A rock to return to

I am caught inside but so is Jim Pollock and Ambrose Curry! Does that make it better? No! It makes it more problematic! Hanalei Bay is a wave with nuances depending on the swell direction, tide and what the originater of the swells is capable of generating. If it is a giant northern swell from a storm in the Aluetians maybe we move over to " The Left's In The Center Of The Bay "! No fun getting caught inside there either! When you are surfing Hanalei 6' to 8' feet with an occasional 10-12' it is a harry adventure! So ambrose, jim and I catch 6 waves apiece while Ralph Young and Rick Mc Duff and more are sitting and waiting and waiting and sometimes waiting even longer! We aren't! But here is the price you pay! When an outside set announces itself you can feel it before you see it. You begin to paddle frantically as you watch a mountain shape itself before your very eyes. You decide that you can make it over the first one, knowing there is another and another behind the visual. So what are your choices? It is way to late to buy a bigger board! Do I want to go over the falls with a board cord tied to my leg? Is it time to sing a CSN and Y song, " rejoice, rejoice, you have no choice, but to carry on!!!! Good-bye Jim! He didn't make the first big wave! Damn close! " Good from far, but far from good! Shit, I didn't make the 2nd biggie and almost died being held under water with my board crushing me, holding me by the pressure of the force of water on the bottom of the ocean's floor until I almost was forced to inhale salt water. Almost-again! Ambrose made it outside of that particular series of mixed size waves. But I saw him take off on a wave I didn't think he could make. He made the take-off and bottom turn and was driving towards me when it closed. I think my view was better than his. I watched the wave pass him so that he was going faster than the board he was riding was designed for. He didn't make it but he was tubular for an extremely long time, so long that I, watching my friend, forgot where I was an got sucked over the falls at intersections. It's really shallow there. Sometimes it is more fun watching a friend get the ultimate ride and you getting sucked over the falls is a price worth paying. We all have gone on to surf another day. I think I need to return to a rock, " The Jewell of the Pacific", The Garden Isle, Kauai No ka Oi!!! Aloha pumehana

Mark Twain "Landsmen on Sea Legs"

LANDSMEN ON "SEA LEGS"
Walking about on shore was very uncomfortable at first; there was no spring to the solid ground, and I missed the heaving and rolling of the ship's deck; it was unpleasant to lean unconsciously to an anticipated lurch of the world and find that the world did not lurch, as it should have done. And there was something else missed--something gone something wanting, I could not tell what--a dismal vacuum of some kind or other--a sense of emptiness. But I found out what it was presently. It was the absence of the ceaseless dull hum of beating waves and whipping sails and fluttering of the propeller, and creaking of the ship--sounds I had become so accustomed to that I had ceased to notice them and had become unaware of their existence until the deep Sunday stillness on shore made me vaguely conscious that a familiar spirit of some kind or other was gone from me. Walking on the solid earth with legs used to the "giving" of the decks under his tread made Brown sick, and he went off to bed and left me to wander alone about this odd-looking city of the tropics.
This excerpt is part of a series Samuel Clemens did for the Sacramento Union. It is called " Letters From Hawaii ". It is not only hilarious but accurate in a tongue in cheek classic Twainian style of which he founded! It's a great read.....Robbin