I desperately need me some vacation time…
I am enduring the Facebook pages filled with photos of smiling people frolicking in the surf and eating scrumptious seafood platters. I am enduring day after day of work waiting for my time in the sand, sun, and waves.
Big Surf Daddy is getting restless.
I introduced you, my valued throng of readers, to my alter ego a few months ago. The legend of Big Surf Daddy began in the Hawaiian Islands in 1984.
My friend and I were sitting on a beach on the south side of Oahu watching these large waves pound the beach. Somehow we got the idea that we could body surf in these waves. We surmised that it would be a much grander experience than body surfing on the east coast or even better, dare I say, than the beaches of Galveston.
My friend was convinced that we would have no problems making the necessary adjustments from the knee-high waves of the Gulf of Mexico to the twelve-footers on Oahu.
Of course this is the same friend that argued with me that anyone can hit a 90-mph fastball. All that was needed was a little practice. After much dissent from my side of the Chevette as we were sweltering in Houston traffic, he began to muster more faith in his ability to connect with such a small orb flung at such a high-speed. So we did what any normal twenty-something, less-than-mature, semi-adult males would do. We pulled into the batting cages on Fondren Road and stepped into the cage named Ol’ Smoky.
Well, my friend looked like a little schoolgirl trying to swat a bee. He never got close, blamed his shoes and left under a heavy barrage of I-told-you-so’s. Unfortunately, he was now my inspiration sitting on that beach.
We were a bit curious as to why no one was in the water at this time.
We ventured out into the surf, full of excitement, knowing we were going to have the body surfing experience of a lifetime and all of these other pathetic landlubbers would just have to watch from the sandy shore of Wimpville.
As I caught the first swell, I knew this would be swell. I just kept elevating and thinking that I had never, ever had this type of ride on a wave. At the crest of the wave, something strange started happening. The internal gyroscope in my inner ear told my brain “This is not right”, as my feet were now more elevated than my head. Then came the roller-coaster type drop and the nose dive into the sand. “Where is the water? I was supposed to hit water.” I hit the sand with my face…then I found the water. The wave deposited massive amounts of water on top of me with the force of an elephant stampede.
I finally crawled out of the water, breathless and battered. I looked around for my friend and could not find him. Panic set in, for he does not possess the adaptability to changing water conditions as I.
He eventually surfaced or rather the ocean spit him out like a bad clam.
We sat on the sand looking more pitiful than two Exxon oil-spill survivors.
Staring into the void and wondering what just happened to us, my friend looked down and noticed that the undertow sucked his wedding ring off his finger. Now most adults with only a functioning brain stem without the attached gray matter would realize they were lucky at this point and just sit in the sand and enjoy the ocean breezes. But, alas, we decided to try it again. We knew we would have better results if we just tweaked our technique just a little.
So out into the surf we went….
(See the above description for the results of the second and FINAL attempt).
Somewhere off the coast of Oahu, Polynesian pearl divers are still looking for an oyster containing the legendary ring that is rumored to have mystical powers that control the waves, but all they have found is an old pair of flowered swim trunks with the monogram “BSD” sewn in the waistband.
Legend has it that the winds still call out for the return of Big Surf Daddy to the south shores of Oahu.
If you like this photo, you can see more of my pictures here.
Pictures From the Side of the Road 