Honolulu Lite
Say you were on a crowded beach and you saw some overweight guy floundering around in the waves offshore. You could tell this guy obviously was physically beat, bushed, out of breath, out of shape and out of luck, struggling to climb back onto a waveski as wave after wave washed over him. If you saw this and had any kind of heart, you'd help the poor guy or send someone out to help him, especially if only a few minutes earlier the beach had been closed because of a shark sighting and all of his splashing in the water probably resembled a wounded, not to mention tasty, sea mammal to a passing shark. Surf 4 Life was near-
death experienceAs I struggled back onto my waveski Sunday afternoon, gasping for breath, I wondered how all those bastards on the beach could just stand there and watch a grown man drown. I mean, where's the humanity? Where's the compassion? Where's the lifeguard?
Then after I got back on the waveski, I managed to regain my breath, realized I wasn't going to die by a seizure (either cardiac or Tiger Shark in nature) and paddled shakily back into the lineup and waited for the next wave.
I reminded myself that I was engaged in this liquid form of self-flagellation for a good cause, the 3rd Annual "Surf 4 Life" Kayak Surfing Competition to raise funds for the Stacy Brookfield Cancer Foundation.
Some 60 competitors turned out for the daylong event at Kalaeloa Beach Park at Barbers Point, 59 of them making it through the day without a near-death experience. The beach was littered with kayaks and waveskis of every color and description. Some were long, sleek and had rudders that could be moved with foot controls, others were stubby with tri-fins and others were run-of-the-mill kayaks with the turning dynamics of the Queen Mary. But all were propelled by someone sitting on them with a two-bladed paddle, which, in case of a disastrous wipeout, could be used as a splint.
I learned to surf at Barbers Point 30 years ago and this was my first time back since the military shut down the naval base. While still controlled by the military, the beach is open to the public.
The contest was organized and run by Gary Budlong and his "banana bunch" from Go Bananas Hawaii. Run, that is, until someone saw a shark in the water and the entire beach was closed for an hour. One hour seemed a rather arbitrary amount of time to allow a shark to mosey along (how does a shark tell time?) but as soon as the water was declared relatively shark-free, we paddled back out to finish our heats.
Despite being enormously out of shape and enormous in general, I managed to catch enough waves and do enough 360s, side-slips and backward rides (some of them even on purpose) to win the novice waveski division, which, though kind of a sad commentary on the sport of waveski surfing, was pretty cool nonetheless.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com