Surfing at Ala Moana 1

A chronicle of my attempt to learn this most Hawaiian of sports.

Episode One - Disappointment

When the day finally arrived I was unprepared. The sun had hidden himself behind whitened clouds and the winds were up, blowing onshore in a steady breeze. Three of us walked down to the beach but only two entered the water. There was only one board between the two of us. Kurt had said we could share just one, and that he would teach me to surf.

When you’re an English city boy living in Hawaii, being close to the ocean for the first time, you have little choice but to surf. I can’t get a job because of the visa restrictions, it seems too hot to try any other sports, and ultimately surfing is expected of me. A foreigner here in the home of surfing, in this Hawaiian tropical paradise, it would disappoint everybody not to surf.

As it happens we have chosen a local boy’s favourite spot; this is no tourist Mecca, it’s the real stuff complete with offshore reef and dangerous looking waves. The most physically demanding job is to paddle your board out beyond the breakers, lying atop it and doing a mime-like front crawl with your arms (imagine a Superman pose) for about twenty minutes if the surf is a long way out. Because we only have one board I’m actually swimming. We pass over the edge of the reef, paddling in two feet of water over living coral, brain corals, and anemones, lurking amongst sandy patches which look bright, like clouds in a dark sky. The tide is in and the onshore breezes make stiff ripples to splash our faces. Further out we can see the local boys easing themselves onto the crests of six, seven foot waves, out there in the surf.

By the time the first small breakers begin to reach us I have several streaks of anemone bristle stuck in each foot. These are only slightly poisonous, less than a bee sting but uncomfortable enough. I feel as if any big waves will toss me over and dash me on the coral. I am still having fun though, because I can almost touch it now, that fabled dream, of which the Beach Boys sang so sweetly. Kurt is having trouble with the board. In fact I am a good thirty feet ahead of him now and he looks to have stopped paddling. I am beginning to roll in the surf.

I am torn between the board and the open ocean. I sense Kurt’s defeat and I realise this means we are going back. The disappointment in my heart is an ache, like a sadness, but as we paddle (swim) home I recall that the waves will persist into tomorrow. I can come out on my own tomorrow. One man, one board. The pain in my heart is joined by the strain in my shoulders, but I feel neither as I think about the future.

Episode Two - Do not underestimate the power of street knowledge

The beach is three blocks from our place. At 2pm, as I weave casually through the traffic carrying my board, I suppose I am a conspicuous version of the common Hawaiian spectacle, a haole on his way to the beach. I have my hat, a rather beaten-up straw panama I bought for ten quid on Oxford Street, which I like to think makes me look jaunty and care free. I am wearing just my swim shorts and a rash guard, with flip-flops on my feet (known locally as slippahs). The board is uncomfortable and unwieldy in my arms.

I have to cross through a park before I get to the beach. The park is a sculptured landscape; there is a man-made stream with stuccoed bridges lined with trees, there are picnic tables in wooded stretches, and there are colonnades, where old men sit to talk story. The park is built for pleasure, and it opens onto the beach. Along the last stretch of grass live the Banyan trees; great elders which hang their wispy beards on the ground. Underneath live the transients, or what I would call hobos, or tramps, on tarpaulin beds and cooking on stoves.

The beach is a sudden brightness, the sand is so white it hurts the eyes. Today is a beautiful day. It is baking as I approach the lifeguard hut, thinking of introducing myself:

“Hello” I say. “How’s it going?”.

“Alright” says the lifeguard, “You got enough wax on that thing?”, he indicates my board. I have no idea whether or not I have enough wax on it.

“Yeah I think so" I say, "this is my first time out on a board”. I reckon that by saying this I will appeal to his better nature, and prompt him to take special care of me. It works! He makes an important point straight away:

“Well it’s OK out there, you see that cone on the reef?” I look out to where he points, in the glare I am a bit lost, “There, right in front of us”, he says. I spot the cone, about 150 yards from where Kurt and I had paddled out the day before.

