Jack Gillen from Kona, HI visited our SUP Flatwater group last month and gave a great talk sharing his stories about island to island SUP. Tod Woldridge (a member of our Bend, Oregon SUP group) connected with Jack for a great afternoon of paddling and surfing at Honokahou Harbor. Note the bend in Jack's bamboo paddle shaft!
That's the same place Judy and I SUS'd. Jack told us to watch out for Tiger Sharks that cruise that area and it really scared Judy. He told us that he saw an eighteen footer a few days before. The marina there is home to a fleet of fishing charter boats and they throw a lot of carcasses and old bait overboard which attracts the sharks. Beautiful spot for SUS if you can get the Tiger Shark thing out of your head. The water is so clear even a depths of 18+ feet you can watch yellow tangs darting about on the reef.
ReplyDeleteYou also have to carry your board about 400 yards to the put in beach. Of course Jack caught a bunch of waves, Judy and I had one wipeout after another right at the takeoff. I think we were always late on the takeoff because as regular surfers, we couldn't get it into our heads to get on the wave earlier.
On her first wave Judy fell in a way that got her leg under the skeg, cut her calf and had some light bleeding. Jack and thought she was going to freak on us - but she stood up, waited for the bleeding to stop and kept on SUS. No sharks were sighted - and we can't wait to go back to that beautiful section of water.
Ed Shasek