As more stake claim to surf spot, aloha suffers

A couple weeks ago, when the country got enormous waves from the west-northwest, sending a smaller wrap-around swell past Kaena Point to town, I woke before dawn, excited to catch an hour of surf before work.

Sure enough, the waves at Suicides were rising, but as I looked out from shore, my heart sank at the size of the crowd: The regular predawn crew of “worker bees,” as the retired Captain calls us, had been swarmed by — we’ll call them “wrapper wasps.”

I gave it a pass.

Next morning, the surf was still up, but so were the surfers. I counted 13 in the lineup, and three more paddling out.

Andree, one of the morning regulars, was stretching at the sea wall.

“You going out?” I asked.

“Nah,” she said. “I been here 20 minutes and I’ve seen three sets.”

“How many waves per set?”

“Maybe three.”

I did the math. Like Andree, I didn’t have the energy to go out and compete for waves when there weren’t enough to go around.

Incredibly, this was the off-season on the South Shore. It used to be uncrowded from October through February, as surfers were lured by big waves to the north.

Nowadays, there’s really no difference, crowd-wise, between winter and summer at Suis.

This off-season has been the worst yet. In October, when the torch usually passes to the country, I paddled out into an off-season south swell as Gerald came paddling in. “There’s some fun ones, but it’s crowded,” he said.

“Why is it always crowded?” I lamented.

Gerald looked at me as if I was missing a few.

“Because the waves are good here.”

Really? I’d always thought of Suis as a substandard, wind-lashed, shifty break where I surf only because I live close by. I wouldn’t drive to it.

I’D ALMOST forgotten, but when I was a child, there was no beach park fronting Suis the way there is now. The shoreline was filled by homes and a fenced right-of-way led to the beach. It was locked, and only neighborhood residents had a key.

In the 1970s, one of the mansions burned down and the city condemned the land for Makalei Beach Park.

Suis was revealed and opened up to the public.

A proponent of public shoreline access, I know we have to accept visitors. It’s a challenge, though, when beachgoers circle our neighborhood all day, blocking the narrow streets while they wait for a parking space. We come home to find cars sticking into our driveway and diapers, dog waste and fast-food trash chucked into our blue and green bins, on the curb and our carport floor.

Out in the water, various surfers who don’t live in the neighborhood have the temerity to claim Suis as their local spot and intimidate others with verbal abuse, paddling too close and making menacing gestures with their fists and muscle-bound arms.

They remind me of the Bay Boys of Lunada Bay, a surf area off Palos Verdes, the cliff-ringed peninsula that’s Southern California’s version of Diamond Head. A gang of self-proclaimed locals, the Boys have harassed and attacked other surfers at the break for decades. Last year, state and federal lawsuits were filed against 10 of them and Palos Verdes Estates.

On Martin Luther King’s birthday, a public surf demonstration at Lunada Bay was held in excellent waves to celebrate the reverend’s inclusive message. A crowd of surfers from across the region paddled out and the event went off peacefully under watchful police presence, the Los Angeles Times reported.

I hope we can instill civility at Suis without calling the cops.

Now that it’s an odd-numbered year, fishing in our area is illegal and life is returning to the reef. Schools of baby moi swoosh beneath the surface.

On the South Shore, surfers used to get a fallow season when we and the environment could recover our equilibrium. It’s something to keep in mind and talk about as we try to enjoy and share the overused blue commons offshore.

“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.