Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Hawaiian Surfing~Traditions of the Past

The other night hubby and I went to a presentation by the author of this book, John Clark.

He's written 6 books on Hawaii's beaches, is an ex-lifeguard,
retired firefighter and author.  This was a slide show that showed the
six different types of waveriding here in Hawaii; board surfing,
bodyboarding, outrigger surfing, bodysurfing, river surfing and sand sliding.
He's been able to document all of these from very early (1800's) Hawaiian
newspaper accounts.
He even touched on a non-traditional wave surfing~bag surfing...where beachboys would
take pillowcases from the hotels, fill them with air, close off the open end with their hand
and ride the waves.

Our friend, Randy Rarrick was the MC for the evening.

side note...John Clark still surfs everyday in Waikiki and most often on these
"old style" paipo kine wooden boards.  These are actually his boards he brought.

There's a section of the book that describes all the surf spots in Waikiki with their
traditional Hawaiian names and the newer ones.  Interesting how the traditional names
were very accurate in their description of the type of break it is.

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