Bird Poop Island

I am used to fatherhood now. I no longer say the "s" word without thinking about it first. Which is why I mis-named the island in the title.

Birds*it island is a tiny dot of coral off the coast of O'ahu just north of Kailua beach park. To me it seemed like it was thousands of miles away from shore, but it was really probably about a couple hundred yards or so, give or take. It is flat enough to walk on, but anybody who has ever walked on coral knows that it is so porous and sharp that you are guaranteed to get some kind of cut on your feet. The island was the tip of a reef that brought the sea floor up to the water level, causing the waves coming in from Moloka'i to break at the island and roll into shore. It was here that my friend (the same one who slept in the tent below the Scottish waterfall) decided that I should come to learn how to surf.

He let me use his longboard, which was eight feet long. That's not really such a long board for a guy as big as me. It barely floated me. He got on his other board and we lit out from the shore for our first lesson. "Paddle like this," he told me. And I did. We got out to where the whitewater was rolling in, fifty yards from the break, and he told me to either go over the white water or go under it. I could not duck dive an eight foot board, and you cannot "lip" or go over whitewater. My structure had enough of the board in the water to catch the white water just wrong. I was either dumped off the board and dragged along by the footstrap or pushed backwards most of the way to the shore. I would paddle out to the white water and get pushed back in, paddle out again. I did that for weeks.

Finally, my shoulders got stronger and my trunk leaner and I got to where I could consistently make it out to the island. It was totally covered in bird poop. I still couldn't catch the waves right and sometimes would paddle around the island watching for marine life, sometimes walk on the island and check out the scuttling crabs and mollusks unfortunate enough to get stuck above water. I learned a lot about that very peculiar and very particular environment. Who could have guessed that shallow coral reef islands could be so interesting?

Once I first stood on the eight foot board and rode a wave at Diamond Head I felt that my persistence was rewarded. By then I had discovered that Diamon Head is a cooler place to surf, and after that, Waikiki is the big payoff if you get out there before the sun gets all the way up and the tourists invade. But I had to go back to bird poop island to catch at least one wave there.

The ride wasn't that hot, and the satisfaction I felt made me feel petty.