Byline: Dennis Anderson; Staff Writer
Kihei, Hawaii -- Larry Stephens first surfed when he was 12. This was in the cold waters north of Santa Barbara, Calif., and in waters colder still, farther north, near Santa Cruz.
There were no wet suits then, in the early `60s, to fit kids. So Stephens' answer to cold water was to paddle into the breakers until he could feel it no more, not the cold, not anything.
Then he surfed.
When he came to Maui, the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands, in 1975, Stephens wasn't looking only for warmer water. He had a wife and two young kids and needed work.
'My brother lived in Hawaii and told me there were jobs in the hotels,' Stephens said. So he and his wife, Pat, packed most of what they owned into a Volkswagen bus, drove it onto a ship and ventured across the Pacific.
'The north shore of Oahu has the best surfing in the world,' Stephens said. 'But Maui has some of the best `breaks' in the world. It's a great place to surf.'
Older now, with less time to ride waves, Stephens helps manage one of Maui's big hotels. Some say Alice Cooper lives not far down the beach from Stephens' workplace. Tiger Woods is building a home near there. And Britney Spears was said to be thereabouts, walking Maui's treasured sands, this week.
So the island has changed, trending dramatically upscale from the relatively unknown surfer hot spot and hippie holdout it was some decades ago.
Still, for Stephens- a friend of a friend - life hasn't changed altogether.
Some mornings before daylight, with Maui's surf still obscured in blackness, he'll paddle out from shore, perhaps on a long board, perhaps on a short, duck-diving into the crashing surf as he does, then popping up and paddling as far as he needs to paddle to await the day's first waves.
'It's addicting, surfing,' he said. 'I'm not as strong as I once was, and I can't swim as hard as I once did to catch waves. And I don't surf the big waves I once did. But I still go when I can.'
This week, all of Hawaii was inundated by rain, so much so that few on Maui could recall such downpours.
For hotel managers, this meant moving luaus inside that were meant to be outside and explaining to guests that even in paradise, rain falls sometimes.
Right.
Stephens had earned a day off.
'I'll be by about 8:30,' he said. 'We'll go surfing.'
I was holed up down the beach from Stephens' hotel. I had a fly rod rigged and a rented ocean kayak lying a stone's throw from the big water. There were fish out front, along the coral reefs. I had seen them while snorkeling.
But they would prove harder to catch than I suspected they would. At least on flies.
Or perhaps while casting to unseen prey using flies about the same size of some bikinis I saw nearby, on the beach, I had been distracted.
But such are the hazards of fishing.
Eight-thirty came. A rented board was procured, also booties and a form-fitting surfing shirt that would help keep skin on my chest, where it belonged.
'There are three main ways you can get hurt surfing,' Stephens said. 'Other surfers can hit you and hurt you. Your board can hit you and hurt you. And the bottom can hurt you.'
Of these, I quickly judged the bottom to be my biggest threat, because much of Hawaii's good surf comes ashore not on sand but on coral. Very hard coral. 'When you fall, flop to the side or back, away from the board,' Stephens said. 'That will get you some distance from your board and also help protect you from the coral.'
The water was chest deep when Stephens commanded me to prepare for a wave.
Good waves come in sets, he said, often three sequentially, and learning to judge these accurately is an important part of earning one's stripes as a surfer dude. That and streaking one's hair in the sun, sporting tenaciously an iPod's offensive tendrils and earning a minimum wage as a capitalist trainee at a surfboard rental joint.
A good wave came.
I missed it.
There was another wave, and I swam diligently ahead of it, felt it lift my board - and stood.
Very briefly.
Then I wiped out in a way tourists on the beach might recall for years.
'We'll try again,' Stephens said.
Waves rolled forever shoreward. Humpback whales have plied the waters off Maui since time immemorial, and they were there on this day, too. Also, though not as readily spotted, spinner porpoises and sea turtles
And in the far blue yonder, giant blue marlin.
Another wave came, and again I rose to the occasion.
Barely and briefly. Mostly I wiped out spectacularly and learned really for the first time just how hard coral can be.
Still, the sport's allure was quickly apparent - its challenges and, ultimately, its freedoms.
'It's addicting,' Stephens would say again. 'Surfing.'
HAWAII OUTDOORS
Friday: Shore fishing in a land born of lava requires ingenuity and sometimes a bamboo pole.
Today: When fishing slows, do what Hawaiians do: surf.
Sunday: Maui is home to the world's oldest sporting clays course, housed in a crater and overlooking an ocean.
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To view a photo gallery of Dennis Anderson's photos go to www.startribune.com/a1141
