BLOOD WATER
I was a teenager when I made my first trip to the North Shore of Oahu to surf and saw the rich red earth that was so filled with life you could just imagine a soft humming vibration when you held its moist richness, it permeated everything with a soft layer of red dust and its nutrient rich content made the island a tropical paradise of abundant exotic vegetation. It made sense that all indigenous people blessed the earth and gave thanks for her bounty.
When the tropical rains turned into torrential downpours and the rivers filled with the deep red dirt and looked like the veins of the earth gushing with life giving blood flowing towards the ocean where it would erode everything in its path till it reached the sea.
One of the great blessing of my young life, when there was only a handful of other surfers on the North Shore and the surf was closed out everywhere, I’d hitch hike to Waimea and sit on the lava boulders watching the huge, thunderous, mountains of water come peeling into the Bay, the experience was electrifying, I was completely mesmerized by the power and the beauty of these ridable giants, at the time, the gold standard of Big wave riding. and the blood red river water was rushing into the break from the recent downpour, it was a natural dance that had taken place since the beginning of time, and I felt truly in tune with the magic of the universe, life’s cosmic dance.
