyone really be mad about getting stuck in Waikiki?
Editor’s Note: You can find more essays covering the surfing life from Nicklas Balboa, here.
