When my husband and I got married, we decided to honeymoon in Hawaii. We were so excited to get there and spend a week just relaxing on a beach after all the craziness of a wedding.
After a very long flight, we arrived in Maui and it was the hottest day on record there. Figures. Ah well, at least we'll have plenty of sunshine and cute tropical drinks with umbrellas in them, we thought. We rented a car and drove to the condo we had leased for the week. We opened up all the doors and windows to let in the ocean cooled breezes. We stepped out onto the balcony and saw scores of people out on the ocean surfing and boogie boarding, and equally as many people laying out on the beach sipping drinks with those cute little umbrellas.
Mike decided that surfing looked a little too close to what sharks liked to eat for a snack and instead decided to try boogie boarding. He rented a board and a couple of young men showed him how to scoot along the waves next to the shore line. Mike got on that small surf board and did spectacular.......... falls. I laughed until I cried at some of the flips and crashes he experienced. The young men worked with him until he started figuring out how to balance himself. Once he had it figured out, he was flying across the shore line having an absolute ball.
As Mike gained confidence in his abilities over the course of several days, he decided we should go up to the north end of the island where the waves were much bigger. He was doing so well and having so much fun that I sucked it up and gave in to his requests to try it. As much as I tried, the waves were too strong for me to push through to get to a decent boogie boarding area. Mike got the idea for me to put on all of the rented snorkeling gear we'd brought with us, lay on the boogie board, and he would push me while I was laying on the board through the big waves.
Not a bad idea, I thought, so we gave it a go. I'm sure we were a sight - me with my rented snorkel and goggles on my face and flippers strapped to my feet, while he pushed me on the boogie board. He would yell "wave coming" and I'd duck my head so he could push the board, with me holding onto it, through the wave. After the first 2 waves, we'd gotten out past the coral reef and were thrilled with the progress. Mike was gloating at his fantastic idea and estimated we were almost to the "sweet" spot to start boogie boarding.
And then........... there always seems to be an "and then" with us........ Mike looks up just in time to see an absolutely humongous wave barreling toward us. He yelled "OH *#@*!! DON'T LOOK UP!". Now, if you yell "don't look up" to someone, it is just human nature for that person to look up, especially when it begins with "OH *#@*!". I looked up. Before I could even repeat Mike's exclamation of panic, we were hit by this monster wave. The force of the wave ripped Mike away from me. I saw him get caught up in the middle of the wave and then he was rolled out of sight. That same wave lifted me and the boogie board a good 15+ feet up in the air as I was hurtled toward the beach with an unbelievable amount of energy from the force of the ocean. The wave crossed over the coral reef, which immediately broke the power of the wave. As the wave started breaking, it quickly dropped me down onto the edge of the coral reef closest to the shoreline and rolled me up onto the beach like a whale being spit out of the water.
Somehow Mike ended up halfway down the beach from me and came at a run to see if I was OK, along with a couple of lifeguards who'd witnessed our spectacular arrival back on land. As I laid there in the surf, a quick assessment discovered that: my goggles were sitting diagonally across my face with one lens covering one eye and the other sitting halfway up my forehead. The snorkel had been ripped out of my mouth and was sitting on top of my head still attached to the goggles, and both flippers were gone. The boogie board was currently whacking me in the back of the head with every wave that rolled toward shore.
I also had a myriad of cuts from the coral reef I had skimmed across but worst of all ........... oh dear heavens, the horror of it all! The worst of all was that when the wave had rolled me over the ocean floor, every single grain of sand from that entire ocean floor had been deposited into the seat of my swimsuit. The bottom became so heavy that while the swimsuit had stayed put at my waist, the section of the swimsuit that is supposed to cover certain body parts was now so full of sand it was literally hanging down to my knees! One of the lifeguards (a female - thank you sweet Lord!) noticed and quickly pushed me back into the ocean waves, much to the horror of my husband, who hadn't noticed my predicament. She then instructed me on how to quickly fix the problem and regain some modesty before tending to the multitude of coral reef cuts I'd sustained.
When Mike figured out the lifeguard had thrown me back into the ocean because of a swimsuit malfunction and not because she thought I was a beached whale, he started laughing like a hyena. I guess Karma came back to get me after laughing at Mike's first boogie boarding attempts.
There are some trials in life that a person can only survive once. Boogie boarding and having your swimsuit malfunction on a beach in front of a zillion people would be one of them.
Boogie board - 1; Redhead - 0.
by: Christie Bielss
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