The North Shore, much more and much less than you’ve heard. Photo:Alex Marks.
I’ve been on the North Shore for three weeks. In that time, I’ve cut my feet five times and stepped on one urchin. I’ve caught a handful of waves at Rocky Point, some terrifying ones at Backyards, a life-changer at Velzyland, a few scraps at Pipe and one set wave at Sunset. I’ve hobbled over a lot of sharp reefs, eaten most of the pastries at Ted’s Bakery, gotten drunk at Turtle Bay, been caught in the rip at Jocko’s and bought gallons of beer at Foodland. Here are a few things I’ve learned.
The North Shore is much more and much less than what the surf mags tell you.
The waves themselves are scarier than you can ever imagine unless you happen to live on some other remote, Pacific archipelago. Even after some heavy sessions in Australia, Hawaiian waves have absolutely terrified me every time I’ve paddled out. For every picture of a perfect barrel in the media, there is a reef of rock and coral menacing the surfer just below the water line. The people, on the other hand, are much friendlier, much more simpatico, than any surfers I have encountered anywhere. If you go as a simple wave rider (instead of as someone trying to mediatize the scene), there aren’t any other people that I would rather share the the lineup with than Hawaiians, be they Polynesian, Asian or lily-White. The concept of aloha turned into a cliché around the first time someone thought to put it on a t-shirt and sell it to a tourist from the mainland, but something of it lives on, especially in the waves.
Race is inescapable.
Hawaii is a fascinating mélange of people whose pasts are often intimately connected to the colonial history of this little island. If there is one state in America that can truly claim to be a melting pot instead of a mixed salad, it is Hawaii. I would go so far as to say that it is a perfect case study in exactly why the quotidian way of talking about race is stupid and obsolete. Perhaps I’ve had good experiences in the water because I’m of mixed Asian descent and look like I could have grown up here. I have been told that this is the case, but plenty of my White friends have also had similarly good experiences. In a sport started by Polynesians, then almost exterminated by White people, then revived by White people for marketing purposes, and finally, described as if it’s still a sport run by Polynesian people, the race question is inevitable. The schizophrenia of our sport’s personality is never more apparent than here in its birthplace, where the brown men are idolized and feared in equal measure.
Women.
During my last Sunset session, I was sitting at the west peak feeling radiantly macho. I was surrounded by grizzled men who sleep in their vans parked along the beach and have skin that can only be described as looking “cured.” They ride big boards, and I too was on a big board. Every time a set came through, I paddled with my heart in my throat over the biggest waves and tried to pick off the scraps that wouldn’t thrash me too badly if I fell. Then two young women appeared to my left. They couldn’t have been older than 18. They had no sponsor stickers and their boards were far too small. They surfed like they were born of Sunset. It killed my moment of macho relish, but it exemplified something that I had been noticing for days: The women here are incredible surfers. It’s one thing to watch Stephanie Gilmore or Carissa Moore destroy a wave on film, but it’s a very different thing to be schooled by women while you surf. Gilmore, Conlogue, Dupont, and a bunch of women you have never heard of have made mincemeat of every wave on the shore for the three weeks I’ve been here; I know because I’ve been watching from the shoulder entire time. For as long as the surf industry is dominated by the bros, these ladies won’t get their full dues, but in fifty years or one hundred years when people finally come around, remember that it was written here first: women surf just as well as men – different maybe, but with a style, verve and grace that the swinging dicks will never touch.
Reef.
I hate reef walking. In fact, I fear it with a passion usually reserved for darkness, dogs and people of different races. I have soft feet and every reef walk is a potential slasher movie for my little piggies. But if you want to surf serious waves here, if you want to step away from Ehukai Beach Park, you have to walk reef. You have to drop in over it, to rake your fins across it, to open your skin on it. My only consolation is that even the best carry their reef scars: check the photos, your favorite barrel riders are often sporting duct tape on their feet because they have stepped on something sharp. Still, you couldn’t pay me to go out at Backyards at low tide again. I hate it.
Locals.
The only people really concerned with being nasty to outsiders in Hawaiian lineups are the worst surfers. You know them from your home break – the men of middling talent and overwhelming insecurity whose big joy in life comes from pretending to be one of “da boys.” Don’t indulge these losers. I’ve encountered a few in Hawaii, and the truth is that no one really likes them. They are tolerated because they are thugs and because they feed the bloated egos of the pros, but the real locals here smile at you when they paddle out, even call you into the odd waves, because they know they surf their home spots so well they’ll never need to pull rank to get a wave.
Professionals.
Never trust a professional surfer. At the worst, they are degenerate egomaniacs. At the best, they will chat with you in the lineup then paddle around you when the set arrives. You are surfing to have fun, they are surfing to pay their rent. Never trust a person who is working in the same place that you are having fun. He is more desperate than you will ever imagine.
Fun.
The first time I truly realized how fun wave riding could be was when I was body whomping in the shorebreak at Waimea. Until then, I had been worrying about making every wave, pulling out of every barrel, snapping as hard as I could and generally being rad. Then I waded out into the shorebreak and floated next to a group of Hawaiian kids on bodyboards who just wanted to pull into closeout sand tubes. As I dodged sets with them, I realized that it wasn’t the contests or the photos or the video clips that mattered. In fact, all of that shit was peripheral to the real story and that story was just having fun. God help us all if surfing loses sight of that.
