A Passion of Mine--Waimea Bay
Don't ask, I don't know why. I don't surf myself, but I love everything about it--from Bruce Brown's surfing films to watching the surfers on the rather wimpy waves at Canaveral National Seashore. (On the other hand, what is there not to love about a stretch of coast that allows not only views of well-cared-for dunes, and endangered Brown Pelicans, but the VAB and the Shuttle Launch Pad, and Surfing?). So here's part of my interest expressed somewhat more coherently. Oh, please note--Waimea bay is noted for incredible, and ofter extraordinarily beautiful waves. But they are apparently the result of winter storms over the North Pacific. I am told (all my evidence is anecdotal) that during off-season you wouldn't be able to tell that Waimea was a surfer's challenge.
Waimea Bay Steven Riddle I didn't know the winter waves went away, the thirty foot wall of water wasn't always there. So I was surprised when I went to the shore to see waves like those of any place on earth. This could be a Cleveland lake, a pool in a dip on the sidewalk, a beaker on a blue bench. I came to find the waterwall and found instead the flat blue envelope of the sea, the momentary breathing of some restless giant, hidden because I have chosen to look. Were I to turn my back, the towering waves would wake from their watery sleep and rise to new heights to secretly sweep me away before I could catch them myself.©2002 Steven Riddle
