Surfing

Looking for waves, the past, and a legend in Waikiki

I normally try to avoid popular tourist dens when I travel.

I prefer to learn about new places and not expose myself to the corporate, global tourism culture that makes holidays to Bali, Cancun, and Paris all blur into bland rituals to relax those wealthy enough to fly around the world for temporary pleasure.

In late October 2022, when I took a long overdue short holiday, I had little time to plan for a true learning adventure. I found myself suddenly between two jobs and a small window to organize. That meant I needed to find a place that aligned with my interests and could be reached quickly.

My plot emerged overnight—to surf in warm, tropical waters. I had nursed this scheme for years. This also meant breaking my self-imposed travel rules.

After six years of surfing in the cold Pacific waters off Oregon’s shores, I craved warmth. By the time I booked this trip the last week of October 2022, I had been irregularly surfing the cold, feisty waters of the Oregon Coast since 2016. That also made me an almost entirely cold-water surfer. (I don’t count my few past efforts in Hawaii in 2009 or Australia in 2007 as real surfing outings.)

I booked a three-night, four-day trip to one of the most famous of tourist destinations in the Pacific, on the Island of Oahu. Traveling to Waikiki meant I was embracing its long-documented excesses symbolizing global tourism, especially for Americans and Japanese travelers.

The least I could do on the trip was learn more about the place.

I soon discovered after booking my trip that Waikiki was once a sacred site, rich in aquaculture and sea harvesting for native Hawaiians. The last century saw it paved, developed, and transformed into a tourist haven, attracting millions of annual visitors the world over.

That transformation damaged the local environment and displaced its original inhabitants, all through the historic systems of colonialism and global capitalism. My self-described adventure would reward this victorious new reality. My consolation would be honoring the sport Hawaii generously gave to the modern world—surfing.

I found a surprisingly affordable hotel, the Pearl Waikiki. It catered to budget travellers like me, by Hawaiian tourist standards. It also put me a short walking distance from Queens, a gentle surf spot, where I surfed for three days. I needed a place that allowed me to rent a board and put in the ocean without driving. I literally could pick up my board from the surf shop, walk two blocks to the famous Waikiki Beach, and paddle out.

Offshore adventures

As surfing goes, I am not that great. I rented mediocre boards, not a performance board. That was a mistake. The shop owners seemed reluctant to let me rent a nicer board, or maybe we had a simple misunderstanding. It may not have mattered, really.

Waikiki’s surfer sculpture was created by sculptor Robert Pashby and erected in June 2003.

Still I was able to catch my requisite number of rides, most on my final day. I will never forget my final ride and the sounds of the board slapping on the wave face as I rode a beautiful break to the shoreline.

The waves were at most four feet high, and the swells came in irregularly. Most of the time I spent in the water with other surfers consisted of gazing at the sea, bobbing in the small swells, and waiting.

In short, I did what surfers mostly do.

The water sparkled a rich, aqua-marine blue. Best of all, the water measured a very warm 79-81 degrees Fahrenheit. For an Oregon surfer, who has always worn a 5-4 wetsuit for cold water, this represented a radical change. I could wear board shorts and a rash guard surfing shirt and not once shiver.

For some of my hours floating in the water, rainy clouds painted rainbows above the nearby Diamond Head crater and the skyline filled with bland, tall Waikiki hotels. The surf reports I followed predicted larger swells. They never rolled in.

Out in the water, I found some nice moments of surf fellowship with some older local men. They rode old, beat-up long boards. They were as hungry for nice waves as I was. Like me, they came out in the early morning, just after 6 a.m., enjoying surf time, but taking it seriously too. Surfing is serious business, even if its spirit lies in finding moments of peace.

Finding a wave also requires a mixture of patience and positioning. One waits, while constantly reading the ocean for signals where to paddle one’s board for just the right ride. When they come, everyone moves into position.

Over the three days I surfed, I saw about a dozen male surfers who could be called hot shots. Some were haoles, or white guys, who to me looked like corporate lawyers in surfing gear. They didn’t smile much as they confidently popped up and cut their lines effortlessly in front of beginners to remind them who the alphas were, even at a mostly tourist surf break. Most of the surfers at Queens were visitors, like me.

