Waves shores, skyrocketed just before noon Monday on north and west-facing tripling in size in just a few hours and forcing beach closures on the North Shore. Waves started in the 10-to-15 foot range yesterday morning, but increased rapidly just
Waves shores, skyrocketed just before noon Monday on north and west-facing tripling in size in just a few hours and forcing beach closures on the North Shore.
Waves started in the 10-to-15 foot range yesterday morning, but increased rapidly just before midday, peaking with 30-foot-plus sets breaking by late afternoon. A combination of high surf and light Kona winds brought an unusual shroud of mist to Kilauea town.
The rapidly rising surf brings added danger for beachgoers, as normally inviting areas become increasingly dangerous without any warning.
“It’s coming up fast,” said Kaua‘i Fire Department Ocean Safety Co-Supervisor Kaleo Ho‘okano yesterday afternoon. “It’s rising much faster than they predicted.”
Lifeguards were forced to close all beaches from Moloa‘a to Ha‘ena, and even usually big-wave safe beaches at Hanalei Bay, clearing folks from the water with a bullhorn, Ho‘okano said.
“We just do what we have to do,” the lifeguard captain said.
As of yesterday afternoon, though, lifeguards had not reported any rescues, county officials said.
Hanalei Pier rescue
But one Kilauea surfer who was rescued by a bystander near the Hanalei Pier, found out how treacherous a rising swell can be.
“I never knew that the current could get so strong at the pier and how fast conditions can change,” said Kilauea resident Rebecca McPeters. “The surf blew up in just one set.”
McPeters said she found a new hero before noon yesterday, when LeRoy Jumper, a South Shore resident, handed off his infant son to the care of a stranger and saved her life when she got caught in a rip current, dragged underneath the pier, bounced into a piling and was then sucked out to sea.
“The guy was so great,” Mc-Peters said yesterday. “I was bleeding, being pulled out, and he just handed his baby over and jumped” off the pier.
“It was wild,” she said.
According to McPeters, who surfs nearly every day near the pier, she got in trouble after getting tangled up with another surfer. The surf, which was on the small side, then rose rapidly and the currents took over.
“I noticed I was getting pulled in the current towards the pier,” McPeters wrote in an e-mail. “As I started to swim away this huge set rolled in, the surf must have picked up ten feet right at that moment.
“The current started pulling me like I was being flushed down a huge toilet,” she said. “I got pulled off my board by the first wave and started being pulled quickly towards the pier.”
And then Jumper appeared on the pier, she said, trying to calm her down and telling her to go with the current through the pier. She slammed into one of the pilings on the way through, but she emerged out the other side, albeit without her board and a couple of pieces of skin.
“I have gashes and scrapes down the entire left side of my body. My board was stuck under the pier,” McPeters continued. “I began to hyperventilate out of sheer panic at how strong I was being pulled.”
But Jumper continued, telling her to relax, to forget about getting her board, and to work her way in to the beach. The South Shore resident, who had his infant with him, handed his boy to another person on the pier and then leapt off the pier to rescue McPeter’s surfboard, she said.
The two met up on the north side of the pier, but they got caught in another current, this time out into the middle of the bay.
Jumper “and I (got) caught in another rip and (started) getting sucked out into the bay,” said McPeters. “I (was) on the front of the board and he’s on the back and we both start paddling, trying to get out of the current.”
Now, McPeters said, the two of them were out past the pier, into where the big sets were breaking.
“We couldn’t get out of the current and (were) both getting exhausted,” she continued. So Jumper suggested the two of them paddle towards the Hanalei rivermouth to get out of the current.
“Luckily he was thinking,” she said. “I know they always tell you to paddle parallel to the shore, but when you are in an intense situation and see the pier getting smaller and smaller, your brain just doesn’t work right.”
The two finally worked their way towards the rivermouth, where they were able to catch a wave onto the sandbar.
“He is a true hero, not many people would have done what he did,” McPeters said. “While everyone else was staring and wondering what to do, he took action, risking his own safety to help me.
“I would like to find some way to have his efforts recognized,” she continued. “If it were not for him, I would not be here.”
She added that it’s important for beginner surfers to know that the south side of pier, normally a great place to learn, can get very dangerous when high surf hits.
“It is just a mellow, mushy, fun wave with a shallow, sandy bottom most of the time” Mc-Peters said, though not yesterday.
Surf is expected to be on the decline today, although only to 20 to 25 feet for north-facing shores, and 11 to 17-foot waves on the Westside.
The swell should decline in size all week, but winter isn’t expected to end any time soon with a new swell predicated to arrive late next weekend, with surf in the 25-foot range expected by Sunday on the North Shore, according to the National Weather Service.
On the Web: National Weather Service, Hawai‘i, www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/
Tom Finnegan, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) and tfinnegan@pulitzer.net.
