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witzig : oahu 1967, 1968 |
Two page
photograph:
"The
impressive
line up on North Shore of Oahu under a moderate swell".
Page 23
I preface
this
story with the advice that if this is not an absolutely
accurate reconstruction
of our trip to the Sandwich Islands, then it is the best
that I can make
up.
THE TRIP
I have never
been able to rid from my mind the similarity between a
crowded jet aircraft
and a flying cattle truck.
I suppose
though,
if any airline is going to do it for me, then it will be Air
New Zealand.
Their seats
may
be just as crowded and uncomfortable as anyone elses, but
their service
is superb.
Doctor
Spence,
Nat, Ted Spencer and I left Sydney for Honolulu via Auckland
at 3.00 p.m.
on 13th December.
Unfortunately
we
struck a tour load of American Tourists returning home from
God knows
where and probably Australia.
Consequently
the plane was packed.
I don't
think
I helped the whole deal by insisting on carrying on board my
six assorted
bags and cases of cameras.
As we took
off,
my mind was filled with things forgotten and jobs undone.
Still, it
was
too late.
At this
stage
I may introduce the first of my hints to would-be
travellers.
Get three
seats,
preferably for the price of one, pull out the arm rests, and
you have a
comfortable bed.
Then avail
yourself
heartily of the alcoholic beverages aboard and then sleep.
Denied of
three
seats, as we were on this flight, you must resort to
over-indulgence and
a fitful and thoroughly booze-induced sleep.
Flying in a
jet
is particularly beautiful at dawn and dusk.
So it was a
setting
sun that greeted us at Auckland Airport.
From past
experience
at Auckland, I thought that this would probably be the only
welcome.
Nat had a
few
of the local surfers down to meet him, hoping for a look at
his boards,
and by ...
Page 24
... the
time we
had used up the 38 cent voucher for goodies at the Airport
canteen, our
plane was ready for take-off.
Before we
left,
the girl at the post office succeeded in doing what Mr.
McEwen and his
Country Party compatriots had failed to do.
She devalued
the Australian dollar by insisting that the New Zealand and
Australian
dollar were indeed not worth the same, and deducted an extra
cent for a
couple of stamps.
Anyway,
somehow
you sleep till dawn, then it is breakfast and Honolulu
International Airport.
You are met
by
the customs who seem to believe most of what you tell them,
and then by
John Lind and Moku Froiseth of the Waikiki Surf Club who
sponsor the Makaha
Championships.
They have a
few
reporters since the Doctor is a judge for the contest and
since they want
Nat to compete.
He declines.
They are
very
kind to visiting surfers from Australia and fix the Doctor
up with a shiny
new VW with roof racks.
About this
time
we realise that the Doctor, whom we hadn't spoken to on the
plane, is a
friend of ours and we agree to accompany him on his travels.
HIS TRAVELS
His travels
started
at Waikiki.
For the
first
ten minutes the Waikiki area is quite interesting.
After that
it
is quite depressing.
There are
too
many tourists in floral shirts in too many large hotels.
My new
definition
of ludicrous is a pale American male from the mid-West in
new shorts with
skinny hairy legs sticking into nylon socks and the business
shoes that
he hasn't taken off yet.
And if you
have
seen American shoes you will know what I mean.
He finishes
his
tropical gear with a foul floral shirt and a plastic lei
($US 1.25).
Possibly the
most singular fault of Waikiki is that ...
Page 25
Two photographs by Peter French.
Page 26
Photograph of Nat Young.
Page 27
Six photographs.
Page 28
Three
photographs,
two of Joey Cabell.
"Cabell at
Backdoor
on his 9'5'' Brewer pintail.
He was
possibly
the most outstanding surfer in Hawaii this year."
Page 29
... there are just too many Americans there being themselves.
There is
surf,
Ala Moana, Queens, No. 3's etc., but it is mainly summer
surf.
Around
Christmas,
the United States winter, it is the North Shore of the
island of Oahu that
draws surfers from allover the world for its winter big
surf.
THE NORTH
SHORE
The North
Shore
is out in the country.
You drive
right
across the island, through miles of pineapples and sugar
cane which stretch
from the mountain chain in the east to those in the west.
You reach a
spot
amongst the pineapples when suddenly the North Shore is
spread out in front
of you.
From this
point
it is downhill about four or five miles to the town of
Haliewa.
When money
and
petrol is running short you can coast all the way to the
town.
