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orville elder : surf riding at waikiki, 1922

Orville Elder : Surf riding at Waikiki, 1922.

Extracts and photographs from:
Elder, Orville:
A Trip to the Hawaiian Islands with the Press Congress of the World
Evening Journal, Washington, Iowa,1922.

Open Libray
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7160784M/A_Trip_to_the_Hawaiian_Islands_with_the_Press_Congress_of_the_World

Introduction.
This

Page 75

This brief little sketch of the last day's doings at sea has been finished since we landed at Honolulu.
The governor's reception is over; the banquet of the evening has been finished; it is past midnight and I have just come up from
below where I sat for a little while by the side of Waikiki beach under a banyan tree and listened to the surf beat its soft song upon the sands of the shore and studied the silver path that stretched out across the undulating face of the Pacific toward the moon slowly sinking into the waters far across the way.
It was a dream picture, a visualized poem writing itself deep into the heart.

Page 77

The quarantine boat, a I.T.S. yacht, came close to us and two doctors boarded and lined us all up for quarantine inspection.
They were not very particular on this occasion, the personnel of the visitors being such that they did not need to fear anything very serious.
That was soon over and we were again back to enjoy the amazing spectacles which the Hawaiians were staging for our benefit. Such water sports few of us had ever seen before.
Many of us got our first glimpse of the outrigger canoes, the little craft that the skillful natives use in riding the surf and in penetrating to interesting sea points on the island coasts that cannot be reached by larger boats.

Page 117

[on Hawaii]

Glancing at my watch I was surprised to note that we were just upon the threshold of midnight, an early hour for anyone to want to sleep in such a night-beautiful world as this.
But I went to bed and tried to sleep.
Below I heard the pounding of waters and I was moved to go to the telephone myself and bombard the clerk below with some such query as: "Isn't there an ocean, or something down there in the back yard?
It won't let me sleep.
Can't you ask it to put down its transoms?"
But I didn't.
I listened to the incessant beat of the surf against the shore below until it became a sort of a soothing lullaby that in the end hurried me off to sleep, I think.
This morning the surf is still beating upon the shore ; it has been doing the same thing ever since we came.
It is presumed that it did the same thing steadily for several thousand years before w^e came and that it will go on doing so without pausing for breath for thousands of years more.

Page 168

Native Hawaiians enjoying the swimming at Waikiki Beach, Honolulu.
With surf boards and outrigger canoes they ride the most boisterous waves getting such a thrill as in no other experience.
You will greatly enjoy it, too.

Elder, Orville:
A Trip to the Hawaiian Islands
with the Press Congress of the World
Evening Journal, Washington, Iowa, 1922.

Open Libray
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL7160784M/A_Trip_to_the_Hawaiian_Islands_with_the_Press_Congress_of_the_World

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Geoff Cater (2013-2016) : Orville Elder : Surf Riding at Waikiki, 1922.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1922_Elder_Trip_Hawaii.html