I also could not believe how fit and beautiful some of the local women surfers looked. They resembled advertisements for women’s sport fashion brands, with perfectly sculpted bodies that came straight from a Patagonia women’s swimwear photo shoot.  I had not seen such fit and good-looking people like this in a long time, at least in the water. They reminded me how much this sport attracts the beautiful, the confident, and the strong.

There were other locals who did not look like statuesque surf pros I see on YouTube channels dedicated to global surfing. But one could tell they lived here. They had the moves, knew the waves at this break, and mastered the take offs at always the right second. I loved their style.

Mostly, I appreciated the laid-back vibe. Even when the irregular good wave came, with a dozen riders paddling at once to catch it, no one barked at newcomers for violating the unwritten but clearly known surf etiquette. Those globally recognized norms, which create order when there could be chaos and real conflict, were egregiously violated by nearly everyone.

Even then, no one yelled or gave the “stink eye” glare of surfing displeasure. After one wave, I quickly apologized to a surfer my age, who I thought I had cut off, and he waved it off saying, “No worries, man. This is Waikiki.”

Onshore adventures

When I wasn’t surfing, I explored the area just east of the Waikiki strip that includes the state monument site called Diamond Head. The caldera can be seen nearly every post card ever taken at Waikiki and looking east on the shore. Geologist suggest the crater was formed about 300,000 years ago, during a single and explosive eruption.

Today most of the site is protected, but accessible to hikers for a small entrance fee to hike to the crater’s rim, with its surrounding slopes off-limits to all.  The state estimates more than 1 million visitors a year visit the crater, trudging up to the crater overlook that points to Waikiki’s hotel skyline.

From my hotel door out and back, going around this extinct volcano, I estimated the distance at six miles, with change. It was a perfect runner’s outing too. The air temperatures both mornings were a bit warm, at 85 degrees Fahrenheit. I came back a sweaty mess, the way a good run should leave one. My foot-only adventures turned into my unexpected trip surprises, taking me to a famous local spot, but one rich in beauty and natural wonder.

My running route, and also one used by perhaps tens of thousands of runners before me, passed on a bike path and multi-use trail surrounding the crater. Even as a natural monument, it also is fully surrounded by developments and high-end homes on its southern face looking onto the Pacific Ocean.

My run hugged Kapiʻolani Regional Park, past the Waikiki Shell performance stage and Honolulu Zoo, up Monsarrat Avenue, and the around the crater’s outer walls. In addition to the expensive homes with ocean views on the south side of the crater, I passed Kapiʻolani Community College and the State of Hawaii Department of Defense headquarters.

I took this selfie of me and and Diamond Head at Kapiʻolani Regional Park, which was once a sacred area to native Hawaiian people.

Best of all, my route gave me a perfect overlook of two amazing surf spots called Cliffs and Lighthouse. From this overlook I could see the local “heavies” riding beautiful waves in the mid-morning when I did my runs.  

At the overlook, I talked to a local man in his late 50s, who likely had Chinese ancestry, or maybe mixed heritage, as do so many in the state. He was smiling and still dripping wet. He had just wrapped up his morning set with a short board. He let me know both spots would welcome newcomers.

He said he didn’t have a good outing, but his face was beaming that glow a surfer wears when they come out of the water. I felt a bond with him as only surfers can feel discussing the waves and surf locations. Unfortunately, my trip did not involve renting a car or getting to know the local surf spots.

A short trip into Hawaii’s past

My second unexpected highlight happened during my day-trip to historic sites in downtown Honolulu. I reached them using the island’s reliable and renown local public transit system called “TheBus.”

Downtown Honolulu seemed like a ghost town when I went there my second day on the island. The downtown historic, government, and cultural area surrounds the modernist State Capitol building and colonial style state judiciary and pre-statehood administrative buildings. The area is walkable and well worth a half-day visit.

