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Arts & Culture

JAWS

To the east of Pauwela Point, about one-and-a-half miles east, winter surf can bring enormous waves. It is world-famous now as one of the premier spots for the latest development in big-wave riding – tow-in surfing.

The surfers (and the whole world) call it “Jaws.” The spot was even featured on the cover of the November, 1998 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine. One person says the name came from the experience of being in the middle of that surf when it changed abruptly from smaller waves that were fun to ride to huge, dangerous, wind-blown walls of water that pounded on you as you slipped and slid among the huge slippery boulders along the shore, trying to get out of the water. According to surfer John Roberson, it was like being in the middle of a shark attack – totally unpredictable, deadly.

Another pinpoints the birth of the name to a nationally published photograph of windsurfer Josh Angulo and his 15-foot sail looking very small on a huge wave. It looked like he was caught in the jaws of a gigantic monster, making a run for it before the jaws closed on him.

That picture of Angulo was taken during one of the earliest windsurfing expeditions to Jaws. By the early 1990’s local windsurfers from Ho’okipa were surfing the spot regularly.

Before the spot acquired its formidable name, it was known as “Domes” because a geodesic, dome-shaped house marks the turnoff to the spot. The surfers watched the waves from the cliffs and drooled at their majestic beauty and their awesome power. Some even dragged their big boards down the precarious cliff trail to the rock beach where the true size of the waves could be seen, the impact of the huge mass of water felt in the rocks underfoot. Most of them turned around and went back up the trail.

Before there was a dome house, the surf spot was called “Atom Blaster” because “it broke like an atomic bomb.” Up until the early 1970’s, it seems, everybody drooled, but nobody surfed the spot – not when the monster waves started rolling in. It was too hard to paddle into the big water, too hard to get up enough speed to slide onto the wave, too hard to come back in after being battered by the power of all that water crashing over you.

The windsurfers and their sail boards were better able to catch the waves than the paddle-in surfers, and the good ones were more likely to survive the experience (more or less) intact.

Then, in 1993, surfing icons Laird Hamilton and Buzzy Kerbox moved to Maui. Together with Darrick Doerner, they had been developing a way of using motorized personal watercraft to get into position to surf the big waves of Oahu’s North Shore. With the hardcore crew of adventurous windsurfers on Maui, Hamilton and Kerbox, with help from a number of master board shapers, developed the equipment they needed to ride the mountains of water at Jaws. They practiced and developed their skills and worked out maneuvers with jet-skis and tow-lines that helped to keep them from getting thrashed and killed by the big waves off the point.

And from the vantage point of the cliffs at Pauwela Point, photographers have continued to record the thrilling rides of these masters of wave-sliding while crowds of awestruck onlookers watch, mesmerized by the power of the big and beautiful waves and the glorious riders who dance with them.

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Braddah-Nics Lexicon

STANDARD: My mother picks me up from school after she finishes working, so I have to wait.
BRADDAH-NICS: I gotta wait for my muddah pau work for her pick me up school.

* * * * * *

STANDARD: I get so disheartened when you do that, Grace.
BRADDAH-NICS: Ho, Grace! When you make li' dat, I no mo' feeling already!

* * * * * *

STANDARD: I've forgotten what the problem was, but I still remember the fierce look she gave me.
BRADDAH-NICS: I forget the reason now, but not the big, habut face.
 

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Local Grinds

Oven Kalua Pork

Ingredients:

Procedure:

Place pork fat side up in a roasting pan or deep casserole dish.
Mix water and liquid smoke and pour over meat. Sprinkle with salt.
Cover and roast in oven at 400 degrees F. for 3 hrs.
Remove from pan and shred.

Makes approx six servings.

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Spotlight On…

Kanaio

The area is rich in cultural and historical sites and includes a houlu ua, rain shrine, about which it is said, "whenever the clouds gathered over this spot it would surely rain."

The Kanaio district includes the 30,000 acre 'Ulupalakua Ranch. At the upper reaches above the ranch, Polipoli State Park and the Kula Forest Reserve are home to pine trees that grow in weird shapes, pushed by the wind. Polipoli State Park is the launching place for intrepid hang-gliders and pilots of gossamer light aircraft powered by small engines.

Still further up the mountain sits the Haleakala Observatories, a cluster of observatories, tracking stations and communications facilities, established in 1956 under the auspices of the University of Hawaii.

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