Fear Factor

There are aspects of windsurfing that can bring out fear in even the ballsiest of sailors. I’m sure yesterday’s nuclear conditions pegged many sailor’s fear meter. Though I missed the sailing yesterday, even if I had sailed in those nuclear conditions, today’s fear factor, for me was much worse.

The wind started out pretty light today, not even getting into the upper teens until noontime. I finally headed down the mountain when I saw the graphs reporting low 20s. I arrived to find pretty marginal 5.8 conditions with very easterly, side-offshore conditions.

After socializing for awhile, I finally decided to just go out and get wet. As I was rigging, fellow Kanaha local, Jazz, passed me carrying his rig to the water, looking a little dubious, remarking how someone had just told him they’d seen a couple of sharks out there.

Great! You hang around Kanaha long enough and you will inevitably hear reports of someone seeing a shark. I’ve heard several reports of sightings since I’ve been here. No attacks, mind you, not since I’ve been here anyway. So, I’ve heard enough of these that, despite my natural fear of being food for some dumb carnivorous sea beast, I try to just ignore them.

So, I continued to rig and headed to the water. As I was 10 feet from the water, I saw Jazz coming back out of the water, his face a little bit more pale than when I saw him 10 minutes ago. “Back already?” I asked him. To which he replied with some expletive or another, followed by, “I just saw three big sharks! Straight out. Just outside the reef. I’m outta here. I want to live to sail another day.”

Jazz is a die-hard windsurfer, stays out for hours shredding the waves at Uppers. If Jazz gets spooked off the water, it’s time for pause.

And pause I did. I debated for a long while, watching the windsurfers sailing in that area, fully expecting to see a feeding frenzy erupt amidst shrieks of terror and pain. But, none of that happened.

The wind was starting to build and fill in a bit better. What a conundrum for a windsurfer. The conditions were looking really good. But there’s sharks out there. “Fuck the sharks! I’m going sailing.” So, I went sailing. Sure I stayed inside the reef and played it very conservative, making sure I didn’t blow any jibes. But I faced that annoying imp called fear and went out. Is that courage? Addiction? Or just stupidity? I’d probably attribute it mostly to addiction.

While I was sailing, I was on a close look out for any aquatic creatures. Didn’t see a damn thing. I saw the lifeguard jet ski head out from the tower and cruise around the area where Jazz had reported the sharks. He cruised around for awhile then headed back in. The wind was picking up and I was soon overpowered on my 5.8 so I decided to come in to see if they would post a shark sign on the beach and if not, downhaul more and switch to a smaller board.

While I was in, I saw Jazz coming back off the water. “What the …?” Upon seeing me, Jazz remarked, “Manta rays. They were manta rays.” Apparently a group of manta rays had been spotted earlier in the day. Jazz reported the shark sighting to the lifeguards who went out to check it out, and confirmed 10 manta rays cruising around, plus a few turtles out having sex. Wow. What a relief. Whew! I can go out now and just relax. After all, turtles aren’t going to be out humping around if there’s sharks around are they? You know how slow turtles are after all. They’re going to want to make good and damn sure that they’ve got all the time they need for a little bit of turtle nooky.

So, I went back out for another session. The wind built even more and the 5.8 was soon way, way too much. At the end of the day, talking with my better half, I relayed the shark/manta ray incident. She remarked that she had also talked with Jazz and mentioned the manta ray sightings to Dolf, who originally had seen the sharks in the first place. Dolf’s response was, “There may be manta rays out there too, but I can tell the difference between a shark and manta ray. What I saw were torpedo-shaped – sharks. Not manta rays.” So, it turns out there may have been sharks out there after all. But, in reality, you gotta figure they’re always out there. We just rarely see them.

I’ve only heard of one actual shark attack on a windsurfer here. A couple of years ago a French windsurfer was bobbing around in the water, way out, adjusting something – basically offering himself as bait. If I remember correctly he was bit on the foot or leg. He flagged someone down and was able to get back to the beach in one piece. I’m not sure if ended up losing his foot or leg, but he did survive. Pretty remarkable that there’s only been that one attack over the last few years despite all the thousands of sailors venturing out into the aquatic buffet table. If you want to windsurf in Maui, or anywhere in the ocean for that matter, you gotta come to terms with being part of the food chain. Face the fear. Are we not windsurfers after all!