Probably
the first
thing you notice about the North Shore is the fact that it
is really the
country.
There are no
hotels and lei-bedecked tourists.
There is
grass
and trees and plenty of rather ramshackle houses.
And the
inhabitants.
From every
imaginable
race they have bred and interbred.
Caucasians
(referred
to as Haoles) Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and the
Polynesians.
Few have
pure
race any longer, and racial intolerance is restricted to a
general dislike
of Haoles by the Polynesian Hawaiians.
If you are a
surfer, what will probably surprise you next is the relative
smallness
of locations such as Sunset and Waimea Bay.
At Waimea
the
huge waves break astonishingly close to the rocky point with
its church
tower.
The bay is
not
big at all, and Sunset is simply a small stretch of beach
that is quite
attractive, but hardly what you expected.
When there
is
no surf on the North Shore, it doesn't look like there ever
will be.
The North
Shore
can get so flat, even in the big surf season, that you have
to go lobster
fishing or mud sliding or anything you can think of.
But when the
surf is big, the whole North Shore is suddenly transformed.
BIG SURF
You wake up
in
the morning to a muffled roar that doesn't stop.
You walk
down
to the beach at Pipeline and it literally shakes.
The huge
waves
break far out to sea at places like Avalanch and Banzai.
The cars
stop
along the highway that runs from Haliewa around the coast
past Waimea and
Sunset, and groups of surfers gather to declde If the surf
can be ridden.
If its just
pretty
big then it is most probably Sunset, if it IS BIG, then it
is Waimea Bay.
Throughout
the
day, you will hear the fire brigade sirens as they race to
the rescue of
surfers caught in the Sunset rip.
One day
when we
were on the North Shore, two surfers had to be rescued by
helicopter after
spending two hours nearly a mile out to sea off Sunset,
unable to paddle
against the current, and unwilling to venture into the
break.
At Waimea, a
spectator walking along the beach was picked up by the 15
foot shore break
and quickly swept out to his death.
There was
nothing
that anyone could do.
HOUSES
Most of the
surfers
who come to the North Shore from allover the world find
houses to rent
right on the beach front in the Pipeline to Sunset area.
Apparently
in
earlier years, quite a few houses were wrecked by surfers (a
fact that
I don't find particularly difficult to believe).
In more
recent
times, surfing having grown up somewhat, there are quite a
number of good
houses that can be rented for about $100-$150 a month.
If you pack
a
few of your itinerant friends in, it's not too expensive.
There are
still
quite a few real pits around that can be rented very
cheaply.
There always
seems to be an equal number of animals who want to live in
them.
Some of the
landlords
and ladies are not a little suspicious of surfers and we
were lucky enough
to strike an old robber called Mrs. Zeigler.
For $2 a
night,
painfully extracted in advance, she rented us two rooms and
a bathroom.
Right at
Sunset
Point.
Only the
front
lawn and few yards of sand separated us from the surf.
SUNSET
Midget has
said
that when Sunset is good it is one of the ultimate truths in
surfing.
Most
unfortunately,
while we were on the North Shore, it only broke well on one
occasion.
And that was
the day of the Duke Contest.
I don't know
what anyone else thought, but considering the group of
competitors, I felt
that the contest was all over in almost indecent haste.
You bring
some
of the best surfers from all over the world and then put
them in four heats
and then a final.
For McTavish
it was a couple of swims, and at Sunset it is just allover.
More
probably
than not, Jock Sutherland would have won whichever way the
contest was
run.
His
fantastic
knowledge of how a difficult Sunset would break was so
evident in his choice
of wave. He would fade far left, then change feet and crank
a bottom turn
under twelve feet of white water.
He was
superb,
there was little doubt about it.
The
contest, though,
was over in mid-afternoon and for the first time all the
Australian kiddies
got a chance to test their skill and equipment, not to
mention their nerve,
in medium sized Sunset.
I don't
think
that there is much doubt that it was Nat who was the most
successful initially,
on that December afternoon.
He and
Cabell,
on two vastly different boards, with two vastly different
styles, worked
over late
afternoon
Sunset.
Russell, who
had only arrived that afternoon with Midget, used his
wide-tail Bells big
wave board to get into a few curls.
Midget
guessed
wrongly again about the board.
I think that
Ted was a bit psyched.
But it was
Nat
who carved some beautiful tracks on those waves.
His board
worked
and as he drifted on radical turns.
Joey Cabell
swung
his big controlled arcs on the pintail.