“Oh yes”, I say.

“That’s where you should paddle out, it’s the deepest part of the reef”, I feel a spark of realisation as he points to the left where Kurt and I had paddled out the day before, “anywhere in that direction you’ll get cut up on the coral”. OK, I think to myself, so that explains what went wrong yesterday!

“Oh yeah, and then go out to the breakers?” I suggest,

“Yeah, you see where those guys are now, there it’s a good break today. Go straight out past the reef and then go around. Yeah it looks shoulder high so it should be OK”. I make as if to leave. “I don’t know if you’re regular or goofy” admits the lifeguard “but there’s a left and a right breaker out there”. I don’t immediately know what he’s talking about, but it seems important. Then from a dim memory of a Nintendo snowboarding game I recall that goofy means left-footed.

“Oh I’m regular”, I say

“OK well you should be OK”

“Thanks” I say, “catch you later”.

Spotting another cone about twenty yards up the beach, I realise that this whole thing has been organised already. The cone here indicates where the shore is least rocky, and the cone on the reef indicates where the reef is safest to cross. I am grateful to be in such a well organised place.

Paddling out today is a surprise. I can’t stay on the board. In the end I find that my legs are the problem, but if I grip the edge of the board with my feet, I am OK. I travel pretty fast on this thing, but I don’t know how deep in the water the front of the board should be and when I experiment I fall off. Before I cross the reef I stop and practise a bit more in the relative calm of the lagoon, sitting and lying on the board, paddling, falling off and climbing on.

I don’t catch any waves all afternoon. I watch the local boys having fun and I follow their movements in the waves. I feel a sense of togetherness with another haole out there today, clearly not catching anything, and clearly jealous of the local boys. Two children on boogie boards catch huge waves and travel at amazing speeds, laughing, as I look on. They can’t be any older than twelve or thirteen.

Washing down my board and catching my breath, sitting next to the park after two hours in the sea, I am exceedingly calm and happy to be in this beautiful place. Turning to the man washing down his board I ask:

“Catch anything out there?”

“Oh yeah it’s good out there today I caught plenty. How about you?” he asks.

“Oh well it’s my first time out on a board so I didn’t do so good” I admit.

“Yeah I saw you paddling around out there. You gotta get more on your board, your whole body on the board, you’re using it more like a boogie board”

“Yeah” I agree,

“Just get used to being on the board. Stay in the white water and let the waves take you so you know how it feels. Forget the waves, stay in the white water”

“OK cheers, thanks for the advice. I’m Pete by the way”

“Jeff”, he says, and waves me chuckas.

On the way home I realise I look pretty stupid in my straw hat, but that’s OK here. Hawaiians are used to stupid haole making mistakes in the waves and living indolent lives on the islands. The spirit of aloha is still alive and Hawaii is to be shared with all comers, I realise that as I respect the locals, I in turn gain their respect and their trust. Their advice is like invaluable trinkets, gathered on my quest to become a surf bum.

The Ala Wai Canal

I was excited to learn that an historic canal runs near to our apartment at Ala Moana. It is called The Ala Wai Canal and was built in the 1920’s by Walter Dillingham’s Hawaiian Dredging Company. It is an impressive stretch of water which runs from Kapahulu Street, in the shadow of Diamond Head crater, along the back of Waikiki district, until it joins the ocean near to Ala Moana, a walk of about four miles.

Water is an interesting topic in the State of Hawaii, where over 60,000 people rely directly on rainwater for most of their water needs. Honolulu is served by groundwater wells sunk into volcanic rock in the mountainous ribs of the island, sole-source aquifers which contain minimal contamination from agricultural and industrial runoff. However groundwater in the valleys contain the highest concentrations of Bromacil (a pesticide) in the whole of the United States, and stream flow carries this and other contaminants, as well as silt, into the Ala Wai Canal.