I started my self-guided tour at the preserved Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site, with buildings dating from the 1820s to the 1840s.

These were residences of white missionaries from the newly formed United States. One of the earliest missionaries, famed Vermont-born Congregationalist minister and colonialist Hiram Bingham, arrived to the islands in 1820 with other devout Protestants.

Like many of his stern Protestant peers, Bingham was uncomfortable with the culture and indiginous residents he observed. His goal was to replace local culture in the name of Western progress.

In his accounts written 27 years after his “first encounter” with the still unknown culture, Bingham wrote: “As we proceeded to the shore, the multitudinous, shouting and almost naked natives, of every age, sex, and rank, swimming, floating on surfboards, sailing in canoes, sitting, lounging, standing running like sheep, dancing…attracted our earnest attention, and exhibited the appalling darkness of the land, which we had come to enlighten.”

Today, the sights of Hawaiians expressing their indigenous culture that so worried Bingham is the same media-conjured image and Hawaii brand drawing visitors the world over to the state.

A tribute by Bingham’s relatives to the New England preacher is still inscribed in stone on the front wall of the historic Kawaiahaʻo Church that Bingham founded, found next to the mission homes. The engraved homage celebrates his and his New England peers’ colonizing efforts and reads like a painful artifact of white, American expansionism.

The missionaries’ played an important role in creating a dominant, white colonialist culture—amid the arrival of many other immigrants from Asia and Portugal—that influenced the island’s development in the 1800s. One researcher on the impact of the first missionaries, Anatole Brown, noted the missionaries’ impact expanded far beyond the missionary period that formally ended a few decades after their arrival:  “By the time the U.S. Navy took interest in the Islands by mid-nineteenth century, the American colonial process was in full swing, as Bibles moved onto guns.”

The colonial process launched by the white settlers ultimately paved the way for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in January 1893 by the American government and business interests, in what can be consider an act of war.  That cultural and political assimilation almost crushed local Hawaiian culture and cultural traditions in the process, like surfing and hula, which are now the living symbols of Hawaii in the minds of the world.

I next stopped to pay my homage to the statue of the legendary Hawaiian King Kamehameha, the monarch from the Big Island of Hawaii, who invaded at Waikiki in 1795, defeating the island’s local ruler, Chief Kalanikupule. He then unified all of the islands in 1810, when King Kaumualii of Kaui island surrendered peacefully. His statue stands proudly in front the Al’iolani Hale Justice Building. Within a century of Kamehameha’s triumph, the islands would succumb to outside conquerors and far more deadly diseases.

Across from the statue’s outstretched arms is the last home of Hawaii’s monarchs, called the Iolanai Palace. The palace was built by Hawaii’s final king, Kalakaua, in 1882. It remained the house of Hawaii’s royalty until Queen Lili’uokalani, the king’s sister and successor, was overthrown in the January 1893 coup, engineered by a business cabal called the Committee of Safety and led by the U.S. military.

I did not go in, but walked around the expansive palace grounds. Just north of that one finds the State Capitol, completed in 1969. The modernist, square-shaped building has an open-air courtyard, where the midday sun shone down. The building was designed to be unlike most state capitols that mimic classical Roman architectural style.  It’s considered one of the most accessible state capitols, where legislative and executive offices are open to the public.

Hanging on its front entrance, by the bronze statue of the overthrown monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, hangs the 15-foot wide, massive bronze state seal. The emblem shows the state’s royal coat of arms, the seal of the former Hawaiian Kingdom and the 50th state since 1959.  

I next walked west across the street from the Iolani Palace, to visit the Hawaii State Art Museum. The museum is free and found on the second floor of the Capitol District Building, a Spanish Mission revival style building built in 1928.

During my visit, the Turnaround Gallery of the facility was hosting a collection of black and white photos taken by photographer Ed Greevy. The collection of remarkable black and white photos document his decades-long collaboration with Hawaiian activist Haunani-Kay Trask. They show different chapters of the state’s environmental and social justice movements. The photos are found in the book “Kūʻē: Thirty Years of Land Struggles in Hawaiʻi.”