At no other
time
on the North Shore was the difference in the style and
approach of the
leading Hawaiian and Australian surfers so evident.
Nat, on his
short
wide-tailed board was utilizing the ability of his board to
pull fantastic
turns with instant acceleration.
Cabell was
carving
the most beautiful long arc turns, both bottom and top turns
and always
in the curl.
Perhaps he
was
corning from further inside than Nat, certainly this was so
at Haliewa
a few days later.
HALEIWA
I have seen
Haleiwa
on a number of occasions.
It has been
flat,
or it has been reasonable.
On one day,
with
a good swell, and a side wind at Sunset, Haleiwa was 12' and
good.
It was so
good
that I just could not imagine that Haliewa could get like
that, and neither,
I imagine, could the eighty surfers In the water, or the one
hundred and
eighty other photographers on the beach.
I wonder on
reflection
whether the rest of them wasted as much film as I did that
day.
The spray
was
particularly bad and through the lens it just looked like a
messy mass
of blues and greys and sprayey-whites.
Still, if
the
photographs were to end up as a disappointment, then
certainly the surfing
on that day at Haleiwa was not.
To my mind
it
was Cabell and Nat who were again outstanding.
Hawaiian
Joey
was coming from far inside and making waves where even
George Downing and
Ricky Grigg weren't.
Nat gave up,
more because of the limitations of the crowd than because of
those of his
board or ability.
Certainly,
Drouyn
came from inside on a few waves, but they were not much more
than stand-up
rides.
Cabell
though,
was outstanding.
Tight in the
curl, his 9'8" pintail board would fly across the face of
the fantastic
Haliewa waves.
What had
become
apparent, at Sunset on that late afternoon, was now
compounded at Haliewa.
There were two schools of thought: Nat and acceleration,
Cabell and flow.
It is difficult to the point of being impossible to try to evaluate one approach as against the other. There is ...
Page 30
... a
considerable
gulf between the two, attributable to the basic experience
that has, as
its result, either of the two points of view.
As an
Australian,
I was more used to Nat's approach to surfing, and if it
should appear that
I am biased in my appraisal, then it may very well be that
this is so.
I cannot but think that the general approach of the pintail-flow school of thought is a logical extension, and perhaps conclusion, of a style of riding big waves that began with the first attempt on the big surf of the North Shore in the late 50s and early 60s.
In
contrast, the
short board- acceleration school of the Australian surfers
appears to me
to hold the key to the future.
I would be
the
last to claim that on the North Shore this year the
Hawaiians, on their
conventional equipment, were out-performed by the
Australians on their
short, V bottom boards.
Yet I cannot
contain the enthusiasm that I feel for the breakthrough in
performance
big wave surfing that I feel must ultimately flow from this
initial Australian
assault on the Hawaiian surf.
Most
probably
there are lessons to be learnt from each approach.
Perhaps in
some
way, a marrying of the flow and acceleration is not
impossible.
The sort of
board
that this would necessitate is quite beyond my knowledge.
While we
were
in Maui, shaper Dick Brewer began to experiment with V
bottoms on pintails.
Perhaps
there
is an answer here.
Yet I find
the
two styles of approach to surfing to practically be the
antithesis of one
another.
To my mind
the
potential is with the Australian surfers and their
equipment.
There is
greater
experimentation being done in Australia, and the excitement
and inspiration
that must arise from this, not to mention the equipment,
assures a significant
place in the future.
SHOPS
There is
more
in Haleiwa than just surf.
But not that
much.
There is a
court
house that used to double as a post office, a new post
office and a couple
of supermarkets.
In the older
part of town there are two pool rooms, some other shops, and
the Kogo Theatre.
If you don't buy your food at either of the two shops at Sunset, Kammeys or the Sunset Beach Store, then you shop at one of the markets at Haleiwa.
If you
start off
with the idea that everything is going to be expensive and
not as good
as your'e used to then you will probably get along O.K.
The
alternative
to cooking, which we didn't do much of anyway, at anytime,
is to eat at
the drive-ins or whatever else they are called.
And if you
do,
you will wonder with me just how Americans have existed on
such crap for
so long.
The whole
food
set up is so completely different to ours in Australia.
There just
aren't
any butchers (meat is too expensive anyway,- $4.95 for a
steak in a restaurant)
or fruit shops or any other specialized shops.
And while I
see
in Australia that we are heading in this direction, I hope
that we might
never have cause to go all the way with L.B.J.