Exploring the area, I saw lots of familiar things associated with canals I have seen in Europe, including a variety of the common Mallard. However this is not a canal in the sense that The Grand Union or the Kennet and Avon is a canal. The Ala Wai was built to drain the lowlands around Waikiki, not as a mode of transportation, and it is therefore much wider than British canals, it is also completely straight, and there is no sense at all of it being a natural feature of the island.

The native Hawaiian nobles had traditionally used the area to grow taro, and to farm fish in pools built of lava rock. The canal was dug by the Americans to drain these lowland swamps, allowing intensive settlement of the area around Waikiki. It appears that the same company that dug the canal also had several laws passed requiring local landowners to use landfill. The Hawaiians were persuaded that the canal would reduce the number of mosquitoes in the area, but it is clear that its construction was an act of colonialism, not environmentalism. The offshore reef is being damaged by the effluent from the canal, and a new breed of unnaturally large mantis shrimp was recently found inhabiting it.

Despite the impurities in the water, bird and plant life does survive along the edge of the canal. I saw plovers, herons, ducks, and cardinals, whom share the paths and boulevards by the water with quite a number of homeless or down-and-out folk. Hawaii’s homeless happen to suffer less with the weather than those I have known in England, but I understand that they have less assistance from the state. They come here to the canal, like I do, because it is a haven from the city streets.

This forgotten part of Honolulu is isolated from the traffic and from the tourists and like canals in England, feels very peaceful. Just as in England when you approach a bridge from the towpath, you are often led onto a road and the peace is disturbed by the rush of everyday life. Suddenly there is no public right of way, or you are forced to wait for a huge line of traffic to pass, and getting back down to the canal is badly sign-posted. Along the edge of the canal itself are the backs of allotments, schools, and golf courses. There are few bridges over the canal, and it must be a pain for locals whom must drive around.

All this made me realise how few citizens of Hawaii know the canal as anything more than a drainage ditch. It is amazing to me, how just six feet the other side of that wall, exists another world. It is notable that the only citizens enjoying it, bar the odd runner and the outrigger canoe clubs, are the poorest and most vulnerable ones.

My very first weekend here with Ellen and we enjoyed hosting our very first visitor to Alder Street. A friend of Ellen's visiting from New Zealand who was in Hawaii on holiday happened to have a few spare days to spend with us. On Saturday we made use of her hire-car, a Chrysler convertible, to explore the island. We also enjoyed her excellent CD collection, and her taste for Margueritas. So thank you Heather for coming to stay! Heather took this photo on our lazy Sunday at Ala Moana Beach Park. She has now gone back to New York to record an album with her band The Brunettes.

A day trip from Honolulu

A two-hour drive from Honolulu along the Pali Highway and over the Wai'anae Mountains brought us to the windward shores of Kailua and Waimanalo on the eastern edge of O'ahu. These beaches are long and sandy. Fringed with palm trees and with the precipitous pali of the mountains as a backdrop, this south-eastern part of the island is the most Hawaii-looking part I have seen so far.

We saw evidence of the most recent volcanic activity on this particular island. The craters are still clearly visible, and are thankfully all ex-smokers, but their great sheets of volcanic rock are still stratified along the coast and the wind has cut them down into terraces. Ofcourse the ocean is also eroding these sheets, and in places we saw the foam burst up in a great geyser through a blow hole, as waves crashed in from below.

The windward side of the island is home to some well-known danger spots such as Sandy Beach, where the surf will pick you up and dash you on the rocks. So we didn't go there. Instead we went to Kailua because I knew from my previous trip to Hawaii that it's a sheltered spot. Unfortunately the brisk East-North-Easterly trade winds made it too windy for the beach, but the excellent surf allowed us some body surfing for a while. This is where you swim along the crest of a wave and then let it take you, using your body like a board to surf down the wave. It took some practise, and I took some tumbles in the sand.

On our way home we visited the Diamond Head Grill and bought takeaway flame grilled ahi and a steak burger. I drank a soda float, which consists of a pint of coke with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. For afters we visited Leonard's bakery and bought masaladas.