![]() ![]() The situation got so tense that the Aussies were eventually afraid to leave their North Shore motel rooms. Surfing was just about all they had left. The Hawaiians, however, had had so much of their culture stripped from them by this time that they weren’t about to put up with this from a rude bunch of haoles. When brash Australians made a splash at the North Shore in the 1970s with a particular brand of surfing, their cockiness sometimes spilled over into downright disrespect for the Hawaiian surfers. Being stupid didn't mean you deserved to lose your life in Aikau’s book, for he was a "protector.” Sometimes it was the same guy more than once. Aikau would pull them out over and over again, often braving raging ocean conditions. Aikau was already pulling people out of the treacherous waters on his own time, so he was the obvious choice, and he went on to make over 500 rescue attempts without a failure.īeer-filled G.I.s on R&R from the Vietnam conflict, stoked up with liquid courage and lacking the requisite water skills, would brave Waimea's treacherous waters, only to soon wish they were back in Da Nang in the middle of a firefight. After one too many drownings though, town officials began looking for a waterman to hire for the lifeguard position. Waimea Bay was so far outside the norm when Aikau began surfing there that it didn't even have lifeguards. ![]() Plenty of bodies have washed up on this beach's shores over the years, and Aikau nearly paid the price on at least one occasion, but he didn’t let this stop him. They are not to be trifled with by amateurs, under possible penalty of death. The thrills it provides are mostly vicarious, except for a few of the more skilled and fearless dreamers who eventually summon the courage to actually ride the giants.Īikau was a natural at Waimea Bay, looking right at home on 40-foot waves that most surfers don't want any part of. Waimea Bay is the kind of place where surfers go to just marvel at the waves, fantasizing from the safety of the shore about tackling them one day. The beach's waves are so intimidating that nobody even dared ride them until surfing pioneer and hoale (Hawaiian for anyone not from Hawaii, or "white person") Greg Noll and a handful of his banzai buddies sucked it up and did it in 1957. Waimea Bay has the scariest surf on the North Shore, so that's where Aikau gravitated to. The North Shore is the big wave surfer's Mecca-a seven-mile stretch of beaches where three of the premier big wave surfing competitions in the world are held every year. He was no ordinary surfer he went to where the waves were big. Having said that, nice waves make the waterman happier than just about anything.Īikau was a denizen of Oahu's storied North Shore, where the waves can get up to 50 feet high in the terrifying, magnificent winter swells. If the surf's not up, the waterman doesn’t fret, as the ocean provides much more than well-formed, cleanly breaking waves for him. Where would he go? Read on and you'll find out.Īikau was born in Hawaii in 1946, and went on the become one of Hawaii's greatest "watermen." A waterman is a special breed of Hawaiian-one who’s completely at home in the water, participating in any number of water sports. I’d wonder: Who is this Eddie and where would he go? Eddie, I’d soon discover, was the legendary Eddie Aikau. "Eddie Would Go." I kept seeing this inscription on t-shirts and bumper stickers when I moved to Maui over a decade ago. ![]()
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