The images show resistance protests for Hawaiian sovereignty, starting in the 1970s, and scenes of civil protests against forced evictions, loss of affordable housing for local residents, and the building of the interstate highway across the backbone of Oahu’s mountain range separating the north and south shores.

The gallery exhibit also revealed the clashes on the Islands that began far before the protest period. They continue to this day. Throughout the decades of conflict and change, Hawaiian culture thrived. That can be seen most clearly through the sport of surfing and the first global ambassador of the sport, who grew up in nearby Waikiki.

Waikiki’s legend

If it wasn’t for the legendary exploits of famed Oahu and Waikiki native Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, the forced cultural assimilation by outsiders might have succeeded. His life both reflects and embodies how his Waikiki childhood home turned into its meta-mythical destination for visitors like me.

Kahanamoku was born into Hawaiian royalty in 1890. By that year, Hawaii’s native population had dramatically dropped due to imported diseases brought by missionaries, explorers, and whalers. The imported epidemics of infections, including measles, smallpox, and whooping cough, wiped out Hawaii’s population. It fell precipitously from approximately 300,000 at the time of Captain Cook’s first arrival in 1778 to 135,000 in 1820, and 53,900 in 1876. Kahanamoku grew up in the aftermath of this radical change that nearly destroyed his people.

During his 73 years, until his passing in 1968, Kahanamoku achieved global fame in multiple fields and became a living embodiment of his people. Kahanamoku was the first person to be inducted in the Surfing and Swimming halls of fame, a testament to his life in and around water on Oahu.

Kahanamoku rose to stardom first as an Olympics swimmer and Hawaii tourism promoter.

The island’s business elite paid for his participation in events like the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, in San Francisco in 1915, to promote the Islands’ emerging nascent tourism industry. There he performed the hula, played the ukulele, and posed for photographs in traditional Hawaiian clothes. He also competed for the U.S. team in three Olympics: 1912 in Stockholm, 1920 in Antwerp, and 1924 in Paris, last competing at the age of 34. All told he won three gold and two silver medals for a country to which Hawaii was still relegated to territorial status, and only recently occupied militarily.

In the 1920s, he lived in southern California during the early years of Hollywood. He found bit parts as a minor screen actor in more than 25 films. Unfortunately, he was cast in “ethnic” roles because of deep racial biases in the studios and wider culture. But his legend as a surf promoter took root.

Kahanamoku also had achieved renown as a surfer and surf ambassador. In 1915, he traveled to Australia, to Sydney’s Freshwater Beach, introducing the Hawaiian sporting tradition to the continent that is now synonymous with surfing.

According to one account of this trip, “Duke and Australian surfers sealed an eternal alliance.” His most legendary ride took place in 1917, when he reportedly rode the largest wave ever, towering some 30 feet, at Waikiki on his 16-foot wooden long board. Kahanamoku reportedly caught the monster at a surf spot called Castle’s, off Waikiki, and took it all the way to another surf break called Publics, by Kapiolani Park, then into Cunha’s.

In California, during his Hollywood years, he popularized the nascent sport, taking out his long wooden board and visiting now-famous surfing spots, such as San Diego, Newport Beach, Santa Monica and Malibu.

In the 1930s, Hawaii’s so-called “waterman” returned to his native home. Kahanamoku was elected sheriff of the City and County of Honolulu in 1935, and then held that role for 13 terms, including the entirety of World War II. For his final life act, he was appointed and served as the official “Ambassador of Aloha” after statehood was granted in 1959—a position that embodied how he lived his life, according to many from Hawaii.

“The Duke,” as he is forever and famously known to surfers and the wider public, died in 1968, just at the global sport of surfing was taking off with surf movies, global tourism, and surf-themed rock and popular music. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean at Waikiki.

Even before his death, his legacy was questioned because of his Christian faith (his mother was a devout Christian) and his perceived deference in the early 20th century to Hawaii’s self-named Committee of Safety—the powerful business group that two decades earlier had ousted Hawaii’s last ruling royal monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani. The group had employed him and bought him a home in his beloved Waikiki.

