Email from Caro: Hawaii

For all those surfers out there, the surf is shite here.  1-3 feet swell.   No waves.   Helluva lotta board riders with no board control (tourists) and no waves.  The big waves are in the winter, with some of the biggest pipelines and the best surfers.   

We visited Haleiwa town, and the Surf Museum. Caro and I touched
(caressed?) Kelly Slater's old board and checked out the internal revenue tickets for opium and marijuana brought into Hawaii some 50 odd years ago.  

These pieces of paper are not meant to exist, but there they were, framed and in between a 1967 longboard and a couple of black and white photos of some incredible guys riding the biggest waves ever recorded.  I bought a couple of pictures of early surfing in the 1890s and 1900s, in the days when people laughed at guys riding wooden boards.

There was a wee ageing surfer-dude (Lisa said he had bad hair) sitting behind a desk where we got into some surfspeak (artificial reefs, longboards, kite surfing).  I was telling him that some of these photos reminded me of my Mum and her surfing days in the 60s in Mount Maunganui.  

We have the photographic evidence. He was very excited about this bit of antipodean surfing history (the Hawaiian, Duke Kahanamoku was the guy who brought surfing to NZ and Australia in the 1920s), finally asking "what happened to her boards, man?" 

When I replied "I don't know", he became a bit distressed. I left him to wallow in his pain, to purchase a new surfshirt.

Public announcement 1#: Lisa Brown has a tan.   She's been a here a bloody week and now sports a dirty dark tan.  Officially she is now known as "The Brown Lisa Brown".

I am annoyed only because I have been traipsing around since December of last year, in the sun, trying to go a lightly golden colour.  Although, I am looking quite tanned after all that, The Brown Lisa Brown is like 50 shades darker.  Peeved.

Public Announcement 2#: Symon is 32 ("thirty-poo") on the 4th June.  He's getting a submarine ride around the coral reefs from me, and maybe dinner and a movie.

Public Announcement 3#: Kevin Costner is back. He rocks as a bad guy.  My new favourite ever movie is "3000 Miles to Graceland".  Combining Elvis, stylin' lines , a few twists, and gunfights.  Awesome.  I rate this movie.  Big Kev is also really good in "13 Days"; first time I've ever heard him have an accent for a movie.  He's back on my laminated list, after a few years of exile.

Yay!

Hang Loose

Caro