Robert Schieve was reading the paper at about 6 a.m. Monday when he heard a loud crash on the beach side of his ocean-front home on the North Shore.

“My adrenaline was really running,” he said, recalling the massive wave that broke in the early-morning darkness.

Schieve found his elevated deck in disarray as the ocean water was receding down the 25-foot cliff below his house and back into the roiling surf. The wave knocked down lanai furniture, wiped out a row of potted plants, uprooted landscaping and damaged his deck. The ocean water had splashed up to the front of his elevated house and rushed 50 feet under it.

For a second he panicked. Schieve wasn’t sure whether more massive walls of water were on the way. As it turns out, he said, it was only “one fierce rogue wave.”

“My place is OK,” he said.

A powerful northwest swell pounded the islands Monday, bringing to some northwest-facing locations towering waves between 35 and 45 feet.

The swells were so big and wild that they prompted officials from two separate surfing competitions to call it quits for the day.

Officials of the Vans World Cup of Surfing Sunset Beach postponed its finals, saying the surf was too large and dangerous. At the Jaws Challenge at Peahi, Maui, officials said the surf was too big to allow competitors to safely paddle into.

On Oahu, meanwhile, city lifeguards reported making 34 rescues and 1,745 preventive actions on the North Shore, and 68 rescues and 865 preventive actions on the west side.

It was an action-packed day on the North Shore as hordes of visitors invaded the area hoping to catch a glimpse of the large surf. Traffic was stop-and-go along Kamehameha Highway for most of the day.

At Sharks Cove, large curls were crashing on the rocks, sending foam rocketing into the air. At exposed points along the highway, sand was covering the road.

In many locations the surf was uneven and messy. That didn’t bother Travis and Kim Neufeld of Manitoba, who were snapping lots of pictures at Ehukai Beach Park across from the Pipeline surf break.

The couple said they took a special trip to the North Shore from their Waikiki hotel after they heard the waves would be spectacular.

“Incredible,” Kim Neufeld said. “They’re really amazing.”

Very few brave souls attempted to get into the water along most of the North Shore, although surfers were giving it a go at Waimea Bay, much to the delight of the crowds lining the shore and cliff.

The city’s Ocean Safety crews began their North Shore operations early and extended them late. On the Waianae Coast the state closed Yokohama Bay.

The National Weather Service said waves along the North Shore are expected to lower to 20 to 30 feet today, while west-facing shores will drop to 15 to 20 feet.

For the rest of the week, the swell is expected to continue to fade until Friday, when a moderate to large north-northwest swell is possible through the weekend, forecasters said. Surf will remain small along south- and east-facing shores.

For rogue-wave survivor Schieve, he’s hoping to be able to endure another season of North Shore winter swells after losing about 12 feet of property from hurricane-driven swells that undercut his lot this summer. The waves also took several coconut trees and a large, 60-year-old kamani nut tree.

This year could be an especially challenging year as National Weather Service forecasters are predicting another El Nino winter. In Hawaii that usually means massive swells.

But Schieve and his wife, Jo Jean, feel better about things after the recent installation of a heavy-duty fabric drape on the eroding cliff on the ocean side of the house. The drape is anchored by a handful of enormous sand tubes.

“I had to pay a small fortune to put it in,” he said.

Many of his neighbors also got state permission to install the beach-side protection.

“I can sleep at night,” Schieve said.

But Monday’s waves were the opening round of another winter wave season. And with an especially high tide in the morning, Rocky Point was totally awash with breakers, “an extreme rarity,” he said.

The outlook wasn’t all bad for Schieve. The latest swell, he said, is carrying the sand that was lost this summer back up the coast, giving the beach more depth in front of his house.

“There is a silver lining,” he said.