I miss being
able to go into the fruit shop at Avalon and argue and
bicker about the
apple or carrot or grapefruit that I am going to finally
purchase.
I simply
cannot
get used to homogenised, plasticised packs of apples, or the
chalky milk
that is any- where from 38c to 41c for not much more than an
Australian
pint.
I think it
was
Nat who led the animal group into the local yoghurt that
everyone had looked
at with well deserved suspicion.
Surprisingly
it was good and remained the staple diet for most of the
time on the North
Shore.
Any other
problems
with food consumption or the essential bodily functions were
cured by liberal
dosages of prune yoghurt.
SOME OF THE
PEOPLE
The Doctor
had
a few friends on the North Shore, and spent some
considerable time socialising
in their company.
While we
were
staying with the inscrutable Mrs. Zeigler he managed to
wangle an invitation
to a Chinese wedding at which he proudly informed us he
devoured a bottle
of scotch (I fail to i this day to establish any connection
between the
Chinese and the scotch).
He and I
went
one evening to the Duke Kahanamoku's Night Club in Honolulu
for dinner
and the floor show that featured a faintly funny fellow
called Don Ho.
He relied on
sex and drugs and embarrassing members of the audience for
laughs but the
food was pretty good.
If we had
been
able to get a second drink it might have been a good
evening.
Another of
the
Doctor's friends was a Doctor Butler who had an old quonset
hut near Rocky
Point which is just a little southish of Sunset.
Dr. Butler
has
a family that consists of Mrs. Butler and a couple of sons.
Somehow one
of
them got called Arma and the quonset hut as a consequence
Anna hut, and
if I can carry this just a little farther, the left in front
of the hut,
Arma Break.
One late
afternoon,
the Doctor decided that he and I, accompanied by a six pack
of beer, should
call on the Arma Hut.
It was well
we
did, for as the day progressed, the waves got better till at
last light
they were 6'-8' pipes.
A few local
Hawaiian
surfers and Californians Corky Carroll and Rusty Miller
played with the
waves or let the waves play with them.
Just on dusk
McTavish went out and rode a few goodish waves.
CARS
When
Australians,
or anyone else for that matter, arrive in Hawaii, they have
to decide just
what they will do about transport.
On this
occasion,
we were lucky since the Doctor had his magic Volkswagen.
Other times
and
other surfers are not so fortunate, and then you realise
that if the food
is bad and
expensive,
then
cars are bad but very cheap by Australian standards.
Many of the
cars
and station wagons in Hawaii are rolling rust buckets.
All of the
cars
that surfers buy can be relied upon to be.
Because of
their
dubious condition they are practically given away.
For $100 you
can purchase a huge Yank tank that is guaranteed to hold at
least six surfers
and their board shorts and boards and at least an equal
amount by weight
of rust.
Racks get
stolen
if you leave them out at night.
Come to
think
of it, just about everything else does too, so the answer is
to have no
possessions, and in particular, no racks.
Boards are,
by
common practice, either stuck out of the back of station
wagons, or else
out of boots.
The way
people
carry boards, the way they speak, the way they steal your
things, all these
you get used to pretty quickly.
And unless
you
are pretty stupid, you get used to the American money pretty
quickly too.
Poor
Russell,
he imagined for at least a week or so, that the smallest
silver coins were
obviously the 5c pieces, and the next larger ones, lOc.
Unfortunately,
these
sort of rules applied only in Russ's head.
Still, for a
week or so he was welcomed with open anns by every shop
keeper from Sunset
to Haleiwa.
SOME OF THE
OTHER
SPOTS
To anyone
whose
knowledge of the surf of Hawaii is restricted to informa-
tion gleaned
from surfing movies, you might be forgiven for thinking that
the ...
Page 31
... surf on
the
North Shore is Sunset, Pipeline, Waimea and perhaps Haliewa.
In fact, the
twelve or so miles from Haleiwa to Velzyland, which is not
far past Sunset,
is loaded with surfing breaks.
Chuns,
Laueakai,
Gas Chambers, Rocky Point, Pupakai, Widows Peak and all the
other ones
named or not.
Just a
little
farther around the point at Sunset is a break that was
alternatively referred
to as Backyard or our Place.
During our
stay
on the North Shore (which admittedly was not long) this spot
was practically
the exclusive surf of the Australians and a New Zealander or
so.
There is
just
so much surf on the North Shore that when there is any kind
of swell you
can surf for days and never see most of the other
Australians or Californians
that are living just down the road. This year, the North
Shore was loaded
with Californians, partly as a legacy of the Duke contest
and partly due
to the annual exodus to the islands.
