Eddie Would Go
26JUN25
listeners of the wind
we plow in the dark
hands on the handle
his hands on the bark
bigfoot lights the candle
our ignorance broken
we see a glimmer
we hear it mind spoken
a voice from a shimmer
our inner child is loosed
the know it all is gone
as we are introduced
n2 the world of the unknown
we have become a seer
a listener of the wind
and now we are freer
than we have ever been
we continue to plow
but are no longer slaves
now let's talk about the Aikaus
who rode the big waves
I had not planned on doing another post on Hawaii so soon but this poem and idea woke me up about 0415 this morning. So I guess we will try to make it to the beach on this wave. I just saw on the internet yesterday where Clyde Aikau had passed away about a month ago. I had always planned on doing a post on Eddie Would Go.
Around 2001 I think we were leaving the Safeway on Kam Highway in Kapolei and I kept on seeing these bumper stickers that said Eddie Would Go. So I immediately found out that they were for Eddie Aikau who had been a legendary lifeguard and big wave surfer at Waimea Bay.
In 1968 Eddie was the first lifeguard hired by the City & County of Honolulu for the North Shore. He had left school at 16 and had been working at the Dole pineapple cannery. No one was lost while he worked as a lifeguard at Waimea. In 1978 he volunteered to be a crew member on the Hokule’a. That is a double hulled voyaging canoe used by the Polynesian Voyaging Society to retrace the routes and methods of the ancient Hawaiians and Polynesians.
The Hokule’a left Hawaii on March 16, 1978. After developing a leak the vessel capsized about 12 miles south of Moloka’i. Eddie volunteered to take his surfboard and swim to Lana’i to get help. Actually he insisted against the captain’s reservations to leave the vessel and go for help. If you read about or watch many of the videos about this tragedy there is a lot of discussion about Eddie convincing the captain to let him go. (Eddie Would Go). Eddie was last seen by the members of the crew taking off his life jacket so he could paddle on his surfboard better. The crew was later rescued by the Coast Guard. According to Wikipedia the search for Eddie’s body was the largest in Hawaiian history.
That is a very brief account of the whole thing. There are many articles and videos on the internet that can catch you up to speed. He has been memorialized with one of the most famous surfing competitions in the world. Quicksilver sponsored “The Eddie” up until 2016. The first one was in 1985. It was held at Sunset Beach. In 1987 the event moved to Waimea Bay and Clyde Aikau won the contest. Hollywood could not make up a better story than Eddie’s little brother winning it the first year at Waimea.
The contest itself has several restrictions. It can only proceed if the waves are a minimum height of 30 feet. I have heard this explained several different ways. And honestly I still don’t have clear understanding of it. Wikipedia says that it has to be a minimum of a 20 feet open-ocean swell that translates to a wave face height of 30 feet. Let’s just say the waves have be too big for most mortals to consider paddling their boards into. And they do have to swim out into the waves with their boards. Jet skis are not allowed to tow surfers out.
Supposedly the phrase “Eddie would Go” was coined by surfer Mark Foo when they were deciding whether or not to proceed with the contest because of the dangerously high waves. Quicksilver has entire surf stores named Eddie Would Go. Or they did. They stopped sponsoring the contest in 2016 and the Aikau family sought out local sponsors to sponsor the event when the waves were high enough. The contest allows 28 surfers to participate.
Hawaii is a place of traffic problems. And the Kam Highway on the North Shore is a 2 lane highway. You can google some of the traffic and parking jams when there is a big surf contest on the north shore. There are even traffic and parking jams when the waves are high and people just want to drive out and park along the highway to watch them.
I am including the links to 3 short videos on the Aikaus. The first one is a short segment of an ESPN film on Eddie. The second one is of Clyde riding his last time at The Eddie. The third one is of Clyde leading a group of surfers out at Waimea before the contest to do the circle ceremony. The news station is using the footage to announce his death. It is almost achingly and hauntingly beautiful. In that third film when he raises his arm and finger in the sky from 1:18 to 1:22 you can see the white bell tower of St. Peter and Paul Church behind him. If you are ever on the North Shore you can use that landmark from almost any where up and down the coast to know where Waimea is.
If you only have time to watch one of the 3 clips watch the last one. Because honestly that is the VIBE that we should all try to be in.
SMILE
ALOHA
Link for Eddie ESPN video.(4:57)