Grumpy old body whompin'

[Hank49]

Anyone still body surf at this age? I used to be pretty ok at it living in Hawaii but hadn't done it for a while. I was in Melbourne Beach Monday, Sept 1, and there was a pretty good swell coming in, I guess from Hanna being out there. It was breaking about 200 yards out, reforming and dumping into grinding barrels a little ways off the beach with a ripping side shore current inside. I couldn't make any ground swimming against it with fins. No worries though...i used to spend 2-3 hours in surf like that in my younger days.
I hadn't seen surf like that in years so I go charging out there thinking, yeah, barrels...Man, getting old has it's down times. I didn't last 15 minutes. I free dive a lot here and swim a long way...at my leisurely pace though. It's the sprint strokes that you need to catch dumping, shore break waves that wore me out. Not to mention getting pitched over the falls on the first two or three. Hah. It was so fun though.
I was hurting later though....the body just doesnt' "pretzel" when getting thrashed like it used to. Anyway, the diving's bad now but Florida is getting surf.

 

[hal41]

Body whompin is a good name for it. I have a good chriopractor and motrin. When the surfs good I do it for hours and pay for days later. My wife pokes at me saying "sore here, how abort here". I think she lkes it that I surfin and dive make me feel & act young, when I'm not in pain.
I just gave up trying to surf big storm surf. If I can manage to fight it past the breakers I don't have enough stem left to surf. I just thank God that I can still do what I do.
I am planning to get put into an artificial reef when I die. I finnaly got every one in the family to agree that its more fun to go to the beach than a cemetary when they want to visit Pops.
You talked about Melborne, Florida or Australia?
Keep up body Whompin its good for your health and more fun than watching TV.

 

[Hank49]

Melbourne, Florida. I was up there visiting my son in Orlando so we went over there. A good friend of mine in Hawaii coined the term "body whompin". It happens right after the weightless feeling while getting pitched over the falls...which happened pretty frequently while I was learning how at Sandy Beach on Oahu.

 

[redacted]

I think the waves have changed.

 

[Scubakevdm]

Melbourne, Florida. I was up there visiting my son in Orlando so we went over there. A good friend of mine in Hawaii coined the term "body whompin". It happens right after the weightless feeling while getting pitched over the falls...which happened pretty frequently while I was learning how at Sandy Beach on Oahu.

Yeah, been over the falls a time or two at Sandy. We used to swipe Mc Donald's trays and tuck them under our forearm to plane better, and so we could steer. Macapuu was even better. I surfed on surfboards back then too... ripping. These days I'd definitely need a long board, and a Mc Donald's tray is simply out of the question.

 

[Hank49]

Yeah, been over the falls a time or two at Sandy. We used to swipe Mc Donald's trays and tuck them under our forearm to plane better, and so we could steer. Macapuu was even better. I surfed on surfboards back then too... ripping. These days I'd definitely need a long board, and a Mc Donald's tray is simply out of the question.

I learned at Makapu'u and kind of graduated to Sandy's. I thought I was doing pretty good and then got my butt handed to me at Sandy's. It is a deceiving wave but the barrels can be soooo clean. Press hard and get to the bottom...then let it barrel and blow its guts out. If you try to kick out, like you can do at Makapu'u, you get sucked up and over....WHAM...haha. That's kind of how the inside waves were last week at Melbourne. Too bad the current was so strong. .
Did you ever go to Pounders in Laiae? Up near Kahuku? I went there pretty often too. One day I made the wave, was in a nice barrel and "whoooop....wham !!!! I was pissing blood for about a week. There is also a great left way out in front of there called Bowls. I used to board surf Crouching Lion, Rainbows (just out in front of Ka'a'awa Valley) and that place Bowls (not Ala Moana). Nice waves on a north swell and back then, (late 70s early 80s) no crowds. Then I moved to Kauai....

 

[Scubakevdm]

Yes, Makapu'u... I haven't lived there for 20 years now. I mostly stayed on the south side except for one near death experience at sunset. There was one "secret" break on the east side about halfway between Diamond Head and Sandy that I would go to with friends... we called it Toads, anyway, you had to walk across about a quarter mile of dead reef in about a foot of water to get to the break, but no crowds. Lots of juvie hammerheads there though. Other than that I mostly stayed at Queen's.

 

[Tom Winters]

One of the guys off a ship I was on got actually got his shoulder broken at Sandy's. He was kind of a wussy guy anyway, but he had a valid break since I got to see the x-rays. I started to surf on the Pipeline in the winter since I got tired of getting cut off on a boogie board all the time by guys dropping in on their boards. Fast learning curve there.
That first year of surfing, I got pounded a lot - when you're on the face of a puller on the Pipeline, you see all the reef pop out as the water is drawn into the wave face. Twice I went too fast and didn't cut back into the wave so I shot straight into very thin air on my board and was still like 15' in the air going straight towards the shore. It always sucked waiting for the slow motion impact of all the forces to crunch me and then stick me under for a while.
Makapu'u had some good breaks - one day, there were three distinct breaks starting all the way at the mouth of the bay. Tough to punch through all the sets to get out, but unreal out there. It was cool watching the hang gliders touch down there. I could never make that first step off the top of the cliffs though.
Sandy's was pretty boring for me - the breaks were too short, plus I always remembered the bonehead getting his shoulder crushed somehow there.
Queen's Beach was about the only place I surfed on the South Shore since it was so crowded there. Kaisers was ok, but too tight. Plus it was the only place I ever stepped on a sea urchin.
Once at Queen's, I had my leash wrap twice around a coral head, and I couldn't reach my ankle in the surge, so I'm stuck there in 7' of water drowning and thinking how did I ever survive all the stupid stuff I did just to drown off Waikiki in 3' surf.
My wife bought me a board from Island Watersports in Deerfied Beach, but Florida is just baby waves so it just sits in the garage. On a couple of the hurricanes, I checked out the surf, but there was so much slop plus all the helpful deputies trying to pre-tag my toe before I went out.
Ok, I'm done.

 

[Hank49]

You're good. I moved to Kauai and really started to board surf in 82....but I don't know if I was ever good enough to paddle out and surf Pipeline. It was so competitive...and would force one into taking off, when maybe...you shouldn't have. hah.
I swam out there on an 8 foot day (about triple overhead) in 79 or so and watched all the pros warming up for the Pipe Masters. Unreal. The rip was like a fast river going lateral towards Pupakea and would sweep me off my feet...and then straight out. Jim Banks came flying out of a barrel like superman after the spit blew him off his board...hooting and screaming... pure stoke. Why'd we have to get old?