Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

or higher . . .” The excited voice paused. “Be careful out there today. Expert surfers only!”
    My throat felt suddenly dry. It got even dryer when my Chevy crested the ridge overlooking the panorama of the entire North Shore. Across the wide blue horizon, one mammoth wave after another was creaming the turquoise sea. Had I been looking less at the surf and more in my rearview mirror, I might have noticed sooner that black Mercedes behind me again. Even so, it wasn’t the Mercedes that was parching my throat. It was the waves.
    My cousin Alika had agreed to meet me at a shop called Surf n’ Sea in Hale‘iwa near the old two-lane bridge by the harbor. Corky’s hangout during his last days, Hale‘iwa town featured an eclectic blend of old and new, of local and cosmopolitan, of traditional and trendy. Tin-roofed Matsumoto’s General Store, famous for its shave ice, stood shoulder to shoulder with glitzy eateries, new age art galleries, and designer boutiques. Cruising through town I whiffed roasting garlic, sizzling veggie burgers, freshly brewed Kona coffee, grilling
mahi mahi,
and coconut-scented surfboard wax. And I eyed countless boards for sale. Despite the proliferation of upscale surfing-themed retailers that sell more logo apparel than boards, Hale‘iwa still boasts more bona fide surf shops per capita than any other town on earth, living up to its nickname, Surf City.
    Inside Surf n’ Sea, a rustic country surf shop with a rambling plank porch, I wandered among the racks of gleaming boards by T & C, Robert August, Stewart, Ben Aipa, Donald Takayama, and lots more. Leaning in to get a closer look at a nine-seven carbon fiber Velzy was cousin Alika, his coffee brown eyes as focused and intent as an airline pilot inspecting his ship before takeoff.
    “Eh,
haole
boy!” Alika glanced up from the black surfboard and flashed a roguish grin, his deep, resonant voice filling the surf shop like the thrum of a bass fiddle. He extended his muscular brown arm and we shook local-style.
    “Howz’t, Alika?” I looked up at my cousin, towering over me in board shorts and a bulging tank top emblazoned with “Hawaiian Superman.”
    From his steel grip and imposing physique, you could tell that Alika Kealoha surfed big waves. His shoulders were wide and his arms massive, and his torso was shaped in a powerful
V.
He was a brawny iron-hard Atlas of a man.
    If anybody knew Waimea, it was my Hawaiian cousin. Off the top of his head he could recite the various swells and their directions, the correct lineups for each, the dangerous riptides, and the sometimes risky shore break; he could also tell you who rode the biggest wave ever, who took the nastiest wipeout, who got hurt, who disappeared and was lost or found, and who died outright. With only a little prompting Alika remembered Corky McDahl’s wipeout at Waimea Bay.
    “Da
haole
surfah dat wipe out on Christmas Eve?” Alika asked me. “Da one they nevah find?”
    “Dat’s him. You evah see him surf? Candy cane board, blon’ hair,
attitude
. . .“
    “Maybe at Chun’s Reef. If dat him, brah, he OK for one mainland surfah. But bettah he wen sit on da beach and watch us guys, yeah? Big Waimea not for beginnahs.”
    “You surfing Waimea when he wipe out? Or your frien’s?”
    “Not me, brah, but maybe Bolo or Mapuna or Puka,” Alika said, referring to his surfing buddies.
    “Can ask ‘em today?”
    “Shoots,” the Hawaiian Superman replied, meaning, “Why not?”
    Out in the gravel lot we climbed into Alika’s rusted-out Toyota truck, knobby tires crusted with red dirt. In the bed lay two big guns—sunshine yellow and lime green—similar in size and stiletto shape to Corky’s missing board.
    As my Hawaiian cousin wound through the gears and the tires began to sing on the blacktop, I recalled today’s surf report for Waimea:
occasional twenty-five foot sets, or higher.
    This was a rare occurrence. Only a large winter swell, generated in the North Pacific and headed in just the right direction, causes waves to break like that inside the bay.
    On these special days, liquid mountains loom on the horizon, sweep around the point, and explode with the percussion of a volcano. The “booms” can be heard halfway to Hale‘iwa. The mile-wide bay transforms into a colossal outdoor amphitheater peopled by surfers and photographers and spectators from around the world. The road surrounding the bay chokes with double-parked cars. The lot at the beach park