In previous early autumns, Oahu’s South Shore surfers have exalted over glassy, head-high waves, but this year’s mostly flat fall has prolonged our “endless bummer” of a summer.
One late-September evening, when the surf reports had predicted a small bump, we had quite a crowd at Suis sharing waves ohana style, and with a real ohana: a tiny grom chasing tiny barrels on his microboard, his dad and teensy sister charging tandem on a longboard, and his pretty mom, sitting on the longest board with her camera.
Here came that moonlighting bodysurfer again, standing tall and casual in retro, high-waisted shorts as he picked off inside lefts on his board.
“Hi, Mindy!” called out my young neighbor Lucas with a wave and a smile, unashamed to acknowledge an elder in front of his grom friends.
I was impressed by the youngsters, cheering each other on in the face of waves that were barely there.
“They take off on anything,” said an empty-nester.
“Remember when you were young?” his fellow longboarder said.
MY OWN board was too short. I watched the sun break into a double-yolk egg and wished I was back in France, where my husband and I vacationed last month and whose Atlantic shores catch tropical hurricane swells this time of year. That’s why, every October, the World Surf League holds men’s and women’s championship rounds in the fast, firing beach breaks of the French southwestern region known as Aquitaine.
A bit farther north, my husband and I have spent many late Augusts and early Septembers on Belle-Ile, a small island off the coast of Brittany, where we surf and bodysurf at a couple of cliff-ringed, sand-bottomed bays. They have many moods, shaped by winds, offshore storms and up to an 18-foot difference between low and high tides, but in their gentler phases they recall Rocky Point or Waikiki — except for the water temps, which on a warm day hover at 61 degrees. I can barely crank a turn in my thick, tight wet suit.
Still, there are waves in France in autumn, and the chilly sea and fresh air are an antidote to our hot, sticky, voggy Hawaii fall. Not to mention crepes, terrines and pastries — the reasons behind that too-tight wet suit.
THIS AUTUMN, even the guys who go out in anything are getting glum.
“It’s terrible,” said Kimo, shaking his head after paddling in the other morning.
Captain Cal and I stood on the sea wall, checking the nonexistent surf.
He turned to me.
“At least we have ‘Carmen’ to look forward to.”
He and his wife, Penelope, are operaphiles, and “Carmen,” which opens the Hawaii Opera Theatre season next week, is his favorite.
I’m ambivalent: I find the choruses too loud and plodding. But I do like wildcat Carmen. She reminds me of my dark-haired, fiery mom, who was married four times.
When I lived in New York, Mom used to call me from her rocking chair by her bedroom window, from where she could see Suis.
“The waves are good!” she’d say. “Come home.”
“Aw, Mom,” I’d say. I was a wife, a parent, an employee. I couldn’t just leave on a whim. But if I’d had a clue how soon I’d lose her and how much I’d miss her, I’d have flown home even if it was flat — no, especially if it was flat, so I couldn’t escape her in the surf.
When I did visit, the surf invariably got good just before I left.
“Change your ticket,” Mom would say.
I’m proud to say that once in a while I did, and she’d celebrate by cooking my favorite dish: sweet-sour spare ribs.
Flat times, I’m discovering, are good for reconnecting with other loves — relaxing with the husband, dispensing extra pats to the aging cat, encouraging a nephew’s college applications, snail-mailing distant family and friends, seeing “Carmen” — because I know as soon as the surf returns, I’ll be gone.
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.
