A varied collection of posters and memorabilia decorate his shop, but there’s one that evokes an especially bittersweet memory for owner Stan Lawrence.
A varied collection of posters and memorabilia decorate his shop, but there’s one that evokes an especially bittersweet memory for owner Stan Lawrence.
It’s a photograph of him riding a big wave, something Lawrence has done hundreds, if not thousands of times since moving to the Big Island in the 1970s. At age 67, he’s still out there on a weekly basis, but that particular surfing spot in the photograph – the Drainpipe at Kalapana — will never again delight Big Island surfers, having been reclaimed by Pele in 1990 and 1991 lava flows out of Kilauea.
“We had world class waves there,” Lawrence said, gazing at the photograph, “I would say it was the best area on the East side of the island. Now they’re gone, and it just makes it that much more of a challenge for Big Island surfers to get better.”
It was that concept – helping Big Island surfers improve their skills – that moved Lawrence to start what is now the 31st annual Quiksilver Big Island Toyota Pro-Am, the surfing trials at Honoli’I Beach that qualifies young competitors for a Pro-Am at North Shore on Oahu. The first potential weekend just passed and Lawrence held off on the start, anticipating waves this weekend will be more accommodating for competition.
Without the major sets at Kalapana, the challenge to big wave riders from the Big Island increased dramatically. Oahu is the surfing mecca, so the relative lack of opportunity here has always made the call to competition more daunting, but that didn’t prevent people like Myles Padaca from winning the Triple Crown in 1998 and it didn’t stop Noah Johnson from flying over from the Big Island one Sunday in 1999 to win the Eddie.
There have been others, lisuch as Kona’s Shane Dorian who made it big in big time surfing, and there are those hoping to reach those distinctions.
Ulu Napeahi, 18, might be next in line.
“All the potential in the world,” is how Lawrence described the talented Puna teenager he first noticed about five years ago.
Talking to Napeahi, you begin to understand why. Competing this weekend in a World Surfing League competition on Oahu, he appears to have a full appreciation of the twinned traits of humility and confidence that make good surfers great surfers.
“For me, surfing is spiritual at its basic level,” Napeahi said in a telephone interview last week. “It challenges me to express myself, it is being one with nature in a very real, very intimate kind of way.
“That’s why I do it,” he said. “Every time I surf I learn something about myself, I learn what I need to do, what I want to do, it pulls me back out there and is a constant teacher for me, I think that’s why I love it so much.”
Lawrence says Napeahi is a natural, but Ulu doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m a slow learner,” he said, “I love it so much I want to show respect by being as good as I can be. We don’t have the opportunity here that they have on Oahu or at other places in the world, but I believe we have a lot of heart on the Big Island, I believe our pride shows through when we pay respect and we surf with all our heart and soul.”
If Lawrence calls the Pro-Am on this weekend, Napeahi will be there, though his ability has outstripped most of the competition in the area.
“I have never entered a contest trying to prove I’m the best and I hope I never will,” he said. “I just want to prove I’m worthy of being involved with the waves and that I’m worthy of being involved with a high level of surfing.
“I want to prove it,” he said, “not to anybody else, just to myself. That’s what keeps me going.”
It’s an unblinking attitude of a precocious talent, surfing for the pride of the Big Island.