The possibilities are endless when surfers inspire each other

Late autumn ushers in the long fallow season for South Shore waves on Oahu, but we townies keep on surfing, or trying to, paddling out at the hint of a ripple.

Smaller, lighter folk fare better on smaller waves, but on a recent becalmed weekend morning, even a birdlike trio of 11-year-old boys were having trouble catching anything.

During one long wait the groms chirped with unhappiness.

“I’m so bored!” cried one.

There was a flurry of splashing as all three tried for, and missed, an inside breaker.

“I’m so frustrated!” piped another, waving his skinny arms.

The third one gazed toward shore.

“I thought Ivy was coming out with Malia them.”

“Ivy,” the second said in an awestruck tone.

“If Ivy was here she’d be catching everything, even if there’s nothing,” said the first. “She surfs circles around me!”

“I hope she doesn’t come out.”

“They’re not coming. It’s too late,” the third one said.

The trio grinned and cheered but also looked a bit downcast, as if, while relieved at not having to compete with Ivy, they missed seeing the girls.

Such conversations in the lineup confirm that female surfers have become the norm. While we still encounter occasional intimidation and harassment, women are increasingly accepted and respected at all levels of the sport.

There are role models everywhere, from young up-and-comers like Ivy to the pros, regardless of gender. More than ever, male and female surfers can draw equal inspiration from one another, and almost anything seems possible.

As the South Shore fades, Hawaii’s big-wave winter season is ramping up, and Hawaii natives and world champions John John Florence and Carissa Moore are chasing 2017 titles. Florence, who won his first world title last year, was eliminated last week in the Hawaiian Pro at Haleiwa, the kickoff event in the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, but fans look forward to watching him shred and soar at Sunset Beach and his home break, Pipeline.

Moore, after winning the Roxy Pro France last month for the second year in a row, has a chance to take her fourth world championship at the Maui Women’s Pro at Honolua Bay, which began its holding period as this column went to press.

In another Maui contest last month, female surfers launched themselves on sky-high waves in the WSL Women’s Peahi Challenge. Paige Alms, who won the maiden event last year, came in first again. On one jaw-dropping ride, she took off under the pitching lip and dropped down the dark-blue, 20-foot-plus face, her longboard nearly vertical, her stance determined, confident and relaxed as she hurtled through the monstrous maw.

The other contestants included Keala Kennelly, who took second place with an absolutely enormous drop. In 2016 the Kauai native became the first woman to win the Pure Scot Barrel of the Year Award at Teahupoo, Tahiti, in which a runner-up was Ian Walsh, winner of the men’s Peahi Challenge this year.

Also in 2016, Kennelly made history as the first woman invited to compete in the the Eddie Aikau big-wave contest at Waimea Bay. This year she and Alms were among 30 female contestants who paddled out into the bay to inaugurate the holding period for the first all-women, big-wave competition at this storied site. The requisite 20-foot-plus waves did not arrive in time, but the women will be ready next year.

There’s an image I keep returning to, of a surfer getting barrelled in a big Hawaiian wave during a world tour event. All you see is a hand, lower legs and feet; you can’t tell whether it’s a man or a woman.

The wave is at Honolua in 2015, and the surfer happens to be Carissa Moore, who won the event as well as the world title that year. I love the photo because it reminds me that surfing at its finest is a private, gender-neutral communion with a force of nature.

In such moments we are truly free.

“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.