Despite Kahanamoku’s controversial ties from his early life, in an era of rampant prejudice, his fame has grown, just like the global sport and lifestyle he helped to pioneer. In fact, his name and legend continue to grow in value.

In recent years, Kahanamoku’s surviving kin and the super-rich elite of Hawaii have locked legal horns over ownership of his lucrative global name and brand. “More significant, though, is the anger that the war has aroused among native Hawaiians, who perceive it as an appalling exploitation of a revered cultural icon,” noted a Nov. 16, 2003, Los Angeles Times story on the legal dispute over his name and legacy. “The conflict brings into focus a growing tension in Hawaii, unseen by most tourists, but a bitter, daily reality to island natives—a stinging reminder of a culture lost to commercialism.”

Final aloha

Like many visiting Waikiki, my trip would not have been complete without watching a traditional Hawaiian music and dance show on Waikiki beach. It seemed to embody the clash of Hawaii’s surviving culture and the tourist-driven capitalism visible in the international hotels that overlooked this famous stretch of sand and water.

They paved paradise and put in a tourist spot.

Several times a week the shows take place at sunset at the Kuhio Beach stage, near the water’s edge, for visiting tourists. The Hawaiian performers, with dancers, singers, and instrumentalists, share traditional Hawaiian performances and songs after the sun sets and the last surfers pull out their boards from the water. I could effortlessly watch and listen to Hawaiian music and dance every day, and the performance I saw genuinely shared the aloha spirit.

Close to this spot, next to Waikiki beach, stands the popular bronze statue of “The Duke,” with has both arms outstretched and a his signature long, wooden Hawaiian wooden surfboard planted in the ground and towering above him.

During my short stay in Waikiki, the statue was constantly mobbed with visitors, who posed in front of it. Many smiled while mimicking Kahanamoku’s pose. Each time I passed by, I saw a line of visitors from Japan who must have known of his legend, judging by their eagerness to pose next to the bronze replica, adorned daily with fresh flower necklaces called leis.

Like them, and countless tens of thousands of tourists before me, I also snapped my obligatory selfie with my cell phone. As a passable surfer, I smiled in appreciation of the gift “the Duke” and the Hawaiian people freely gave to the world. It felt like a respectable thing to do, even when the world now claimed Duke’s ancestral home and the lands of the first Hawaiian people as a manufactured “paradise” for an escape from our realities back home, wherever home might be.

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Late Fall Swells at Seaside

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This weekend, I took time out from other projects and headed to Seaside Cove, my normal go-to location for surfing in Oregon. Though waves were ranging from five to seven feet, the conditions were surprisingly calm for a late fall day on the normally frothing Pacific Ocean off the Oregon Coast this time of year.

I caught my requisite number of waves to put my mind in a state that is hard to describe.

For me, when I surf, I can think of nothing else besides waves, the weather, the current, and the ride that still may come. Surfing, which I started in earnest in 2016, has been a way for me to let go of stress. It was almost essential for the years leading to my mom’s inevitable death from Alzheimer’s disease in February 2020. I am grateful for that.

There are other things on my mind now, besides the pandemic: our economy, my nation’s divisions, global problems and conflicts, climate change, and so much more. Some of these concerns are entirely personal. So surfing remains a good check on the weight of life. It gives me a jolt of a good ocean feeling that can last long after I last surfed.

The last year I went out to the ocean less than half a dozen times. I hope to get out a few more in 2021. My job routine is now changing, so it might be possible if the stars align. For that I remain grateful.

I still find surfing to be a deeply personal sport.

However, sport also has downsides. As a commercial activity, it encourages unsustainable tourism. It also brings out human vanity—glorifying physical beauty as a commodity when it is an empty shell and basic narcissism—and turning an activity with deep cultural roots into a commercial transaction.

For me it remains what it has always been since I finally committed myself to start surfing in the cold Pacific.

July Surf at Seaside

 

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It has been more than six months since I surfed on the Oregon Coast. That is far too long.

