Everybody’s been talking, in the Suis lineup, about what a disappointing summer it’s been, thus far, on the South Shore of Oahu.

Predicted big swells have fizzled. Smallness reigns. It’s even too small for the groms, who haven’t been out in force for weeks.

I’ve almost started to miss them. That’s boredom.

I got complacent, forgetting that even small waves can pack a punch. Nearly everyone has stories of how they planted their face on the reef at Lighthouse or nearly broke their neck at Sandy Beach on a small day.

And one morning, as I kicked, too carelessly, out of a micro-wave, my short board caught a gust of wind and snapped back in my face.

It whacked me on the forehead and bridge of the nose, which I touched gently to assess the damage, hoping it wouldn’t necessitate paddling in.

My hand came away bright with blood.

My head throbbed and blood dripped as I walked up the street.

“I’ve done that with my board,” Captain Cal said, wincing with sympathy when I told him.

He peered at me. “Aw, it doesn’t look bad. Didja hear that loud crunch, kinda like an eggshell, when it hit you?”

Yes, I said. Exactly.

“You broke it,” he confirmed.

My husband, Don, who has broken his own nose countless times — in football games, tussling with his brother, playing basketball with our son — was underwhelmed. The blood, he said, was from a shallow surface cut. He cleaned and covered it with a Band-Aid.

The emergency room doctors were both women — and surfers. They knew Suis; they surfed together nearby, off Diamond Head.

The resident peered up my nostrils with a scope, declared the airways unimpeded and the break clean.

They were more concerned about the cut than my nose. Joining the edges under a skin-bonding bandage, they warned me to stay out of the water for 10 days to avoid scarring or infection.

“I know,” her boss said sympathetically. “There’s a swell coming, but there’s so much strep in the ocean.”

A couple days later, I was going to sneak out until Don said, “You don’t want the strep to eat your nose off.”

It was just me and Sammy when I finally returned to the lineup on a choppy day.

A nice-size wave rose up, and Sammy was too deep. “Nice one,” he said, giving it to me.

I paddled for it, but with my still-tender nose hanging over the brink, it looked like a close-out. I pulled back.

“That was the best wave all morning,” Sammy said.

I didn’t reply.

“Never let a wave go to waste,” Sammy scolded.

I reflected that, until very recently, there was one among us, I’ll call him Jon, who almost never wasted a wave. A quiet, stocky guy with mutton-chop sideburns, a skilled and cagey surfer, Jon knew the Suis lineup inside-out.

So it struck me as odd, the other day, to see Jon paddle out, only to sit a little outside and apart from everyone without chasing and catching serial waves.

A few minutes later, he was gone.

Days later, I learned what happened.

Jon had caught a wave into shore, walked a ways onto the sand and collapsed at the water’s edge. Beachgoers called 911. Jon was unresponsive when the paramedics tried to revive him.

He died that same day in the hospital, of an aneurysm, I heard.

The Suis regulars were shocked and saddened. Jon, such a regular presence in the lineup, had caught his last wave.

I like to think he enjoyed that ride to the max, even though he knew something wasn’t right, something that prompted him to go in without telling anyone. It wouldn’t be like him to make a fuss.

I also owe some of my newfound caution to Jon. Feeling a bit weak, I chose not to go on Sammy’s bypassed wave.

To me, these days, a free and empty wave is a thing of beauty, not a waste.

“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.