So, on December 8th, the Eddie Aikau Memorial Surf Competion was held. It's an event that only happens when the waves go over twenty feet during the scheduled days. This year was the first time that it had gone off since 2004, so it was a big deal. Thousands of people flocked to the North Shore to see the fabulous "big wave" surfing.
We missed the boat.
Therefore, on December 9th, Mike and I headed to the North Shore to see the big waves, albeight after all the excitement had passed. Waimea Bay was still rockin' with twenty-footers and lots of amateur surfers having a great time. I chilled out while Mike took a bunch of photos. He got some great shots!
This guy was my favorite. He was having a blast surfing the tubes close to shore. He kept flipping all over the place.
After we had been there a couple hours, we heard sirens and then two big crashes. It turns out that the police were chasing a speeder who tried to hide in the Waimea Beach Park lot. He hit a pole, a parked truck and the sign for the park before heading out onto Kam Highway and hitting a Handivan. Crazy stuff. After we confirmed that our van was okay, we decided that traffic might get bad and headed out. Good thing... the police ended up blocking the highway for four hours!
As we were pulling out of the lot, a man begged for a ride up the road; he seemed harmless so we told him to jump in the back. He was quite a talker and we soon learned that he's a surfing legend - he told us so himself and backed it up with the fact that he had his logo on his t-shirt. We were happy to drop him off at that point! (Later I confirmed that he was indeed an accomplished surfer from the early 70's, but at the time we weren't sure if he was a delusional nutcase or just a regular nutcase who enjoys tooting his own horn)
We stopped for lunch at my favorite Thai lunch wagon and then headed for home so that we'd be there just in time for Marisa to get out of school. As we came close to Schofield Barracks, traffic clogged up - this was odd for the time of day, but I got us around it and we were only a few minutes behind schedule. Later we learned that an accident had somehow led to the discovery of "unexploded ordenance" and, thus, the redirection of traffic. Yikes!
That afternoon, Marisa had the mother of all tantrums with her tutor. Later at church someone set off the fire alarm and the fire engine came screaming up.
It was a very exciting day.
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