I headed out Saturday, given the forecast and smaller waves that still suit my skill level at my favorite Oregon surfing beach, Seaside.

I caught 19 waves that I count as rides, and yes I count. I had some nice long ones, choppy short ones, and many in between. The skies were overcast, giving the water a beautiful, translucent green hue. I had forgotten how beautiful waves can be, to seem them barrel as you try to beat the them before they break on your board as you paddle out.

Hours after coming home I realized just how much I had overdone it. I knew the last five waves probably should have been avoided. Too many things hurt—shoulders, chest, neck. However, my Black Butte Porter never tasted better and my sleep was the most restful in months.

I took this shot of the few surfers who were still out in the water when I pulled out early Saturday evening.

Surfing when the thermometer says it is freezing

I never tire of seeing morning light at Seaside Cover, even on a cold winter day.
Morning light creates magic on a freezing day at Seaside Cove.
One of the few surfers at Seaside on Feb. 10, 2018, catches a ride.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Last weekend I surfed for the first time since late December 2017. My shoulder mostly had healed and the conditions beckoned me to the Oregon Coast.

I left Portland around 6:45 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 10, and arrived at Seaside as the sun was rising on a mostly calm Pacific Ocean. My car thermometer read 27 F. The freezing temperatures created a beautiful scene, with mist rising from calm breaks and a magical play of light on the surf. An icy frost still covered the smooth sea rocks that line the shore at Seaside Cove, a popular surfing destination on the coast.

Despite these freezing temperatures, my wetsuit, booties, and gloves kept me warm as toast. My ongoing bronchitis left me performing well below average. In between my coughs, I still caught about 18 waves.  Only two were truly sublime.

I was expecting to see more surfers, but perhaps the freezing temperatures kept them away. I cannot blame them. Not everyone can find bliss in the surf when frost is still visible.

Winter surfing in Oregon

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Oregon’s winter surfing season has arrived. That means one often puts on a wetsuit when it is below freezing outside and enters the cold Pacific Ocean when most people are bundled up in mittens and hats.

That never stops Oregon surfers, at least at Seaside.

Despite a persistent shoulder injury, I made three trips this month.  I need to hold off on future outings for a while until this stubborn problem is healed.

I took these shots on Dec. 23 and 31, 2017. Both were exceptionally mild days at this popular surfing spot. I counted more than 40 surfers in the waves both times.

I love that this crew of men and women are not fazed by the cold. All one needs is the right attitude, the right wetsuit (at least a 5/4/3 or 5/4), booties, and gloves. The rest is up to the pure, divine energy pumping in from the ocean’s depth to the sands of Oregon.

I hope everyone finds the right wave in 2018 and shares the stoke, no matter where they are.

December on the Oregon Coast

 

Magical light filters through the forest at Oswald West State Park.
Nehalm Bay, on the Oregon Coast
Stormy waters by Oswald West State Park
Surf’s up at Oswald West (look to the lower right for the surfer, if you can see him).

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Last weekend I headed to the Oregon Coast, not quite sure if the 8- to 10-foot waves would allow for a surfing dip in the ocean. My trip took me to Nahalem Bay by Manzanita, Oswald West State Park and Cannon Beach.

Oswald West always astounds me. Surrounded by steep coastal bluffs and a coastal rain forest, the snug bay is among the most visited surfing beaches in Oregon. On this day, the ocean was a frothing brew of crashing waves. Even then, I spotted three to four fearless surfers on short boards navigating the mini water towers and dropping down without fear.

I decided I had to get in myself. Further up the road, I parked near the Needles, a sand bar near Cannon Beach’s famed Haystack Rock. To my surprise, I was able to catch some foamy rides that ended surprisingly well as they hit the shore.

The ocean’s beauty seems more raw on these days. Humans feel more powerless. I felt tiny on my small board, bobbing like a fishing lure. A juvenile harbor seal swam circles around me, curious about why I was in its habitat on such a tempestuous day.

