covid-19 hawaii

In January 2020, I remember hearing about China quarantining millions of people and looking out my window, thinking, “I guess I could isolate here. Little did I know that mere weeks later, I would be under some of the strictest quarantine laws in the nation, except for surfing. Hawaii allowed surfing, fishing, and all water sports categorized as essential activities, a testimony to our elected leaders being in touch with the reality of living on an island. The rest of the life in paradise was locked down hard with Kauai leading the way and having a nightly 9:00 PM curfew and mandatory 14-day isolation for all airport arrivals. So with little to do but surf and shop for food, life became pretty simple, fast! With a series of seemingly endless west swells forecast, a daily surf mission with my best friend was the ticket. Dawn patrol started sometime around 8:30 AM after coffee gets consumed and hot water bottles filled for after surf rinsing. Boards and gear tossed into the back on my Nissan surf school truck, and away we went. It was hard passing perfect Pipe each day.  Lucky for us secret right-hander we had designated as our goto […]