It was a wintry South Shore evening with small, blown-out surf, but high-tide waves crested the railing at Makalei Beach Park, spraying a line of Japanese tourists on Segways.
No one was out at Suis. It was a relief to see a natural, open horizon, unbroken by the silhouettes of party boats and the usual dense pack of surfers.
Then, just as the sun ducked beneath the waves, Kainoa came running down with his longboard and, barely breaking his stride, threw it into the water, jumped on and paddled out. I knew how he felt: Sometimes, no matter how late, you have to get wet and salty. You just have to get offshore.
I envied him the peace and quiet. After holiday get-togethers, I find myself craving solitude as the new year sails in.
One thing I won’t miss about 2016 is the record and incessant crowding we encountered in the surf throughout the year.
It’ll probably get worse this year, but I’m wishing otherwise on every evening star.
Surfers used to yell “Party wave!” on rare occasions when everybody broke etiquette and dropped in, laughing, all together. Now it happens so much that it ain’t no party in the lineup any more.
The crowding gets worse than in my cluttered kitchen, where I’m still mixing and chopping as holiday feasters arrive, each with a special dish that needs attention: a pot for reheating, a platter, serving — eh, get no more space for put it!
It’s chaos, but at least my guests are invited, whereas we’re all crashers in Mother Nature’s surf.
Speaking of which, I’m glad to see the end of the free-for-all in the Waikiki-Diamond Head Shoreline Fisheries Management Area, where fishing, which is allowed during even-numbered years, will be off-limits today through Dec. 31.
On New Year’s Day in an even-numbered year, it’s heart-rending to see the spear-wielders in their masks and camo wetsuits clogging the waters and towing in strings of bleeding, gasping fish — trusting targets after a year of being undisturbed.
Our reef ecosystem is fragile and damaged, as I neglected to mention last week, when I wrote about the custom of placing Christmas trees on the reef at Suis.
A reader commented, “Can I dump my rubbish out there, too?”
Mea culpa.
After World War II, the military dumped a lot of metal on the reefs at Suis, Graveyards and Tonggs, including a couple of vertical poles. But if anyone has a mind to lash a tree to the poles this year, try stay in the channel and don’t step on the coral.
I shudder to think of how we climbed on coral heads as kids and walked on the reef to retrieve our boards in the days before leashes.
At least the neighborhood consciousness has evolved beyond the annual New Year’s Day Reef Party that former neighbor Neal McHenry told me about in an email.
“New Year’s Day always had a super low tide at Suicides. So we took folding tables and chairs, coolers of beer and wine, good kau kau and lots of friends on boards or canoes and people walked the reef,” McHenry wrote. “We would hang out, play music, drink and party until the tide came in and washed us away.”
In later years, Donny Mailer added, a group of old guys in their 30s, who called themselves the Bachelors of Paradise, added “a full linen seating on the reef for breakfast on New Year’s Day.”
Yes, those were the bad old days.
GROWING UP, the rule imposed by our parents was that you surfed with a buddy or not at all. Today, the groms still paddle out in packs, as do the guys with irregular jobs (actors, waiters) or none at all. A loud, mean group of four the other day led the Captain to ask, “Who are those guys?” He shook his head. “Town surfers, I guess.”
When I first moved back home, I felt spooked when I found myself out at Suis alone, but now I welcome the solitude and having my pick of waves.
Alone in nature, with all my senses alive, I can contemplate and approach some measure of self-understanding between waves and upwind paddling. It’s the perfect place to make New Year’s resolutions.
The best is when it’s just a couple of us, like me and the Captain or Sydney Iaukea, who goes out even when the waves are junk, calling it “the real Suis,” with her big laugh and a certain pride.
Of course, even when it’s crowded, you can grab a moment of solitude if you score a wave to yourself.
The other night, I pulled a Kainoa, paddling out at day’s end and finding myself alone in the lineup. After the sun went down, there was loneliness and a sense of danger.
Paddling in amid the darkness, running up through the chill after the shower under the streetlights, I reaffirmed this truth about myself: I may venture out beyond the reef, but it makes me all the more grateful to have a place and a pair of warm arms to rush home to.
“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.
