Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

muscle-packed athlete, resembled a Greek god; Jose Angel, all-around waterman, tragically died diving for black coral; Fred Van Dyke, the “Iron Man” of big wave riding, survived unimaginable wipeouts; Ricky Grigg, surfer and oceanographer, charted some of Hawai‘i’s famous reef breaks; Eddie “Would Go” Aikau vanished in the Moloka‘i Channel while paddling to save a stranded boat crew; and Makaha legend George Downing, to this day, directs the big wave competition at Waimea in Eddie’s name. The role call of legends also includes familiar names like Brewer, Brown, Cabell, Cole, Curren, Froiseth, Hemmings, Hoffman, Hollinger, Muñoz, Quigg, Strange, and such modern-day heroes as Ken Bradshaw, Laird Hamilton, Brian Keaulana, and the unfortunate Mark Foo. Striving to become one of them, had Corky—like Foo—paid the “ultimate price”?
    Alika and I paddled for what seemed like a half mile deep into the bay. My arms felt tight, no matter how many “No Fear” mantras I said. In the lull between sets we paddled into the lineup, then over to three surfers on the edge of the pack. One looked like a brown bear. The second, in a red rash guard, was tiny by comparison. The third’s scalp was shaved clean—
bolohead.
A bear, a shrimp, and a skinhead.
    “Howz’t, Bolo?” Alika asked the shaved head. “Howz’t Mapuna, Puka?” He turned to the bear and his tiny friend in red. “Dis my cousin, Kai.”
    “Howz’t, Kai . . . ? Howz’t . . . ? Howz’t?” All three responded in turn, checking me out on Alika’s lime green gun.
    “Kai one private eye,” Alika told his three friends. “One Surfing Detective—Magnum P.I. kine.”
    “You really one P.I.?” asked the big brown bear whose name, Mapuna, meant “bubbling spring.” He was the biggest spring I’d ever seen.
    “Yeah, maybe you try help with my case?”
    “Us guyz?” The three looked at one another, then broke into laughter.
    “Yeah, you guyz.” I said. “You know dat California surfah dat wipe out Christmas Eve? His name Corky McDahl.“
    “Nah,” said the small one called Puka,a nickname meaning “hole.” “Don’ know no Corky.”
    “Maybe you wen’ see him in da lineup—Waimea—day befo’ Christmas?”
    “What his board look like?” asked Bolo.
    “Like one candy cane.”
    “I seen dat board, brah,” little Puka said.
    “Here at Waimea?”
    “Nah—where wuz it?” Puka thought for a minute. “Ehukai . . . ? Sunset . . . ?”
    “You remembah da guy—blon’, green eyes
. .
. ?”
    “Nah, but da board—yeah. Sunset, da guy wuz surfing Sunset.”
    Alika turned to the other two. “You know da guy?”
    “Nah,” they both said.
    “But,” bear-like Mapuna adjusted his giant frame on his slim board. “My frien’ Ham tol’ me he surf Waimea when da
haole
guy ate it.”
    “Your frien’ Ham saw da wipeout?” I asked.
    “Dat’s what he say. Ham say da
haole
guy bin bury undah da soup, brah. Nevah come up, you know?
Nevah.”
    “Your frien’ Ham here today?”
    “Nah,“ Mapuna said.
    “Ham working . . . Paradise Sandwich Bar,” Puka added, “In Hale‘iwa.”
    “Tanks, eh?” I said. “Alika, we goin’ talk with Ham, sooner da bettah?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.
    “You got your detective scoops.” Alika flashed a dangerous grin. “Now les’
chance ‘um.”
    I swallowed hard.
    The bay lay eerily calm. A big set hadn’t rolled through for several minutes. We sat on our boards and waited, which only made me more edgy. I started thinking about Summer. Why did I feel responsible for making things right? Her footloose husband had brought on her misfortune, not me.
    “Outside!”
Bolo yelled and paddled furiously toward the open sea. Little Puka and mammoth Mapuna followed. Alika and I paddled too. And behind us, the whole pack.
    Out on the horizon where the sapphire sky met the sea, an ominous jade mass was building. It was dark and impenetrable, so thick the sun couldn’t shine through. And it was rising.
    “Outside! someone else yelled.
    “Ho!”
    “Big, Big,
Beeeg!”
    The jade mountain was coming. And there would be more behind it.
    “Paddle, brah, paddle!”
Alika barked at me.
    After the nearly half mile stroke from the beach to the lineup, this sudden surge burned my arms. But I kept paddling until I caught up with the first jade cliff, just as it was about to let loose. The face looked to be twenty-five feet, easy. Maybe higher. Up, up, up I clawed, and over the top as it