Christmas at Grandma's

Let’s pretend for a sec that the surf break is not named “Grandma’s.” (The Hawaiian curler also goes by the macho moniker of “Ladyland,” but that’s also beside the point.) It’s not a wave for snapping surfboards, tumbling over the falls or getting violently flung to the ocean’s floor. Just like so many of my favorite geriatrics, Grandma rarely reveals a tube and almost never closes out. On most days, it’s a surf spot you’d love to share with your mother’s mother, helping rub the sand from her bunions and massaging her love handles into a rash guard before take off. But do me the favor and forget those bits. As it turns out, Grandma’s was the place to be on the day before Christmas.

You see, the Sands clan hit the jackpot last week and spent the holiest of holies – Christmas break – outside of the white room and under equatorial skies. Yep, we temporarily shelved our skis, bid the looming storm farewell and made for a small chunk of rock in the middle of the Pacific. Waxing up a different kind of boards was at the top of the to-do list.

As rain, sleet and slush hammered Durango, the mercury in Maui hovered around the 83-degree mark. Trade winds refused to blow, and the swell drummed that tropical coastline at a steady tempo. “Absolutely perfect,” more than one local remarked. The conditions lulled my wife Rachel and me into a lazy ritual.

Early every morning, we loaded a couple of longboards into our dented rental car, pointed it for an expanse of sand and explored a new surf break. Their names read like opening chapters in a surf bum’s wet dream – Secrets, Thousand Peaks, Tavaris Bay. Far from the call of the snow shovel, we burned the hours – paddling our boards out to a wave, waiting for the roller to arrive and stroking over the peak.

Grandma’s (or Ladyland for those against ageism) was the one mystery move on our tour de surf – the one bingo chip hiding on the Baccarat table. But I quickly learned that you can never count Grandma out. Allow me to explain.

Weeks before we hopped onto the Pacific express – back when we were still surfing unmentionables down the Kohler swell – my 8-year-old daughter told me her Christmas wish. “Here it is, D (as my stylish preteen has taken to calling me),” Skyler said. “I really only want one thing this Christmas.”

I braced myself for dread words like “belly-button ring” or “Justin Bieber album.” But Skyler surprised me, just like she always does. “We’re already going to Maui,” she said. “I figured that maybe I could learn how to surf on the trip.”

And so it was that the entire fam found itself spending Christmas Eve in the warm, wet embrace of Grandma’s – the one spot in the islands I trusted to safely baptize my little lady.

I gave Skyler loan of my favorite board, a 9-footer that fit her like a pimped-out Lincoln Continental; I took a spin on my D’s super-tanker; and Rachael saddled up her aptly named Infinity longboard. We gathered at the shore, where I pointed out the sweet spot – a nice deep channel leading to the break – as well as the out-of-bounds – jagged stretches of rock and reef submerged in mere inches of water. Then we pushed off and paddled out into the beyond. After a couple dozen strokes, we were bobbing up and down, patiently waiting for that perfect swell.

Between you and me, Grandma had me shaking in my board shorts on that day. Just 24 hours earlier I’d been tumbled through the spin cycle on the North Shore and had a healthy patch of reef rash to show for it. Plus, I’d seen the dark side of Grandma roughly a decade ago, having visited on that rare day when the mild-mannered wave reared up and got nasty. I didn’t need my keiki tasting the old bitty’s venom.

“Don’t be ridiculous, D,” I could hear my daughter say. For there she was, happily at home on Grandma’s embrace. Like a fish finally back in water, she casually straddled the board and floated in wait for that wave she’d ordered a month earlier.

Amazingly, the ocean gave her an answer. Far off, a bank of cloud lifted and the shadowy peaks of Molokai showed for the first time in days, and a wintering humpback breeched somewhere out in the depths. And then there it was – the glassy bump of sea water that had traveled more than a thousand miles from the South Pacific only to touch down at Grandma’s.

Call it beginner’s luck, but Skyler somehow slipped right onto that little break and slid down its face before being chased by foam. Still on her belly, she rode that wave over the shallows, into the channel and all the way to shore.

When I arrived two waves later, she was standing on the beach proudly holding her surfboard in hand. “You know what, D. I’m pretty sure I’m a water person,” the fruit of my looms announced as she stared out into the Pacific. “Next time, I’ll be ready to stand.”

Ah next time, I thought. Next time, I’m sure Grandma will be waiting.

– Will Sands