The Swell

The past few days have been very slow. The swell has been huge. This means the sea level is really high and there are a lot of big waves. Beaches have been closed because it's dangerous to get in the water. The storm and the swell brought in a lot of debris and driftwood and now the water is brown and gross near the shore.

When the swell is so big, the turtles stay in the water. There's no point in coming on the beach to bask because they'd just get washed right back out to sea. We don't really know where they go. Maybe around to the other side of the island, or maybe they hide out in underwater nooks and crannies and lava structures and small caves.

So no swimming, no turtle-watching, and no turtles. I've been filling my time by updating my travel journal (which I have neglected for far too long) and working on an essay. The essay is a summary of what I've learned during my time here. It's something that interns do so they can put their experience on their resume. But because I've spent so much time here and done so much, I get to write one too! I've learned a lot and I have no idea how I'm going to put it all into a couple of pages.

One exciting thing is that the Pe'ahi Challenge took place in the past couple of days. Anthony and I watched some of it on TV. The Pe'ahi Challenge is a very difficult surfing competition that takes place once or twice a year at Pe'ahi, which is a rocky area of coastline that happens to be just a few miles down the road. This location is also informally called "Jaws." The road down to the coastline is treacherous, and a four-wheel drive is required. Even walking down is difficult because it's so muddy and you slip on the mud. They close off the area and normal people can't watch the competition.

For the Pe'ahi Challenge to occur, there needs to be at least one or two days of consistent 20 foot waves that break in a particular way. Anthony said that the waves can reach up to 80 feet and the people will still surf. Meteorologists are able to predict these conditions a couple of days ahead of time. Pro surfers have to drop everything and fly in. It's a big deal. There's a lot of safety precautions. They have helicopters and jet skis standing by, and each surfer wears a life jacket with a cord that he or she can pull to inflate it. So people don't die, but their boards break all the time. A girl I met told me she knows some of the guys in the competition. Last year one of them had his board snapped and they found it later on another island. There is a "graveyard" of broken boards near Pe'ahi.

You can watch some of the clips from the competition here.

First picture: watching the Pe'ahi Challenge with Anthony 

Second picture: Ho'okipa Beach is closed!

Third picture: a sprouting coconut was washed up on shore!