Surf so fine at Seaside

 

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Today was one of those perfect days for surfing on the Oregon coast that only seem to come every other month. The forecast at Seaside, Oregon for Saturday (Nov. 11, 2017) called for a high tide at 6:56 a.m., waves two to four feet high, and calm conditions, with sets spaced about every 10 seconds. For surfers in Oregon, this is damn close to paradise.

Seaside is a beautiful spot to surf at high tide under such conditions, when the wind is not coming from the northwest. The natural cove creates some beautiful breaks. Thankfully, the ocean provided lovely set after lovely set.

When I arrived around 7:15 a.m. there were already a dozen surfers in the water. By the time I was in for an hour, I counted 40 surfers. It is a rare sight to see that many surfers in any surfing beach in Oregon.

I discarded what my body told me to do, which was to stay out and let my injured shoulder heal.

I may have set myself back another month with my existing surfing injury. Who knows. Given we may not have surf this good until April, I do not think I had a choice. In the end, I caught more than 20 waves, all with little effort. My shoulder, however, it did not like what it was feeling when I finished. Oy vey, tomorrow I will have regrets.

As for the shark warning earlier in the week, in Pacific City, about an hour south, no one seemed too worried. Great whites are usually out there, whether we see them or not.

A year of exploration and surfing on the Oregon coast

On a beautiful day in May 2017, the early morning crew were nailing it at Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City.
On a stormy day at Seaside, the A-Tem were nailing tough overheads.
On a day with many whales breaching, the Seaside surfers were catching some sloppy waves as the day turned windy in mid-September 2017.
Hunter’s Cove in southern Oregon, a beautiful place.
Shark warning sign at Seaside, August 2017
Port Orford offers a lovely cover for surfing, but not during my visit in August 2017.
Samuel Boardman State Scenic Area
A standup paddleboard surfer at Seaside in June 2017 catches smaller waves.
A spring surfer nailing it at Seaside
Hunter’s Cover in southern Oregon is a beautiful surfing destination.
The sun sets at Humbug Mountain State Park, in southern Oregon.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Rudy Owens on the southern Oregon Coast, August 2017

A year ago this weekend, I became an Oregon surfer. I now feel confident enough to be in the lineup with every other surfer who shares my passion.

In September 2016, I bought a beginner board, the right wet suit, and other gear, and I began the long journey of mastering the art and sport of surfing by travelling from Portland to nearly all surfing spots on the Oregon Coast and even California and Washington.

The journey far exceeded all of my expectations.

I learned how to understand surf forecasting and paid close attention to the storm systems in the Pacific Ocean that control the weather from Alaska all the way down to the tip of Tierra del Fuego. I met people who shared my passion for the ocean and this highly alluring sport. Many of them have lived and surfed all over the world and country, and we all speak the language of surfing. Some are visitors, and others are residents who now call Oregon home. We all come together in the water, waiting for the wave, patiently sitting on our boards and scanning out for the next set rolling in.

I have learned how to read waves and practice the craft of positioning myself at the right place at the right time. In Oregon’s tough, stormy waters, this involves punching through feisty breaks that pound you as you try to reach to lineup in the water, where the waves give you that window of opportunity to tap their energy and capture moments of transcendence.

I have surfed during snowfalls and blinding rainstorms.

I have seen sea otters, harbor seals, humpback whales, and signs warning me of great white sharks that are common in these waters.

I have made new friends who love to wake up at crazy morning hours and meet at the ocean, just to capture the magic of the ocean in the morning, as the smell of saltwater fills your nostrils and the sound of the wares creates a feeling of calm in morning’s first light.

I have also learned how to ride waves during this time. When I started, I could barely get any. Now, when I go out, I can catch sometimes 20 or 30 rides, if the conditions are perfect or near perfect. Even on bad days, I am mastering the art of riding our very common cheeky waves. These can be fun.

Yesterday, on Sept. 16, 2017, I rode perhaps one of the best waves of my life. I started in the lineup at Seaside, near the rocky shore, and grabbed an overhead that took me almost 100 yards to the beach, riding its face and seeing the translucent water carry me on a pulse of energy. My grin grew wider with every second I was steering my 9-foot Stewart longboard.

