In the Lineup: Kauai provides solace for loss of bodysurfing buddy

The first thing I recognized, as we arrived on Kauai early on a misty November morning, was the sweet, fresh air. It smelled of ferns and earth, waterfalls and streams. Kauai had changed a lot, friends said — more development, more congestion — but the memory-charged air made me hope some other things had stayed the same in the 21 years since we’d been there last.

At the top of our list was the beach break at Keoneloa Bay on the southeastern Poipu shore known as Shipwrecks, which, like Makapuu Beach Park on Oahu, was a recognized bodysurfing and bodyboarding spot. Although, unlike Makapuu, it was unguarded and not formally dedicated to swimmers and sponges (body­-boarders), we never saw stand-up surfers there.

Shipwrecks also lacked Makapuu’s unspoiled, protected natural beauty: Most of the Keoneloa shoreline was dominated by the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort. But when conditions aligned here, perfect waves peeled off a black rock point and a secondary peak barrelled into crashing shorebreak. The water felt fresh and alive in a convergence of currents that could be treacherous: Many had drowned, and although Don and I were strong swimmers, we often found ourselves gasping for breath.

Don and I feared that Shipwrecks had been altered by the rainstorms that had battered Kauai in April. We had learned to take nothing for granted after Hurricane Iwa in 1982 stripped the sand and permanently altered the shape of the once-perfect waves at Brennecke’s Beach, a beloved bodysurfing shorebreak nearby on the Poipu coast.

Then David Parrish told us about Shipwrecks.

“Don’t tell anyone, but it’s better than Brennecke’s,” he said.

Thanks to Shipwrecks, our New Yorker son became a bodysurfing fanatic: In 1997, at age 11, he had his breakthrough there during a big spring swell, grinning ear to ear when a local kid shouted, ”You got barreled, man!” After that he was a whirwind, catching 44 waves. We couldn’t get him out of the water, and nearly missed our plane back to Honolulu.

WHENEVER WE came home from New York, David, on days off from his lifeguard tower at Magic Island, took us on bodysurfing safaris around Oahu in his jazzy but uncomfortable red sportscar. If it was winter, we’d drive to Ehukai, and continue around the island to Pounders and finally Makapuu. Mostly, we listened to music and talked, David telling us Woody Allen-esque stories about his dating failures that made us laugh.

David made others laugh, too, as a stand-up comic. In one of his most memorable skits, he played a dive tour guide in the polluted Ala Wai Canal. In truth, though, he was often lonely and depressed. He had been divorced and he’d witnessed several drownings during his former lifeguard posting at Hanauma Bay, and though these bad times were long since past they continued to weigh on him.

We hadn’t been back to Shipwrecks since David’s death in 2013.

This trip would be our David Parrish Memorial Bodysurfing Experience.

SHIPWRECKS HAD survived the storms. The surf was glassy, with occasional tubular sets. However, it was dominated by bodyboarders and soft-top longboards. There wasn’t a single bodysurfer in sight besides us and a man named Puuloa, who came down in his bike shorts with his Viper fins, dove in briefly, then shook his head and drove away.

We hiked instead, climbing up Makawehi Point, the sandstone bluff that juts out over the water with the profile of a giant mo‘o, or water lizard. We walked in the wind along the sand dunes and ocean cliffs of the Mahaulepu trail, which gives a great impression of natural solitude if you ignore the golf course that runs alongside. David would have appreciated that.

Next morning, Sunday, Shipwrecks was nearly flat, but we had it to ourselves. It was quiet except for the brisk offshore wind. When you caught a wave, there was that unique roaring, crunching sound — the voice of the mo‘o —as the spinning cylinder broke around you.

“It’s like flying into the wind,” David said of bodysurfing. One of his Hawaiian names, kaha, means to engrave or slice, which is what a skilled bodysurfer does on the wall of the wave, just as friends like David engrave themselves forever in our hearts.

“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.