I was contacted by someone I hadn’t seen or heard from in nearly 12 years via email the other day and of course they asked how I ended up in Hawaii and how is it living out here.   I would rather not write a novel to someone trying to explain how great and different life is here, so I jumped on the Internet and started digging up pictures and video of the various things I do and enjoy. (I usually lose friends at that point since it comes of as if I am rubbing in the lifestyle that we live here) It made me realize that I have not posted a Why We Live Hawaii category post in a while.

Well, I came across this website that had some video of the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Classic held in 2004.   There is a great explanation of what “The Eddie” is and it goes into the Background of “The Eddie”.   Check out the video here.

This day was especially memorable because it was my first Eddie contest (the have the holding period for it every year but if waves don’t remain consistantly above 25 feet they don’t hold it so it only happens once every few years) and I was getting ready to fly out to North Carolina in the dead of winter and wanted some surf and sun before I went back to freezing cold weather.  I remember hearing on the news the night before that as long as the wind cooperated then the Eddie was a go for the next day and that waves were expected to be upward of 50+ feet, possibly 60. (I start losing my lunch when the surf gets above 10 ft.)

Myself and a buddy of mine left before the sun was up to make the trek to the North Shore for the Eddie.  As we made the hour long drive the radio stations were all reconfirming what we already knew, that the Eddie was on and that the surf was massive. The waves were coming across the roads during the night in some spots.

We pulled up “near” Waimea Bay about 7:15 and could not believe how far away we had to park.  We had to park more than a mile away and walk, since there were cars already parked on both sides of the road all the way down to Waimea.  Traffic is grid-locked and the waves begin to come across the road in certain spots when the waves get to be this size.  The Eddie definitely brings out a lot of people and the beach was packed along with any upper viewing vatange point from the cliffs above.

Being able to watch all the pros that are invited for the contest is an amazing sight and a special event.  The video above is a great watch, it also captures what surfer magazine deemed the worst wipe-out of the decade, which you can watch here in the first scene (Flea’s Wipe-out Video), along with some other nasty spills.

Also Bruce Iron’s winning wave had the crowd on the beach giving a standing ovation as Bruce put his hands in the air during his close-out barrel in the Waimea Shore break.  This is one thing you definitely don’t see elsewhere in the world.

Have any stories with pics you want to share?  Email them to me at scott@kahalaassociates.com