Hawaii Day 5: World Surfing Championships at Pipeline Beach!!

Instead of taking a break today, I decide to head to the North Shore beaches at 9am. A 2 hour bus ride through the H2 and Kamehameha Highways takes us through the famous Dole plantations to a town called Haleiwa where I stop for the legendary "Shave Ice". There's a hippie sitting in front of my on the bus and rocking his body to his music, irritating the howls out of me while I try to take a nap on the seat.

Suddenly, we pass by a beach with the largest waves I have ever seen. 15 footers crashing into the beach and most of the scenery looks white from the turbulence of the waters.

I carry on to the World Surfing Championships which are being held at the Pipeline Beach a few miles further and am greeted by a veritable sea of sunbathing bodies on the beach watching the surfers riding record breaking waves !!

I saw the reigning world surfing champion Kelly Slater ride a wave flawlessly!! The wave was judged a perfect 10 by 3 judges and the way he rode the wave and broke it was spectacular.

I do some birdwatching and watch surfing for an hour before heading off to a more private part of the beach where I can wade into the bodyboarding waves. the 10 foot waves are overwhelming and after half an hour of futile pursuit, I concede to the ocean and walk off back towards the surfing area breathless from fighting the waves.

Surfers from Australia, Florida, California, Japan and Hawaii are still riding the spectacular waves. Suddenly we see a brilliant spray in the ocean far off from the surfers.

The commentator got pretty excited and stated that a couple of Whales were breaching the waters one mile off the shore. Breaching is a play where the whale swims above the surface in a brilliant streak of shining silver and lashes down in a spectacular spray with its body and tail. I managed to catch one whale during its breach and the photo alongside shows its tail slapping down on the water at the end of the motion.



After spending some time on Pipeline beach I walk off to a place called Shark's Cove. The walk is through a variety of impressive beachfront homes where actors and neuro surgeons live.


At Shark's cove, there are two lips of volcanic rock outcrops which harness a rocky beach area. The waves lap the two lips with huge sprays and blowholes. Trying to reach the tip of one of these outcropping lips, I slip and fall straight into the water brusing my right thigh pretty badly on a rock. The camera and phone are still dry but I decide not to risk it anymore and walk back to the beach to wait for some sunset photos.