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Big Waves and small boats in Hawaii by Chip Powell

So ... one of those days. It all started on Lambton Quay trying to find a cheap flight to Canada. Due to the vagaries of international ticketing it transpired that the cheapest flight from Wellington to Regina is actually to London with a couple of stops en route. That one of these could be Regina fitted well with the plan but when the nice lady mentioned that Honolulu could be the other some very entertaining possibilities arose.

Hawaii or more specifically Oahu (usefully the Island the airport's on) is reckoned to have some quite good surf. Certainly the boardies seem to rave about it , particularly Waimoa, Haleiwa and Pipeline on Sunset. Funnily enough one doesn't hear them mentioned by kayakers. Still, since I had the ticket and a squirt boat with me, playing on waves seemed a good way to break a mammoth flight north for a few days. After the the usual joys of international air travel encumbered with a kayak and a bicycle (thanks for the lift to the airport Lisa!) I arrived in Waikiki on the south side of Oahu. A very odd place, reminiscent of a slightly more sanitary version of Calcutta with a similarly sweaty climate and excess vertical development. At least the North shore should provide some respite.

After hiring a little Neon (never ever tell hire firms you are a kayaker and they won't check the roof for sand scratches) the trip across the island was uneventful and the usual ritual of trawling along the coast in search of decent waves was performed. A lot of the northern Oahu beaches have a pronounced shore break, the swell builds, steepens quickly about ten metres out and then dumps (frequently on reef) about five metres later. This can be particularly bad if swimming and leads to such encouraging names as Breakneck beach and similar. An hour or so of wave hunting and I found the Pipeline Masters competition site, this at least suggested the waves could have some potential. So, boat off car, kit on and time for a paddle.

The surf was inconsistent, but some bits of it were very impressive indeed. If you've never surfed in a low volume boat it's fun, if you can surf big waves then it's big fun. And then there is the north shore and Pipeline. I came into the beach to empty having got a bit of a pounding on one run to be complimented by two gentlemen who mentioned that they'd not seen a kayak on Pipeline in ten years. Perhaps I should have realised something from this.

The scenario varies according to the size of the wave, catch a smallish (eight to nine foot) wave, scream down the face at approx mach 2 and cut left or right according to the break and attempt not to kebab the boardies who seemed fascinated to the point of suicide by this apparently legless surfer approaching; or try and catch a bigger wave. Bigger waves can be very interesting indeed. They either go in a similar manner to small waves with the added bonus of possibly getting in the tube (my first tube ride in a twelve foot diameter tunnel, it's such a cool feeling, like being in a green cave) or it all goes mad. This resulted in me getting one of the biggest hardest thrashings I've had for a few years when I picked up a fifteen footer too late and was riding high on the crest when it dumped. The feeling of impending doom as I cartwheeled through the air past the thirty foot (10 m) high wall of vertical water (they measure the height of waves from the mean level, halfway up the back) to land at the base, desperately trying to land my hull flat (Pipeline breaks into less than a metre of water so you do not want to be bow, or worse head, down), and the sensation of the hull fracturing from the impact was rapidly overtaken by the world becoming white and loud as several hundred tons of water dropped on me.

It was one of those violent banging tumblings that ripped the paddle out of my hands, half hauling me out of my boat and peeling the body tube of my deck from my torso and and imploding it so it ended up down round my thighs. I handrolled up after about twenty seconds of rag doll teatment, disorientated, glasses bent and twisted up round the front of my helmet, shoulders wrenched and knees smarting from the shock loading, just enough time to catch a breath and consider heading in to the beach before the next wave came in to pick me up, flip me and surf me in through the soup. I arrived on the beach breathless and bruised, convinced my deck has blown and my boat has snapped.

These big Hawaiian waves have a power I 've rarely experienced before. You may think Fulljames is quick and powerful but get these wrong and it'd be like running Huka and landing in the hole; at a high flow. I see my paddle cartwheeling in toward me and stumble down the beach and into the soup to recover it, then decide to have a few minutes to reassess. As I 'm sat there watching the boardies give it a go and watching the regular trashings a gentleman wanders up to ask if I'm going to do it again. He's filming for a surf video and reckons its good footage, sooo...... empty boat, check for big cracks, put spraydeck back round waist (instead of knees!) and back out again. Heading out I'm reminded of an Alan Fox cartoon; anything for fame and fortune, if you ever need a river probe just get out a camera. The next big wave I catch is bliss, acceleration like freefall and cutting out of the tube without get caught, a much better way to do it. The one after though.... oh boy.

The initial twenty five foot cartwheel through the air is easily the closest to carnage anyones seen today; the recovery isn't masterful but I did manage to explode backwards out of the froth after I'd been dumped on. Didn't even loose the paddle this time. So there you have it. Pipeline, North shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Feel free to give it a go, it'll entertain the boardies. Just be careful and practice on smaller stuff first, twelve to fifteen foot surf translates to a twenty five to thirty foot front face on a wave (8 to 10 metres) and given that it breaks into a metre of water a big face plant could do body damage. The final tally worked out at about six incredibly fast rides of varying standards, one of which was my first tube ride in surf; and seven trashings, two of which left me breathless on the beach. My squirt boat has cracks along the seams and the bottom is delaminating from the impact of repeated six to eight metre boofs, and I ache. Didn't stop me going out again the next day though, it's kind of addictive like that.

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