40

s t o ry b y Cimeron Morrissey p h o t o s b y Linny Morris

» I ’ve just Learned a seCret handshake.  It’s sunrise here on Oahu’s North Shore, and I’m walking toward the ocean through a wild coconut grove. A radiant white-haired surfer, still glistening from her dip in the sea, crosses my path. She glances at the 11-foot longboard balanced on my head, then nods conspiratorially. It’s a Hawaiian surfer’s greeting that says: “You’re about to expe-rience a rare joy that most will never know, but we do.” Just offshore, four women are bobbing in the swells, basking in the secret I’m here to discover for myself. Five other ladies splash into the salty shal-lows beside me. We’re all here because of the same reason: Queen Kelea. Hundreds of years ago, the 

revered ancient Hawaiian chiefess surfed these same waters. Legend has it that Kelea’s love for surfing not only attracted her king, but also eventually drove her to leave him for one who lived closer to the waves. I wonder what it is about Hawaii’s surf that has inspired such devoted enthusiasm in women throughout the ages — and whether a week at the Kelea Surf Spa will be enough to inspire me too. For the moment, watching this tight-knit club of which I’m not a mem-ber yet navigate the waves towering above them, all I feel is nervous. 

New surfers head out from the Kelea Surf Spa on Oahu.

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When she took to Hawaii’s waves, Jeannie Chesser found a respite from her battle with cancer.

It’s been less than a year since her last chemotherapy treatment and a little more than 10 years since her son died. Yet here, in Hawaii’s warm water, all of that appears to have washed away. “Surfing was the only reason I got up in the morning,” she had whispered to me earlier, looking out over the sea. “At one point, I couldn’t even stand up, but I paddled out on my board, held on and caught waves like it was a body board. I was so excited, I’d be shouting ‘Yeah! Woo hoo!’” But I didn’t under-stand. I kept asking how she had managed to surf while suffering from the draining effects of chemo. “I can’t tell you what it’s like,” she said. “You just have to experience it for yourself. The world looks different when you’re out surfing.” I grab my board, take a deep breath and jump in.

Senses heightened by the new and unknown, our tribe of new surfers ooh and aah at the bands of pine-apple sunlight stretching out through fluttering palm fronds, the great green volcanic peaks standing sentry in the distance and the skinny trumpet fish swimming around us. Elenice Senn, co-founder of Kelea Surf Spa, paddles behind me. “Some women who come to our camp are afraid, but they give themselves an opportu-nity to learn and they do it for themselves, just like Kelea. She surfed for herself, and like her, women come here to leave everything else behind and just enjoy surfing.” We quietly skim across the surface of the sea, skirting an outstretched shoulder of land covered with a feral forest that’s layered as densely as a king’s feathered cloak. “Just look around — there’s nothing like this anywhere else.”

I spot two enormous turtles swimming beneath my board and nearly fall off when I crane my neck to watch them. Gripping the board’s rails with white knuckles, I look to the misty blue horizon to steady myself but  teeter again when I see a bus-size humpback whale shoot out of the water in the distance. 

I’ve visited Hawaii more than 15 times. I’ve explored hidden waterfalls to remote beaches. But being out in the ocean at eye level with the water is a surprise. 

In my daze, I’m caught off guard by a small wave that tosses me into an airy cloud of whitewash. Holding my breath I plunge under the Pacific. My limbs go limp at the eerie high-pitched song of whales that whistle and moan nearby, as clear as if it were playing through headphones. I think of Kelea dipping her body in the sea for kapu kai ; my violent plunge is so different from the purification ceremony I am picturing Kelea taking part in. When the wave passes, I don’t want to get up. Instead, I linger underwater as long as my lungs allow. Maybe to become a real surfer, a true wahine, I need to keep falling in. | surf with pros >>   

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» I’m looking for real surfers. A mere mile and a half from my beginner’s lesson at the Kelea Surf Spa is the world-famous Pipeline break, the proving ground, the legendary hollow wave that draws the best surfers from around the globe. But right now the water looks flat. Still, I count 80 people tightly bunched together beyond the break vying for a chance to tame a demon that’s not there. Nearby, a multitude of long-lensed cameras strapped to idle photographers are waiting. For what, I don’t know. 

