KAUAI, Hawaii – If we can even contemplate a trip to a tropical island, it’s usually the allure of warmth that ultimately draws us there, leaving our neighbours to endure a frigid La Nina winter in Southern Alberta. But, while the sun, exotic flowers, palm trees and umbrella-topped pina coladas are what we might expect as routine trappings of a Hawaiian respite in January, it’s play that rejuvenates us, usually in the water. For most of us, water sports and recreation start when we’re tossed into a pool or lake before we can walk. Responsible parents send us to the Y to take swimming lessons so we can enjoy the water with less risk, although there’s still plenty of that even for those who can swim with the fish. I had two friends who perished surfing in the Caribbean barely into their 20s. I tried it myself in Southern California in the late 1960s, although it wasn’t with a board. If you timed swimming toward shore with an incoming wave, you could ride it with nothing but your skin under you. A wilder wave could toss you like a twig headfirst into the sea bottom, no problem. So, when my brother Dale brought a couple of boogie boards to the beach at Hanalei Bay in Kauai, it wasn’t like a totally new experience. And I had watched young surfers effortlessly catch the most beautiful aqua waves with their boards down the beach. Nothing to it.
A boogie board is a metre-long, polystyrene-centred plank with a cord attached that you tie to your wrist. That keeps the board from heading for shore by itself when a wave dumps you. True surfers often have a longer umbilical cord that keeps them and their boards together. My first efforts were pretty tentative. Had a bit to do with the awareness that big waves can hurt you. I paddled out into the 24 C water a ways and got a snootful of saltwater. Shook it off and tried to time paddling shoreward in front of a promising-looking wave. It fizzled. In the end, the best I could do was ride a wave perhaps 10 metres, but that didn’t matter: this isn’t about competition, just having fun. Meanwhile, Dale, with far more experience and athleticism, caught wave after wave as though he had been born into it. It’s not uncommon in Hawaii, they say, for parents to drop their two-year-old keikis (children) into the surf. They quickly adjust, in time to climb aboard the surfboard that gets flung in after them. That’s how it starts here. On another day at another beach called Anini, conditions were perfect for snorkeling. Again, not a totally novel experience, but apparently moustaches prevent masks from sealing tightly. Didn’t matter. I felt privileged to swim among metre-long sea turtles. Not far from me, a frail looking 80-something man seemed quite at home scouting out the sea-life on coral bottom a couple of metres down. As if I needed any more illustration of how precious water is.
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