Close to Perfect

It’s been a great winter for surfing, but Monday was enough to astonish even my jaded eyes. The morning started just so-so. We got to Kenaha at 9:00 and the wind was up a little more than the five MPH that Wind Guru had predicted–but not bad. The swell looked messy, but it seemed there were quite a few people out. My friend Paul and paddled out, and were greeted by an immense throng. Probably 20-30 stand up paddle surfers and 30-40 prone surfers. They were spread out across the good breaks of Kanaha–the channel left, the center, the near right, and the outer right breaks. I could see a good crowd down at the boneyard and a good sized group in the mushy wave in between Kanaha and the boneyard. There was even a good sized group out at uppers. Nice day, nice waves, people everywhere.

The mood was super mellow. There were so many nice waves coming through, of all shapes and sizes from nice inner chest high to occasional bombers, all with the usual user-friendly Kenaha slopey-ness. Just no reason to get your board shorts in a knot, even if people dropped in on you. What the heck.

When I was paddling out from a little wave a good sized set came in, and I counted nine people up and in the wave on the first one, eleven on the second. Looked like Gidget day at Malibu. I thought that would be a record, but an hour later I say thirteen people riding a nice wave. No harm, no foul, lots of waves. And people were playing nice–pulling out when they realized someone else was in a wave–even when they really didn’t have to. That wave with thirteen people in it thinned out to one gal going left and one guy going right before the wave sectioned. Pretty cool.

About noon Paul and I were parched and hungry. We paddled in and found Alan and Julie Sidlo on the beach, and we were soon joined by Paul’s wife Lisa, who had a rental car snafu to straighten out and amazingly had found the right beach to get Paul. I guess the fact that my jeep looks like a wandering circus probably helped all of them find us. We went to Main Street Bistro in Wailuku for lunch. Macadamia nut smoked brisket. Wow. I could have used a second sandwich, but I’m watching my food intake. Mostly I’m watching it enter my mouth.

Paul and I meandered back to the beach, but the wind was up a bit. We stalled a little bit, going by SIC to talk to Mark Raaphorst about his Catamaran, but he was busy glassing, so we went back to the beach and toughened up. As soon as we got to the break the wind started to drop. It turned a little south over the next hour, and then went away like someone had flipped a switch. Glass. Not too many people out, the waves pumped up a little with the occasional lineup cleaner, and we had a blast.

Whale mommas rolled on their sides fifty feet from the peaks. Baby whales fussed around them. Outside a big guy hammered the water with his tail. Bright sunlight. A line of white cattle egrets skimmed over the reef. High Stratus clouds. The West Maui Mountains and Molokai clear and grey blue in the distance. All a bit too much if you ask me–downright gaudy. At least there weren’t any rainbows and butterflies.

Surfed our guts out. About 3:30 Paul said he was beat and wanted to quit. I said “that’s crazy talk. This is surf till dark conditions. We may not see a session this good for another ten years. In three days you’re going back to Oregon. Do you want to spend the rest of the winter thinking about the afternoon you quit perfect head high glassy waves and warm water because you were tired?” Fortunately Paul listened to reason. We surfed on until we could both barely stand. I was missing waves in faces that only took a single stroke to drop. We wobbled in, took a cold beach shower that felt SOOO great on my toasted shoulders. Loaded up, called the ladies and headed for Flatbread. We barely spoke in the car. Barely spoke when we got there first, grabbed a table, got our beers and sat there waiting for our wives.

Nothing to say. Just long glassy waves when we closed our eyes, and the blue, blue of a perfect shoulder when we opened them.