The First Time I Saw Giants

It was 1998 and I was a freshman in high school. My brother had summoned me out of health class early with a single explanation.

“Grab your gear we're going to the Eddie.”

I obeyed without objection and headed straight to my locker. My friend Daniel appeared behind me, backpack in hand. Apparently he was going too. Since kindergarten, whenever my brother and I were concerned, Daniel was always going too . “Adam said meet him at the car,” he whispered.

Making sure the coast was clear from any adult personnel we edged our way up to the school parking lot where my brother was waiting, car running. “Get in and stay down.” He was a senior and as such was allowed to leave campus for lunch. Daniel and I, however, weren’t, and leaving school property during school hours was strictly prohibited. So we got down, shut up and waited for my brother to give us the all clear.

After only a few moments we were off. Headed up to the north shore in a rusted old jeep. Headed to Waimea.

For the bay decides the day.

Now most people on the mainland have no idea what the Eddie is or who Eddie Aikau was, but if you are from Hawai’i and if you are of native Hawaiian decent the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational is, by lack of a better term, a big fucking deal.

Like Eddie himself the contest is legendary. Held only when the waves reach a minimum of 20 ft. (that’s by Hawaiian standards) the timeframe for the Eddie to be held is between December 1st through February 29th. No guarantees. No promises. If conditions are right and Mother Nature sees fit “the bay calls the day.” Meaning, man has no control over when the Eddie will be held, he just has to be ready for it.

In the last 31 years that the Eddie has been in existence the contest has only gone off a total of 8 times. The day that my brother, Daniel and I decided to play hookie down at the bay was the day everyone was hoping would be lucky number four.

We pulled up to Waimea along with thousands of other spectators. People upon people littered the small enclave of big wave heaven. The sacred beach was overrun.

Luckily Daniel’s father, Dr. Jones, had access to an empty lot overlooking the point. Prime real estate for any surf photographer eager to capture the quintessential moment.

Amidst Carl Zeiss lenses and the continuous clicking and winding of speed shutters and light caches we watched. I could feel the air lightly salted and damp from the spray of oncoming swells. Then, out of nowhere, on the very outside of the reef I saw it.

A black behemoth was forming.

It was the first time I could remember feeling so frightened, so in awe. Up until this point I had been surfing for the better part of my adolescent life. I had learned the unforgiving nature of the ocean and the blissful surrender of becoming a part of it. But this, this was startling.

We watched in silence. A slow hum hung in the background.

I felt every memory, every moment that I had ever made in the ocean build up like a wall in front of me. It was surreal.

The hum grew louder as the wave moved heavy towards the shore. By the time the lip had broke a rider the size of a spec was racing down its face. The crowd hollered. I stood shaking. My brother and Daniel were screaming and smiling. The clicking had ceased and faces had emerged from behind each of the lenses.

We all had experienced it, we all had witnessed the legend.

Leaving the bay that day marked the first and only time I would ever get close enough to seeing the Eddie. The contest didn’t run due to wavering conditions and the three of us received phone calls home that evening from the principal. My parents congratulated us on making it to the bay in time and complained about why we hadn’t picked them up on the way. School resumed bright and early the next morning and I sat through a lecture in health class that I forgot by lunch. No new monster swells were expected to roll in and the bay lay asleep for the rest of that winter.

Over the course of eighteen years I have tried but have never again came close to seeing the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. Most of it had to do with timing and the unforeseen tragedies of life.

But I see the behemoth still to this day. At Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica where I surfed the heaviest wave of my life, to San Sebastián, Spain where I sat in two-foot Atlantic line ups. It follows me every time I am in the ocean and every time I look out to sea. Forming in the distance. Reminding me that there is always the possibility. There is always a chance that the bay will call the day.