Eddie Would Go

Near the lifeguard tower


Jeffrey checking out the waves from his island


Some crazy going left


Lots of sharing all day

Good crash on the shorebreak (it's 1/2 as tall here as the reefbreak)

Kelly Slater, 7-time world-champ (didn't win here this time)

Front row seats!

Jeffrey and Sandy

Fun crunches

Over or under?

Shore barrel

Pretty pipe

On Tuesday this week we went to Waimea bay and watched the Quicksilver in memory of Eddie Aikau bigwave surfing competition, the most prestigious surf contest in the world.

Eddie's life is a really inspiring story. He was the first North Shore lifeguard and a really good surfer, and nobody ever died while he was on duty even though he saved dozens in terrible storms. In 1978 Hawaiians created a reenactment of a transpacific journey from Hawaii to Tahiti in old carved traditional boats, and Eddie was chosen to be a part of the select crew. They got in a bad storm and began sinking and he volunteered to paddle 20 miles back to shore on his surfboard for help. The captain kept saying no but he insisted and was finally allowed to try. Nobody ever saw him again.

You'll commonly see shirts in Hawaii that say "Eddie Would Go" on it. The contest is special because they only hold it for one day, and the waves have to be over 30 feet for them to hold it (They were 30-50 feet when we saw them). So the last time they had it was in 2004 (7th time since they started it 25 years ago). Of the 14 world's best invitees Eddie's brother Clyde was was one of them. It was neat to see a 60 year old man compete with the younger generation.

Our whole family drove down there pretty early in the morning and still had to walk about a mile past all the cars to join the 30,000 people that were piled onto the beach all along the roads. Lots of people spent the night in hopes that it would be held the next day (they don't announce it until the day of, when they see the conditions).

We had some friends there that saved us a spot on the beach, right up front, so it was really exciting to be able to see the surfers pretty close-up when they would enter the water to paddle out or come back in after their heats. My friend has a really nice Canon SLR camera with a great zoom that he let me borrow and I took over 1,000 pictures! Sadly, I'm the only one that missed putting on sunscreen so I'm red as a beet now. At least the kids are okay! We'll post some pictures when we get them back from our friends.