Most of the
supernames
of the Californian scene were packed into houses around
Sunset.
Dora, Rusty
Miller,
Hynson, Mike Doyle, and Bob Cooper.
It reads
like
a Who's Who of U.S. Surfing.
Possibly the
annual Makaha contest which is held over the Christmas
period still attracts
some of the Californians though their success in the contest
has not been
conspicuous.
So it was to
be this year.
With the
Doctor
amongst the international judging panel, Hawaiian Joey
Cabell was adjudged
the winner with Australian Peter Drouyn in third place.
Despite some
criticism that apparently flowed home from the islands,
competition, whether
the Duke or Makaha, was not the reason for the Australians
being in Hawaii
this year.
Rightly or
wrongly,
competition is no longer the motivating force in surfing.
If
competition
is reponsible for allowing some surfers to travel throughout
the world
then at least this
is one
positive
and pleasant attribute that has come from it.
SIRENS AND
NEW
YEAR'S EVE
On the first
Tuesday of each month, the big yellow sirens that sit on
their poles every
few
miles or so along the North Shore are tested.
The testing
occupies
about ten minutes or so.
The purpose
of
the sirens is to warn of approaching tidal waves or imminent
nuclear attack.
Since no
tidal
wave of any consequence has hit the islands for some years,
everyone just
ignores the sirens when they do go off.
And hopes
that
the Russians don't attack on the first Tuesday of the month.
The sirens
though
have nothing whatever to do with New Year's Eve.
Even if they
went off in the hour or so preceding the dawn of the new
year, no one would
hear them. The Hawaiians have hit upon the interesting idea
of welcoming
in the new year with vast quantities of fireworks.
The most
spectacular
are the huge strings of crackers that like a string of Tom
Thumbs multiplied
some hundred times or so, ignite each other, so the noise is
lengthy and
loud.
Have a
thousand
of these going off simultaneously amongst the buildings and
streets of
Honolulu and it is difficult to hear yourself think.
It is New
Year's
Eve so you are boozed, so it doesn't matter about thinking
and it's good
fun anyway.
HONOLULU
AIRPORT
AND THREE SEATS
This kid had
to come home earlier than anyone else since duty called and
he had to write
this story. And since no one had any intention of going out
of their way
to help him he was deposited along with his luggage at the
airport twelve
hours before the plane left.
And with two
dollars.
Thorough
searching
of pockets brought two more dollars (Aust.) to light and
these were quickly
changed into play money.
Actually, it
was very interesting watching the parade of humanity and
others that passed
through the terminal during those hours.
I would hide
behind a book and carefully observe the Moms and kids and
bulging khaki
sergeants and pressed officers.
And they
nearly
all chew gum, all the time.
And some of
them
wear funny long shorts and fancy jackets.
And long
pants
with cuffs on them.
And those
funny
shoes again.
I spent the
last
couple of hours in the bar spending the two dollars that had
not been previously
sacrificed to books or food.
'Can I see
your
I.D.?'
'We don't
have
them where I come from', 'Then your passport'.
You prove
your
age to get a drink and watch the planes with binking lights
yake off into
the darkness.
Then it is
your
turn and you walk quickly, and then more slowly when you
realise that it
is still early. The plane is a little late taking off.
It is now
1.30
in the morning.
You want to
sleep.
Three seats!
At last
comfort.
You can
sleep.
So you do
and
wake up with a twisted back that kills you for three days.
Ah! well, it
had been a fine plan.
Auckland
airport
for an hour again.
Breakfast
just
before, lunch just after.
The hours
and
meals are completely screwed up.
This time
you
are chasing hours and losing days.
Memory
usually
embroiders reality, but I can remember having particularly
beautiful and
helpful hostesses on the way home.
The Air New
Zealand
stewards were great too.
They didn't
have
a planeful of Americans on their dying tour to look after.
Just me.
Despite the
hostess
landing the plane we made it to Sydney Airport.
Home.
It felt
good.
It would be
great
to be home and see friends again.
I was
excited
and pleased.
That is
until
I stepped out of the plane.
It was windy
and cool.
My carefully
acquired suntan faded as a few drops of rain splashed into
my face.
The door to
the
customs was across forty yards of grey tarmac.
I was home.
 |
Surf International Vol. 1. No. 4 March 1968. Cover: Nat Young |
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