In the 45 years since I became a surfer, I, like every other surfer has dreamed of a place with overhead A-frame peaks pitching out hollow tubes on a soft sandy beach with just a hand full of friends in the water sharing the excellence. I have surfed up and down the California coast, the Baja penninsula, Bali, Vietnam, the north and south shores of Oahu and most of the breaks on the Island of Hawaii.
But, while on Kauai two weeks ago I believe that I saw the closest thing in reality to the waves I and so many other young high school surfer boys dreamed of while trying to stay awake in their freshman history classes. Recently I was on the completely restricted beautiful beach at the Barking Sands Pacific Missile Range on Kauai's northwest shore. No one but military personnel are allowed on the beach without special clearance. I was on a photo shoot and passed the security check and was allowed to set up on the restricted beach for my assignment.
I hauled my twelve foot photo ladder across the massive beach to a spot near the shoreline where I would shoot the group photo and looked up and down the expanse of white sand.
Sitting atop the ladder I looked about to see a flawless beach some 200 yards wide and extending for miles and miles in either direction with nothing more than a couple of surfers heading to or from the waves.
And the waves...the waves, my god the waves! I looked up the beach to the north and saw endless waves barreling over the soft white sand, unridden until they broke on the beach.
A bit further north I saw a small bunch of surfers taking off and riding by themselves some of the finest beachbreak waves I have ever seen.
Imagine sitting in the water picking and choosing which of these georgeous waves you would like to ride. No fighting for position, no shoulder hoppers, no wave snakes dropping in behind you and shouting for ownership. No one trying to spear you for being on their wave. Just empty barrels up and down the beach, for miles, with you and a few friends out dropping in on only the waves you wanted to ride!
These waves breaking at this spot would be swamped with hundreds of agro surfers all fighting for each wave if this was any other place in the civilised world. But here only a few surfers associated with the U.S. military can ride these amazing waves.
I stood atop my photo ladder preparing my gear for my assignment but kept looking north as each new set of waves came barreling through. I felt the stirring in my gut that a young surfer feels when he see's beautiful blue Pacific tubes, they seemingly call to him to drop whatever he's doing, grab his stick, run to the shorebreak, paddle out and take off! It is as strong as were the sirens songs calling to Odysseus.
I watched as a surfer left the water, totally surfed out he began his long walk to his car, a familiar exhausted but relaxed cadence to his walk up the beach as he passed another surfer with a much more brisk eager strut hurrying to take his place in the line up. One was sated and had a stupid grin on his face as he heads home, the others face holds a grin of apprehension at the waves he see's before him that will soon be his.
I have surfed many waves in my life, in many places. But I must tell you that I never saw a break I wanted to surf more than this unnamed, unattianable spot on the NW shore of Kauai.
Dreams do in fact come true, its just that it isn't necessarily where, when and how you want them to. The perfiect wave I dreamed of while sitting bored in Mrs. Sandstroms spanish class did exist. It just did not show itself to me till 40 years later in a place and time I could not ride it.
My clients arrived. I got them organized and shot their photo.
I packed up my gear, humped the ladder back up the beach and then walked back for one last look at the wave I had been dreaming of since when I had no hairs on my chest and a knot in my stomach at the thought of riding a wave like the ones I was looking at this day.
If you are a surfer you know of what I am saying, if not...well... To be a surfer is to always be looking out at the sea whenever it comes into view, wondering what kind of swell is running, what direction are the winds blowing, is the tide high or low and can I get in the water and catch a few before the sun goes down.
I finally had to turn my back on the perfect wave of my youth and walk away. I tried to tell myself at least I got to see it. But that means nothing compared to what it would have meant in my life to have been able to tell my client sorry, I was busy and couldn't finish the shoot right now, grab someones board from the beach, paddle out and take off. I would have been an 18 year old again, just looking for the next good wave to ride.
As I look out at the dreamwaves of my youth I think back to all the others who sat beside me in the cold California pre dawn lineup or in a classroom daydreaming of warm distant waves as our teachers droned on.
I found the wave, Russle Peters and Stephan Powers. I saw what we all wanted to see, Dave and Diane Van Druff, Brian Johnson, Dan Dumas, Troy Beatly, Mike Whelan, Jim & Steve Jebbia, Steve Smith, Vince Cole, Eddie Frasier, Curt Fairchild, Dan Kenny, Billy Marsigan, Ron Clark, Gavin Powers, Matt Homer, Tom Holbrook, Bob McNight, Bob Sinclair, Tony Roensch, Scott Bickel, and all the other surfmen I cannot recall. Half of you are no longer with us, but your spirit lives on in every wave we, who keep surfing, take off on.
Live to surf, surf to live...that's what we always said.
You know what? I'm gonna bail on all the crap piled up in my office I need to take care of and go surfing tomorrow morning. Nice little NW swell filling in looks like, tides right and the winds should be calm.
Go surf. Go live
Laters,
Brian
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