Amid the men furiously jockeying for position is a single pink rash guard. As the woman wearing it rises and falls with the swell, I feel as if I’m sitting on my board beside her instead of here on the solid beach. When I turn my gaze farther out on 

the ocean, I see a liquid monster rise up to become the size of a house in an instant, its sheer vertical wall sucking all the water from the shallow coral reef below. The pink-clad surfer digs her arms into the swelling water and outraces the men beside her. The guys pull back and shout, “Go KK!” She weight-lessly flies down the jaw of the beast and disappears behind its teeth that threaten to pulverize her. When the wave chomps down, I gasp and feel the rush in my gut. My own morning surf session is still fresh in my mind. Then the wave spits her out the side of its mouth and shoots her toward shore. 

The cameras, quiet before, are now fir-ing. I finally realize who is wearing the pink rash guard: 31-year-old pro surfer Keala Kennelly. I recognize her from Blue Crush, a 2002 hit movie about female surfers, which was set here on Oahu’s North Shore. Many credit the film, and Keala, for the current boom in women’s surfing. Her name is strikingly similar to Queen Kelea’s. But Keala’s version of surfing seems like a dis-tant relative of the sport that the ancients 

practiced with 25-foot solid-wood boards. Keala’s name is appropriate; she is the new version of Hawaiian royalty. I request an audience with her. She agrees, and soon we’re sitting down at the local surfer bar, Shark Cove Grill.  

Noisy roosters walk past our table with puffed chests, followed closely by a group of male surfers still wet from Pipeline and Waimea who boast loudly about their best rides of the day. When they see Keala, they grow silent, take a table nearby and lean in to eavesdrop. “After Blue Crush, you saw a big boom in women’s surfing and a big increase in the number of women in the water,” she says. “That movie made the statement that surfing is not just for the boys, and a woman’s place doesn’t have to be on the beach watching. Surfing can change your life, and so can this place. And that’s open to women of all ages now.” The men raise their eyebrows and snap upright in their chairs. I feel like taming the ocean. | catching the wave >>  

Pro surfer Keala Kennelly (above and

opposite) is often the only woman facing

down some of Oahu’s fiercest waves.

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» Maybe these girls — with their color-coordinated outfits and luxurious agendas

— will also channel the restorative powers of surf.

The beauty of Hawaii’s surf culture: From hip boutiques to perfect breaks, surfing is queen.

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As I paddle out, Maui’s Honolua Bay becomes a million glittering ripples. I see exactly what Queen Kelea probably saw when she surfed these Hawaiian waters: the knotty heads of old turtles that pop up for air, rainbow-striped par-rotfish swimming past white coral and the limitless expanse of an empty ocean. 

I glide past three young women with manicured nails that match their brand-new rash guards in tropical fruit colors: bright guava pink, juicy papaya, ripe banana. They’ve come straight from the spa and shops at the nearby Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua. 

“Hey, no need to rough it when you go on a surf trip with the girls,” one of them says, grinning. They’re luxe take on surfing seems like a far cry from Queen Kelea. And yet, maybe not. These are the same waves that compelled the queen to leave her chief; they enabled Keala Kennelly to initiate a revolution in women’s surfing; they helped Jeannie Chesser get out of bed in the morning when everything seemed hopeless. Maybe these girls, with their color-coordinated outfits and luxurious agenda, will also channel the restorative powers of surf.

I paddle out farther to a local man in his late 50s, and he welcomes me with a slow smile and that all-too-familiar nod. I ask him if he minds sharing the waves with me. His shoulders relax as he sits up on his board. “Everybody out here is part of a community,” he reassures me. “Surfing is part of everyday life here.” What a wonderful gift the Hawaiians’ ancestors have passed down. While we wait for the swells with our slumped backs and swirling legs, we compare the rounded contours of Molokai’s spine with the whales that slowly rise from the water.

Then I feel the sun warm my back as the ocean lifts me to the sky. A wave pulls me up its face, and in one motion, I push myself up and pull my feet underneath me. The intensity of the experience roots me to my sur-roundings: I feel the ocean’s energy beneath my feet and water dancing down my arms and legs. The whooshing sound of the crumbling surf fills my ears as an almost magnetic connection binds me to the swell. With a rare certainty, I can feel that every tingling molecule of my being is perfectly synchro-nized with nature and Hawaii at this exact moment. I’m surfing. Laughing with abandon, I too soon fall back-ward into the welcoming embrace of the warm water, happy that I finally know the secret shared by surfers throughout the islands and the ages. As I later walk back to shore, my board tucked firmly under my dripping arm, I pass another surfer. I give her a nod, a knowing smile. Hawaii will never look the same.   isl ands.com/hawaii

» My surfboard shatters the smooth water.

plan your tripp. 88

hawaiian women have surfed maui’s

honolua Bay for generations — and

will for years and waves to come.