Sampling the North Shore

I can’t tell if it’s the cold brew or the sheer adrenaline feeling I get from sitting on the sand and watching Pipe explode in glorious and violent close outs, but in short—I got the shakes.

Boogies are out, nary a surfer in sight, but plenty of people and tourists, including me, trickling onto the sandy arena to watch what most of the world spies on from a Surfline cam and jaded North Shore locals snooze through: walled Pipeline

 

No shame in acting like a tourist now, as I hide in the shade, perched in front of bushes. My phone battery is about to die, but I’m trying to capture any semblance of the iconic break showing its face for the boogies charging. I gotta pee so bad, but that urge is corked the second a set rolls through, my heart pumping, my eyes searching for a clean wave.

Nope! As a boogie pulls out to save their neck.

I wonder where Polly is surfing as I pontificate, watching waves detonate on the reef and burst onto the sand. She would be surfing today, she charges.

I hear Pidgin and Portuguese; my stomach screams for food from the previous night’s lilikoi cocktails at Turtle Bay with Christie. I’m due at Emily’s house and then KK’s on South Shore, not sure how I’ve made it this far running around nonstop, surfing with some of my favorite surfer girls, and eating more poke than I care to disclose.

Between this and my recent serving gig at a sushi restaurant, mercury poisoning might be a thing if I keep up the pace of eating what feels like the Pacific Ocean’s entire tuna population.

There is an energy to North Shore—one that separates you from the hustle and bustle of the outside world and keeps you obsessed. A beautiful and strange culture clash of trust fund kids or the insanely rich shooting the breeze, tourists with surface level thoughts of surf lore, and those scraping to get by in the name of surfing, well, really, big wave surfing. All here to take in more than just the plumeria scent that dances on every breeze twisting and blowing toward the next rain cloud that hosts a rainbow on every corner. Starbucks? Nah, rainbows—everywhere. And they get you hyped, too, heart pounding in fact. It’s like the earth just smiled at you and no matter what mood you’re in, you smile back because: rainbows and North Shore.

But for kicks, drink some coffee, because it’s pretty damn good, too.

Pipe ebbed and flowed in a soupy fashion with swells marching over the lesser groomed sandbars and reef—supposedly the sand needs to move around more and the west swells can help with that from what the girls tell me. But as a tourist, I’m here to watch and observe, zero percent desire to paddle out, just watch it up-chuck boogies like frogs ejecting themselves from a hot frying pan. A cleaner, much more frightening freight train version of Newport’s Wedge. Not at the level of literally feeling the ground shake, but I’ll take it, my bucket list mostly satisfied.

The last time I stumbled upon Ehukai Beach, it was the week of the Fourth of July in 2009, and some kind of wind swell showed up. I had no idea at the time where the hell this break actually was, but I was there at hallowed ground all the same. No match for the raw power combusting in front of me now—shape be damned.

I could’ve passed out in the sand from all the hopscotches I’ve played for the last several days, but hunger drives me onward to Hale’iwa town to Emily and a breakfast burrito with kalua pork calls my name.

North Shore makes you start over—square one, except you face moving carpet currents, at similar annoyance levels of HB. Small is firing by SoCal standards, at least that’s what I kept telling KK when we were out.

“If you weren’t here, I might not have paddled out today, it’s small and windy,” she laughed in between blustery north wind sets.

“Really? You’d be surfing with 50 of your best friends if this were California,” I joked back.

For the second time this year, I felt like a Floridian, only this time I was frothing over what some consider small waves, still shoulder to head high on me. First time Floridian feels was during the SurfAid donation rally, where I was met with afternoon chop slop waves—something that our east coast kinfolk are accustomed to.

My opening day on North Shore began paddling out with Tori at Shark’s Cove to a spot called Laniakea, or “Lanis.”

A familiar sight: KK’s smiling and sunglassed mug in the lineup, all three of us wearing team black surf suits—mine finally worn the correct way (hint: ask KK about the incorrect way). I tried out Tori’s XO Coco Bliss 5’3 fish. Waves were extremely manageable and fun, and fish was fast enough to make the sectiony lefts.

But because it was North Shore, my heart was still in my throat and all I could hear in my brain were the tall tales from books and friends back home who had surfed it a million years ago, pre-kids, pre-mortgages. Talking to me as though every story was a precautionary tale, as though I might drown in those random, bigger sets, while my Hawai’i friends laughed and hooted when a bigger set came through.

Sure, bigger sets would come through and my eyes would go wide, but somewhere in between KK’s laughs and the pit of my stomach, I managed to crack a smile and sing a song out loud—much to KK’s dismay:

“Pinky pony club! I’m gonna keep on dancing down in West Hollywood!” I busted out

“Damn, Jackie, now that’s in my head, only I changed the lyrics because some grom kept paddling right in front of me last minute—‘get out of the way…grom stop dropping in on me,’” she chimed to Chappell Roan’s tune.

I laughed and continued to sing it every time the horizon darkened.

As soon as I took a wave, I got the jitters out; there were maybe four other people out. Everyone else saved their energy for what came later in the week and where one might eventually find my tired ass burrowed in the sand at Pipeline.

Chuns, Piddlies, Hale’iwa and Lanis some more—nothing death-defying, just sampling and exploring. I forgot about the size for two seconds after my obnoxious singing and KK helped me crack a smile. Then I wondered what my reaction would be if I saw a solid triple overhead wave—I might short-circuit…or maybe need some loudspeakers.

Christie says I could handle it. I chuckled because she has an impact vest and gets towed regularly, so she surfs that size no problem.

“Seven seconds, Jackie, that’s the most you actually get held down. You’d be fine.”

Regardless, it makes me proud to know these gals. Maybe I should stick to my “exposure therapy” strategy.

In Terminator fashion (because what else would you expect a Connor to say): “I’ll be back.”

 

As Published on Frothy Fools