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While you won’t find surfers handing out soggy valentines in the lineup, one might just offer you a wave.
Take it. No worries, no strings attached.
There was the summer I lured Kaitlin, then 24 and my son’s fiancee, out to Suicides for the first time. Conditions looked beginner-friendly, with small, clean waves and only three other surfers. It was a long kick on her bodyboard, and I hoped she’d have fun.
A nice peak rose on the shoulder where she waited and I told her to go for it, but just as she took off I saw — too late — the Frog Footman zooming down the line toward her.
A ringer for the doorkeeper with bulging eyes and gaping mouth in “Alice in Wonderland,” the Footman was a terrible hog. He sat deeper than anyone else and took off on everything with a scowl.
At the last minute, he saw her and steered his board away, but I worried he’d scared her. When Kaitlin kicked back out, however, he paddled over with a kindly smile and apologized. From then on, she had her pick of waves.
He wasn’t flirting. The Frog Footman had simply become the Frog Prince.
I had no such hopes for Slim the Snake. Thin and pale, with narrow, mischievous eyes, he’d loll on his microboard and smirk at me. When a nice wave came, even though I was in position, he’d sprint-paddle around me and snake it.
One day when the waves were pretty good size, I noticed a newcomer, a dark-haired woman on a longboard. She wasn’t catching anything, but she smiled and rolled her eyes good-naturedly as we joked about the desperately competitive crowd. All at once Snake appeared, blocked the other surfers and said, “Eve, go!” She went.
He turned to me. “Next one’s yours,” he said with a wink.
I was sure it was a trick, but he was true to his word.
Turns out, they were married. Eve was a beginner, and since she started coming out, Slim has lost the snake.
Hawaii has a long, rich history of surfing couples.
There’s the saga of the goddess Hiiaka and her mortal lover Lohiau, who was killed by her jealous sister Pele, in “The epic tale of Hi‘iakaikapoliopele,” by Hooulumahiehie, translated by Puakea Nogelmeier. As Hiiaka tries to restore him to life, Lohiau says that he longs to go surfing, and the goddess orchestrates a way to try to bring him back for good.
Hiiaka calls up a storm to produce big waves, which the couple ride side by side. When the god Kane appears in the form of a third surfer, Lohiau, at Hiiaka’s instruction, gives the deity his feather cloak.
The three surfers then put on a divine display while the people cheer from shore. “Nothing could compare to the beauty of this surfing.”
In “Fragments of Hawaiian History,” John Papa Ii describes another famous surfing couple, King Kamehameha I and Queen Kaahumanu. “When they reached the place where the surf rose high, they went along with the crest of the wave … This art was held in esteem at that time, and so the surfing places were constantly filled with men and women.”
My idea of the perfect Valentine’s date is going bodysurfing with my husband. On the way home we’ll grab some poke and a bottle of sparkling wine and maybe some fine chocolates, which we adore but never seem to finish, making them, like the waves, an apt metaphor for love.
I can’t remember whether my favorite gift from Don (so far) came on Valentine’s, Christmas or my birthday, but it was when we lived in New York and I missed the sea. A vintage silver pin with two dolphins, it reminds me of the winter we found ourselves freezing in Greece and, in the garishly restored ruins of Knossos, Crete, came upon a mural of dolphins leaping through waves.
That’s us, I thought, and always will be.
“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.
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