Now, a year into this journey, I capture each outing with a surf diary, describing the ocean color and smells, currents, sets, wave patterns, colorful characters, my memorable experiences with wildlife and aquatic life, and my memories of the day. As a lifelong writer and journal writer, I can say this is perhaps the funnest journal I have ever kept.

 

Sunshine and surf on the Oregon Coast

The best rider I saw from the shore with this SUP surfer.
The sets as I was leaving were very nice. I like them this size, given my skill level.
I almost surfed here, at the Needles, at Cannon Beach. The waves looked nicer than Seaside’s, which was rare.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page).

With temperatures hitting nearly 100 fahrenheit in Portland on Saturday, June 24, 2017, you can bet everyone packed their bags and sunscreen and headed to the Oregon Coast. I joined them, but before most people were awake.

For the second day in a row I awoke well before daylight. This day, however, the surf conditions lived up to the forecast. That forecast said glass on the ocean, 1.5-foot waves, and mild wind. A day earlier, the waves were choppy and I did not drive out at 4:30 a.m. as I had planned.

Surfing is about many things. It is about understanding waves and weather. You must figure out prevailing winds, and how they impact waves at specific spots. Is the wind blocked by a point or jetty? Is a storm passing offshore, leading to bigger, rougher waves in greater frequency? What about the tide and the beach? Some beaches are bets at high tide, others at low tide.

My new board is a 9-foot Bill Stewart longboard, made for smaller waves.

Seaside, where I surf the most often, is a high tide beach. Low tide is usually in the morning, which meant I would arrive at low tide. Still, with baby waves, that meant ride-able conditions with my new 9-foot Bill Stewart longboard (an LSP).

My trip this past Saturday was its second outing. It had a trip the previous weekend at Otter Rock, where I was hammered by 6-foot waves that slammed me and the board hard into the sandbar, and I flew over the top of my board all too frequently. Today I could pop up and get longer runs, sometime catching the face of the waves for about 15 excellent rides over a nearly four-and-a-half-hour outing.

I’d say the waves were about two to three feet in height, and bigger in some sets. Despite sore ribs and a sore shoulder, I stayed in as the low tide was turning to high tide. My last three rides were really lovely. I outlasted most of the riders. Three shifts came and went during my trip. I still managed to get sunburned with a thick layer of zinc oxide.

On my last ride in I passed by a Japanese-American paddle boarder, wearing a blue wetsuit and with a blue SUP. She smiled, her hair still dry, and headed out. I would have like to asked her name.

After I got to shore and changed, I pulled out my camera and took some photos of her. She was the best rider out that day. The A-Team one can find at Seaside must have been at a different beach that day or didn’t want to bother themselves with rookie waves. After Seaside I dashed to nearby Cannon Beach to see what the Needles looked like. They looked better. I should have gone there.

I also decided before I rode my last wave of the day to name my new board “Sunshine.” Today, in the sun, it caught its first waves. We need sunshine a little more often on the Oregon Coast. My other board, a 7’6″ funboard is named “Trickster,” in honor of the coyote and raven I saw on its first day out. Both are good and appropriate names.

 

 

Otter Rock surfing on a winter’s day in Oregon

I finally made it out to Otter Rock, one of Oregon’s premier surfing beaches. The spot is located next to a state park, where you can also find Devil’s Punch Bowl. It’s a great place to appreciate the beauty and ruggedness of the Oregon coast.

Well, surfing here in the Northwest is never perfect, and Otter Rock like all beaches must contend with the swells and winds of winter. When I headed out on Feb. 17, 2017, the forecast called for not-so-windy weather and swells spaced apart at least 15 seconds. It proved far windier and rougher than I had bargained for.

Was that going to stop me? Heck no. I put on the suit and got out. I did get my requisite rides, plus many shorter rides closer to shore. Not a perfect day, but when you spend four hours in the waves, do you have anything to complain about? Absolutely not. A day later I still feel the vibe.